For Internal Distribution Only
5-year Strategic Plan 2016-2020
Committed to Community
Full Text
Approved by Trustee Board: 27 January 2016
Continuity and contrast - a journey
For the future health and effectiveness of Torch ministry we must seek to recognise, understand and respond to the changing scene in a timely and creative way.
Our first 5-year Strategic Plan (2011-15) has been effective in bringing about major change in both the balance between the various facets of our work and in the way each aspect operates. Not everything has happened that was envisioned and in most areas the pace of implementation has been slower than we imagined.
Overall, the directions set by the plan and priorities it identified have continued to seem broadly appropriate. So, whereas this first plan embarked us on a programme of deep and far reaching change, there is no indication that a similarly radical plan is needed to shape Torch for 2020.
Working with a Strategic Plan that aligns with the UK Vision Strategy has proved to be an enabling factor in building stronger relationships with the other agencies and institutions involved in the delivery of services and support to our audience, and that has in turn been an enabling factor in us giving effect to our plans.
These relationships have never been more important to our effectiveness than now. Our new 5-year Strategic Plan will therefore continue to be consistent with the UK Vision Strategy (now in its second 5-year phase) and cross referenced to it.
“Alone we can do so little - together we can do so much”(Helen Keller)
Some things that we started under our first Plan need to be seen through to completion. Most of the things we have started are of growing significance in our overall programme of work and need to be fostered and developed. There is more about continuity than about change.
There is much in this Strategic Plan that is consistent with the previous strategic plan. Change will continue but it will generally be change in the same direction. And that will include a continuing shift in the balance between the major aspects of our UK activity: streamlining our Resources activities while developing our Presence programme.
Continuity and contrast is explored for each aspect of Torch’s diverse work.
Like our first Strategic Plan it is based on the evidence available to us - both externally and internally. Most important of all, it is a sincere attempt to discern, understand and reflect God’s priorities for Torch: where does he want us to be in 2020?
“Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing — because it's already blessed” (Bono - at US National Prayer Breakfast, 2006)
Our journey into this next phase of Torch’s story therefore starts with prayer and with a reflection on our core values.
“No work too hard for him,
in faith receive from him.
Be still, for the power of the Lord
is moving in this place.”
Committed to Community
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing” (Ps 68:5-6)
The future of Torch’s programme of activity needs to be driven and shaped by a vision of Christian community as the setting in which people with sight loss find wholeness.
Our values: Christian + People-focussed lead us to a commitment to community.
Looking beyond the social model’s laudable goal of independence for disabled people, we promote through our activities a vision of interdependency within community, something that is at the same time both rooted in Christian thought and universally applicable.
As people made in the image of God, who is in himself community as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are fundamentally relational beings. We belong in families and communities. Unsurprisingly then, loneliness, which is all too common among people living with sight loss, is unhealthy.
Wellbeing and wholeness are found in relationships and community, in an interdependency uncorrupted by inequities of status and power-play.
Interdependency in community is evidenced in the reciprocity and mutuality of giving and receiving where disabled and abled people each contribute from their gifting and benefit from the gifts of the other, and with a desire to enabledisabled people to express latent gifting to the benefit of the community as a whole.
“A Christian must be indignant - to see people with God given gifts … left out of society” (Late Bishop Lord David Shepherd)
Christian community is not a framework that is imposed upon its participants and it is more than the caricature too often portrayed in political rhetoric. It is accepting, hospitable, respectful and caring, welcoming diversity,drawn and held together by love that is centred upon the person of Jesus Christ and expressed to one anotherwith a robust motivation to secure the very best for each other. It is a vision of a community where belonging is spontaneous and wholeness is found, where in the word of St Paul: “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor 12:22)
Though some Torch programmes may deliver one-to-one services (like Journeying With) Torch will always seek opportunity to bring people with sight loss into expressions and situations of community, be they Torch activities, local church activities or the activities of local sight loss agencies.
Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.
(Rom 12:10)
Core Values: their significance.
Christian (or Christ-centred)
Confidently Christian, we provide distinctively Christian activities and products. This is more than doing Christian things, more than doing things through engaging Christian staff and volunteers. It is about being Christian and bringing a Christian presence, especially to lives of blind and partially sighted people.
We firmly believe that springing from our Christian faith we offer services and activities that are distinctive in both character and aims.
We are Christ-centred in our thinking and our activity, aiming to speak as he would speak and to do as he would doin each and every situation.Jesus is Lord over every aspect and facet of Torch Trust’s work. Jesus set the example that we follow.
We are committed to pray and stimulate prayer - faithfully and creatively.
We seek to do God’s will and to do it his way, and operate consistently with biblical principles: Torch is God’s and we seek to give reality to the prayer “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” in our work for him.
Respecting the expectations that clients properly have of a plainly and distinctively Christian organisation we reserve all leadership and client facing roles to those who are active and committed Christians.
We passionately believe that the good news of Jesus Christ, son of God and saviour, is of the greatest importance to all and we will always be ready to share this news.
People-focussed (or Relational)
We view and value each person as created in the image of God and loved by him and will respect every person accordingly.
We are relational and we foster and facilitate interdependency and community through our activities and programmes. We believe that what we do should lead people with sight loss into supportive and enabling relationships that nurture a mutuality of giving and receiving.
We are focussed on meeting the needs of the people with sight loss we exist to serve and seek their engagement in shaping what we do.
We will continuously strive to better understand the lives and needs of blind and partially sighted people and adapt our products and services to better serve their needs, especially their Christian life needs.The services Torch offers will be shaped and prioritised by the needs of the people with sight loss that we exist to serve.
We seek positive and affirming relationships with all who experience sight loss, and with all who support our work.
Our clients always remain in control of what we deliver to them - we never force anything on them that they do not want.
People and relationships always trump process and procedure.
Open
We are open, hospitable, welcoming and inclusive.
We are open about the Christian faith that motivates and shapes everything we do. Everything we offer to blind and partially sighted people and those losing their sight is available to those of all faiths and none.
We are open and transparent in the way we operate, yet respectful of the privacy of the people with whom we are involved.
Generous hospitality is a hallmark of Torch activities. We will actively seek opportunities to express hospitality and will do so as generously as we are able in the context.
We recognise that many blind and partially sighted people have other disabilities, and seek to respond to the needs related to sight loss while accommodating other disabling conditions.
We serve blind and partially sighted people and those losing their sight of all faiths and none. We seek always to work in harmony with other Christians, Christian groups and mainstream churches of all denominations: we don’t do labels. Torch Trust accommodates the diversity of Christian understanding, experience and tradition.
We are committed to working with other organisations and institutions in ways that support common objectives and will be transparent in all our dealings.
We will share from what God has blessed us with.
Creative
We aim to be a responsive and spontaneous, always looking for a better way to do what we do and for better way of serving people with sight loss.
We delight to foster and employ the gifts and talents of staff and volunteers alike, and seek to empower our staff and volunteers to use their gifts and wisdom to the benefit of blind and partially sighted people and those losing their sight.
We respond imaginatively to the needs of people with sight loss and are creative in services and solutions we offer, both for individuals and groups.
We will seek out and develop creative ways to engage our various audiences through imaginative and accurate communication.
We are thoughtful about the way we use the resources God has entrusted to us that we might use and apply them wisely to the greatest advantage in the furthering of our aims.
“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35)
Themes
There is a great diversity in the activities of the Torch Trust but there are some common themes running through our Strategic Plan 2016-2020 that will both embrace and underpin the whole of our work. They flow out of and express our four Torch core Values.
Longitudinal (or “Life Stories”)
Our value: People-focussed demands that we make every effort to align our services to meet the needs of the people we exist to serve.
We have tended to think of what Torch offers as a “bag” of services and products, each having their merits. Now we have added “early reach” services to our portfolio we can start to think in a fresh way and see our offering as more progressive, with services for every stage of the sight loss journey linking together to track that journey.
We will seek never to abandon anyone - though we will always guard against relationships of dependency. When one service from Torch becomes less relevant or appropriate as a client moves through their own journey we will aim to ensure they are linked to another appropriate service. That may be a service Torch offers, or something run by a local church, or by another sight loss charity.
Our Commitment to Community sets us against loneliness and isolation and motivates us to see people with sight loss belonging in community, so services that are delivered one-to-one must lead onwards into more group-based or community-orientated services. Such services maybe from Torch, from a local church or from another sight loss agency.
We will shape the services and products we offer to present distinctively Christian options that relate to the progression of sight loss experience, with an emphasis on fostering that community integration and interdependency which will sustain those we are privileged to serve.
Localised
There’s growing independence for the countries of the UK and strengthening regional identities within England. This is being recognised in the sight loss sector by national implementation plans for the UK Vision Strategy for each of the constituent nations and by the regional approach being adopted for the roll-out of the England Vision Strategy.
Based on our value: People-focused (or Relational) we have committed ourselves to be more “present” with those who live with sight loss and to come alongside those who are losing sight at their times of greatest need. What we offer nationally has to be delivered locally to people where they live.
With our Presence ministry we need to build local partnerships both with churches and with sight loss agencies, all the more as UK Vision Strategy is now more focussed on regional implementation.
Our Commitment to Community means that we will seek to offer opportunities to people with sight loss to get together and to get together with sighted people too, whether this is facilitated through Torch activities or with local churches or other local sight loss agencies.
Experience tells us that little happens without face-to-face contact. We need more people out and about representing Torch and channelling all that we offer region by region.
Starting with the premises and regionally-based staff we already have, we will seek to recruit and support more regionally resident staff who represent the gamut of Torch services and build mutually supportive partnerships with local sight loss agencies and churches.
Lean
We have been blessed by God with reasonably steady income and as we continue to seek diligently to do his work in his ways we continue to trust him to provide for the work into the future. However we must always seek to make God’s priorities our priorities.
This means that we need to be alert to potential savings, and clear about the relative priority of the diverse activities in which Torch is engaged - and we need to be vigilant over waste and duplication throughout Torch’s operations.
We need to be ready to implement our strategy without a large increase in our operating budget.
Technological advances and social changes mean that some of Torch’s long-established services are likely to have a limited life. But, as recent survey data confirms, both the older age groups among which sight loss is prevalent and disabled people more generally have much less engagement with the Internet than younger and abled people. So most of our literature services will need to be sustained for many years - while they are proving valuable to clients. Development built on our value: Creativity needs to be directed to streamlining such that they draw an allocation of resources that diminishes with demand.
Respecting our value: People-focussed, we will streamline our Resources activities in a way that continues to serve our clients well, meeting their Christian reading needs.
Linked
With our value: Openness as a foundation, we will place a greater emphasis on seeking, fostering and maintaining good working relationships with other organisations including local agencies and churches, relationships that are mutually beneficial.
We aim never to duplicate work done by others for the benefit of blind and partially sighted people and those losing their sight: we are committed to offering distinctively Christian options or alternatives.
Instead we aim to foster mutually supportive relationships with other providers, and form and sustain effective “value adding” partnerships and combine or coordinate the strengths and resources of the cooperating parties.
By working with others we can expect to reach greatly more people with sight loss and reach them earlier in their sight loss journey, specifically including churches (both local and national networks) and sight loss agencies (both local and national).
Torch’s activities and strategic direction are in line with the UK Vision Strategy, a sector-wide initiative addressing eye health and sight loss across Britain. This is founded on the best evidence available and the combined insights of leaders in the field. As it enables us to mesh our activities with other participants and helps them understand where Torch can contribute.
Aspect by Aspect
For each of the facets of Torch’s work there are statements about theDistinctiveness of Torch’s activities and the way the development of our programmes will demonstrate either Continuityor Contrast with our first Strategic Plan (2011 - 15). Our strategy for 2016 - 2020 is then set out in Overview as a series of commitments, supported by a Commentary.
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. (Prov 16:3)