For too many charity leaders, strategy has become an exercise in survival rather than a catalyst for transformation. Despite a decade of warnings about the need for fundamental change, the sector finds itself caught between operating deficits, firefighting crises, and a persistent gap between strategic aspirations and organisational action.

Yet within your organisation lies the capacity for genuine strategic change – capacity the sector demonstrated during COVID-19 when charities adapted with unprecedented speed. The challenge isn't whether transformation is possible, but whether leaders can make strategic decisions that stick before the next crisis forces their hand.

Drawing on conversations with over 50 sector leaders, we've identified a clear pattern: unclear analysis leads to unclear decisions; decisions aren't made or lack genuine buy-in; resources don't shift to match stated priorities; and organisations fail to learn and adapt. We've distilled these insights into five tests that diagnose where strategic decision-making breaks down:

The Analysis – Is your evidence diverse and rigorous enough to enable a decision, or are you making choices based on assumptions and single viewpoints?

The Choice – Have leaders made an explicit decision with uncomfortable implications, or are you hedging bets and glossing over disagreements to achieve false consensus?

The Buy-In – Are stakeholders genuinely engaged and ready to fight for the change, or have you confused informing people with building ownership?

The Trajectory – Have resources actually shifted, or does your strategy remain an aspiration competing with business-as-usual?

The Learning – Are you treating strategy as a hypothesis to test and adapt, or rigidly sticking to plans while abandoning innovations when pressure lifts?

Whether you're watching strategic initiatives stall, wondering why transformation programmes haven't changed how work gets done, or trying to understand why good ideas disappear when champions leave, this toolkit helps you identify exactly where to focus.

This toolkit is for change-ready leaders who know that strategic decisions should be driving real change – but aren't quite sure why the gap between strategy documents and organisational reality remains so stubbornly wide.

This toolkit is in beta, so after reading, please give us feedback.