What will be next for charities in the press?
Sans crystal ball, what I can offer is one simple tool to help anticipate or even avoid the gloomy path that led us here. As well as working on spreading those positive narratives, I propose that what happens next will also depend on how well we as individual organisations (and as an industry) identify and manage risk in the future.
How do we go about managing risk in HE fundraising?
The second step is to estimate the likelihood each risk will occur, followed by the size of the potential impact should they occur. This doesn't have to be complicated, you can do this by devising a simple scale for likelihood, such as a 5 point scale from rare (less than %5 probability) to almost certain (90%+ probability). And impact can also be a simple scale, for 'reputation' risks this could be low impact (industry-only news coverage) to high impact (international news coverage). Multiplying the 1-5 rating of likelihood by the highest 1-5 rating of impact will get you the overall risk rating. You may only choose to rank these and focus your efforts on the highest rated risks.
Mitigate – partly reduce the impact and/or the likelihood of the risk occurring by taking appropriate action. Remember to price up that action to make sure it's not costing more than is sensible, e.g. are you really going to spend a day conducting due diligence on a £1 donor?
Avoid – change your operations or programmes to completely eliminate the risk. This may appear to be the most desirable option but it may come at a cost – an opportunity may be missed or a more expensive or less effective programme may be introduced to compensate. That's OK, as long as this is acknowledged.
Retain – acknowledge the risk but take no action beyond producing contingency plans should the risk occur, e.g. prepared statements for the press, budget put aside to pay for any financial consequences.
Every institution will have their own 'risk appetite', i.e. the level of risk they feel comfortable with. It's important however that the most senior person responsible understands and approves the risk assessment and strategy. Many of the risks that we manage in HE fundraising offices are on behalf of the university (not to mention the industry), and there could be consequences for other areas, such as student and staff recruitment, that require wider understanding and ownership.
Does your shop have a risk management strategy? And who takes responsibility for keeping it alive?
The critical thing you highlight here is the dimension of 'likelihood' which some strategists assimilate into 'impact' but others leave as a wholly separate dimension.
Your three areas of risk obviously interact – compliance hurdles rise up when reputation is poor; and bad reputation also increases financial costs – especially hiring and customer acquisition etc. Compliance failures can also impact reputation in either direction. And strong financial performance is a double-edged sword unless accompanied by clear ethics, robust operational governance and strategic leadership.
Absolutely, Tim! Reporting on sustainability issues that are important to various internal and external stakeholders is a great way to proactively manage risk to reputation. Completely agree also with your points on crossover between different risk types.