Before you restructure for growth again, read this.
Over the past few months I’ve been speaking with fundraising and engagement leaders from organisations including Centrepoint, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Marie Curie, Trussell, PDSA and Samaritans.
I asked them a simple question: what’s actually driving income growth right now?
The answers were varied. And there was a general consensus: growth is hard, really hard. But it isn’t impossible. And that’s because it’s often being pursued in the wrong order.
When income plateaus or pressure from Boards intensifies, many organisations jump straight to ‘transformation’. New structures. New roles. New operating models. Often a new CRM.
But rearranging the wiring won’t fix the problem if the charity’s ‘Why?’ is unclear. Because growth doesn’t start with structure. It starts with purpose.
Not the mission statement on your website. Not the values on the office wall.
I mean clarity on three things:
Why do we exist?
Who are we really here to serve?
What impact are we uniquely placed to deliver?
One leader put it perfectly:
“Growth starts when an organisation connects deeply with its purpose - when everyone, from trustees to front-line staff, is clear on the ‘why’ that connects them all to the mission.”
That clarity is not philosophical. It’s operational.
Why purpose drives income
Internally, a lack of clarity creates ‘drag’.
Fundraising pushes one priority. Services defend another. Trustees champion something else entirely. Investment decisions become political rather than strategic. Teams default to protecting what already exists.
We’ve all been there!
When purpose is sharp, trade-offs get easier. Priorities align. Investment cases strengthen. Everyone pulls in the same direction — whether they sit in income, services, finance or governance.
Externally, clarity simplifies your story.
Supporters don’t fund complexity. They fund conviction.
When you can clearly articulate who you exist for, what change you’re trying to create for them, and why more income is essential to deliver it, fundraising becomes easier. Propositions sharpen. Partnerships align. Campaigns connect to something bigger than an internal quarterly target.
This is why it could be argued that most charities don’t have a growth problem. They have a purpose problem.
Purpose drives alignment. Alignment drives growth.
But purpose cannot be assumed to be static.
We recently worked with the executive team of a large sight loss charity whose core product was under threat from rapid technological change. The question wasn’t ‘how do we grow this service?’ It was more fundamental: If the world looks very different in 10 years, what role will we play in it?
With advances in AI, shifts in government policy, changing societal attitudes and new delivery models emerging, many charities are building growth plans on yesterday’s assumptions.
That’s risky.
The organisations delivering substantial growth right now are doing something different. They are defining their purpose from the future back, not the present forward.
They are asking:
What will the world need from us in 2035?
What capabilities will matter most?
What should we stop, start and scale?
And how must our income model evolve to support that?
Only once those questions are answered do they move to strategy, operating model, systems and innovation.
In our work helping charities close the gap between their ambition and their ability to fund and deliver it, we see the same pattern repeatedly: when purpose and ambition are clear, strategy becomes focused; when strategy is focused, the right changes to culture, systems, propositions and partnerships follow.
Direction first. Then delivery.
So, three questions to test your organisation
Is your charity crystal clear - today - on why it exists in the context of the next decade, not the last?
Is that clarity widely understood and owned beyond the executive team?
Does your current income strategy clearly flow from that purpose - or is it largely an extension of what you’ve always done?
If you’re honest and the answer to any of those feels shaky, the growth challenge you’re facing may not be about tactics at all. It may be about direction.
And if direction is unclear, no amount of structural change, campaign optimisation or cost-cutting will create sustainable growth.
Start with the why. But make it future-facing, not nostalgic.
That’s where real income growth begins.