RNIB: The uncomfortable bet on focus

How do you transform a 150-year-old charity with 27 different business activities into an organisation that can demonstrably shift outcomes for blind and partially sighted people, when evidence shows that 25 years of good work hasn't changed the fundamental indicators of exclusion?

The challenge

RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) is one of the UK's largest charities, historically sustained by strong legacy funding and individual giving. Like many charities, it emerged from COVID having demonstrated remarkable agility — only to slip back into old ways of working. The organisation's strategy refresh in 2023 forced a confronting question: despite decades of good work across 27 different business activities, were they actually shifting the dial on exclusion for blind and partially sighted people?

"COVID was a great clarion call for the RNIB. It demonstrated that we could pivot and generate really direct, strong impact quickly through different ways of working. But we came out of COVID and slightly slipped back into the old ways."
Dan Fisher, Director of Strategy and Innovation

The analysis

The strategy team synthesised ten years of social research conducted by RNIB and others, whittling it down to eight categories of potential impact. They then built a catalogue of 'jobs to be done' deliberately agnostic of who would do them or how simply mapping what needed to happen to close impact gaps for blind and partially sighted people.

"We're not information poor, but what we do lack is insight — the ability to generate insight from triangulating bits of information and drawing trends out of them. We're good at the analytical and the observational. We're good at evaluating stuff, doing research, observing and pointing to trends in society. But what we're less good at is whittling down into conclusion and then action."

The conclusions were uncomfortable. Using government data on determinants of health as proxy measures for equality, RNIB found that for the last 25 years, blind and partially sighted people have been — and remain — approximately twice as likely to experience poor economic inclusion, poor mental and physical health, and to die earlier than the general population.

"To be shown evidence that says actually that catalytic role, whilst it has felt important at the time... to be shown evidence that says it's not fundamentally working is visceral. It's rather like ASDA being told that the food they sell is not edible."

The choice

The analysis pointed to an uncomfortable truth: RNIB's 27 business lines represented too many things with too little investment in each to give them oxygen to individually grow, thrive, and generate impact. The traditional approach — trying to do good across every area that disability touches — was no longer sustainable.

"For us, the 27 represents too many things with too little investment in each thing to give them oxygen to individually grow, thrive, and generate impact."

The strategy conclusion: focus on root causes of exclusion rather than continuing to ameliorate symptoms. They need to move from 27 business lines to fewer, bigger, better value propositions that blend income generation with impact generation.

"Everything's important, but what's most important? In the charity industry, we rightfully start from the moral basis of wanting to deliver value and social goods. But because it's a free at the point of consumption transaction, it's very easy to confuse want for need."

This meant accepting a 'golden ratio' that links impact, income, and cost, essentially asking whether there's an equivalent of a profit-and-loss metric that can be applied to the third sector.

"We needed to take a bit of a — dare I say — commercial approach. Impact has a link to income, and both have a link to cost. Impact, income, costs need to be the single ratio that we need to be in balance."

Finding the optimum path

RNIB took their deliberately agnostic analysis  independent of any theory of change  and worked through scenarios of available resource to find the optimum path for delivering value.

"If you throw everything up in the air, what's your optimum path for delivering value? Our unique assets are scale — we're one of the largest charities — brand with our Royal Charter, ability to appeal to certain demographics in the public, but also our political capital and relationships in business."

Given these core assumptions about their USPs, and projections about income generation over three to five years, they asked: what is the optimum value-for-money path that will deliver the best amount of impact to the right audiences, so that the virtuous cycle: impact, income, and cost, is always in balance and they escape the feast-and-famine cycle?

The buy-in

RNIB's approach to building buy-in was rooted in co-production at every step. From trustees through to customers, they involved panels of people from community groups, adjacent industries like retail, different parts of the charity sector, experts in philanthropy, and experts in influencing.

"Our absolute commitment to that whole process was to a panel of blind and partially sighted people, supported by wider reference groups and underpinned by insight driven through research. We rooted everything in lived experience."

Crucially, they found the strongest voices for change came from outside the organisation:

"The strongest cells actually being within the community of blind and partially sighted people we serve — plenty of people saying this is the right thing to do, we need to change. The RNIB needs to reconnect with its pioneering Victorian principles."

The transparency was deliberate and extensive:

"We've been very open through the whole process and totally transparent about the financials, the internal conundrums, all the things that we, as paid employees of the charity, grapple with. We shared that on a basis of trust and openness. And it's really paid off."

The uncomfortable implications

Making this choice meant accepting genuine trade-offs. Some current activities would have winners and losers. Some segments RNIB had always served might be better served differently, or by others among the 900 sight loss charities in the UK.

"We definitely do not want to get caught in the dynamic of loss because we are a hope-based organisation. We work in this sector because we believe in something better and hope is our currency. In the dark days of having to make quite brutal, cost-driven decisions, there is no hope in loss."

Yet the alternative, continuing to spread resources too thin, had its own devastating implications:

"We've seen that subsistence existence is fool's gold. That approach actually creates cost in the long run, much as it may help massage the cash flow in the short term. And more importantly, it hurts. It doesn't help mental wellbeing and it doesn't help customers ultimately."

Dan described the moral weight of these decisions:

"It's really hard to hear first-person case studies of a child in a school who was excluded from a decent education simply because the materials that had been given weren't accessible to them. And what if it was one of my children? I have many colleagues whose children are visually impaired and for whom this is a daily reality."

But he was equally clear about what avoiding the decision means:

"Who's going to be there to advocate for, to solve any of those problems long term? It'll be the organisations who are stable, who have the scale, who have the trust of people from decision-makers through to the general public."

The urgency of change

Dan was stark about the consequences for organisations that fail to act or fall into this cutting cycle, having seen what happens in organisations:

"staff morale having plummeted, productivity therefore having plummeted, ability to retain staff plummeting, leading to excessive recruitment costs to bring new staff in…” 

And in AI Dan adds for those not preparing and thinking about how best to catch up and use AI 

“I think it's probably a fact that some charities will be obsolete in two or three years."

The resources

RNIB's strong reserves position enables them to fund transformation over a three-year period rather than attempting a big bang approach. The board of trustees signed off on a ‘proof phase’ running until June, during which they're testing hypotheses across value propositions, data requirements, and cost models.

"We'd be looking to fund the transformation over a three-year period rather than a big bang and begin to build that kind of virtuous cycle of increased income and balanced books through that three-year period. So that come year three, we'd be in full growth mode."

The organisation is navigating a CEO transition during this period. Matt Stringer, who led RNIB for seven years and sponsored this work, is moving on. Simon Cooke is taking on the work as incoming CEO. The mitigation: exceptionally close work with trustees.

"Trustees have been incredibly generous with their time, given that they're all very important, very successful people in their own day jobs. The amount of commitment they've given has been a real testament to their belief in the RNIB."

The result

The transformation is in its proof phase, with full implementation planned over three years. The goal is to de-risk the approach as far as possible while showing that RNIB can deliver a net gain through repurposing — moving away from the tendency to frame everything in terms of loss.

"We know we are testing the hypothesis that says generating bigger impact in fewer areas through fewer, bigger, better value propositions — that do to a much greater extent than in the past effectively blend income generation with impact generation — is fundable."

What they're seeking is an organisation that can continuously improve itself:

"We need an organisation that can organically and continuously improve itself. An organisation that runs itself much more sustainably, much more attuned to the times."

Why it matters

RNIB's journey illustrates what genuine strategic decision-making requires in charities: the courage to hold up evidence of uncomfortable truths, even when that evidence challenges decades of well-intentioned work.

"What we're trying to do, at least within our means, is face into all of these things at once and come out with a model which just balances all of these variables, but fundamentally results in a business which has a margin, a headroom, a sustainability quotient that takes us away from that cut cycle."

The alternative, endless incremental adjustments, had already proved inadequate:

"Historically, we've always put the focus on the back office. Really quite incremental, mendacious type of thinking, which is often couched in effectiveness terms, but really it's about efficiency. It's about responding to the fact that everything's in decline. How do we cut our cloth?"

Dan was candid about the sector's struggle with income generation and impact:

"As a sector we've had way too much experience of being able to raise a bob or two through compelling, heart-driven story, but then not being able to translate that income into genuine change or genuine result — often because we've not been as ruthlessly focused on the bottom line as we should be."

The broader lesson

Dan articulated why charities struggle with endings:

"Part of the reason that some of the bigger charities have got themselves into these positions, particularly since the foundation of the welfare state and state contract funding, is because we're always looking for beginnings, but we're not prepared to address endings. We carry on assuming that it's all growth, it's all beginnings, it's all newness, when there's no upper limit to that."

RNIB's story challenges charities to move beyond 'moral certitude', the assumption that good intentions and important causes automatically justify current ways of working. 

"The Weaponised Purpose we talk about… This moral certitude doesn't create room for doubt ..It's always offering certain solutions to uncertain problems. Moving beyond that certainty of moral justification into the shades of grey, where you are dealing with money versus morals or purpose versus expediency — that's where our mature sector funders want us to go."

This case study was developed based on an interview by Carmen Barlow with Dan Fisher, Director of Strategy and Innovation. Claude.ai supported in the synthesis and writing of the case study.