Morden College

The challenge

Morden College is a charity which has been providing housing and care for older people in South East London for more than 300 years. With a new Chief Executive joining the charity, Morden College was looking for support to articulate a strategic framework for its work. For the charity, developing a new strategy required staying true to its founder’s intentions while recognising the contemporary context for the charity.

The approach

NPC supported Morden College through a strategy development process that covered:

• Insight gathering: NPC reviewed documents showcasing existing strategic thinking at the charity and began to surface the key strategic questions facing Morden College. Then through a literature review, one to one interviews with trustees, and calls with peers across relevant sectors, NPC gathered the required insight for informed discussions and decision making on these questions. Once complete, NPC collated this into prereading for workshop discussions.
• Discussion: NPC facilitated a series of in person workshops for Morden College’s senior leadership team and trustees to explore the key strategic questions facing the organisation and build consensus around a new strategic framework. Spending time building a shared view on key questions ensured that perennial debates for the organisation could be properly resolved. After three workshops, NPC also ran a focus group testing the new strategy with  managers and Heads of Department across the organisation and beginning to gather views about how the strategy could be implemented.
• Articulation: NPC acted as critical friends to the CEO as she finalised the strategy and prepared both the strategic framework and an implementation plan for board sign off. This final phase being led by Morden College ensured that the strategy was owned by the organisation. NPC’s support focussed on bringing in insight from the strategy process to date, and from our wider understanding of strategy across the impact sector. During this time, NPC also led one to one calls with senior managers across the organisation to help grow their understanding of the new strategy and consider the implications for their work. We also supported conversations about how best to launch the new strategy with residents, staff and the public.

The result

The strategic framework for this work has helped Morden College’s trustees and senior leaders agree on the charity’s core purpose, giving a shared basis for confident decision making going forwards. The charity’s leaders are confident in the direction of travel for their work, and are able to prioritise activity accordingly. This framework is now being embedded across Morden College’s staff team, helping to ensure that all activity is as impactful as possible and that staff understand their contribution to the goals of the organisation. Ultimately, this work will increase Morden College’s positive impact on its resident community, and on the communities local to its work.