Breaking the cycle with the Lantern Trust

The challenge

The Lantern Trust provides advocacy, housing, benefits advice, counselling, support groups and practical frontline help in a town in England facing significant deprivation. Like many crisis intervention charities, the organisation had become caught in a cycle of reactive service delivery. Staff were constantly responding to urgent needs, with little space to plan for the future. As the CEO explained: “In any form of crisis, you tend to be very reactive. People say you need to think more strategically, it’s like, well, ‘that’s great if you’ve got the resources, capacity and time to get away from the noise’”.

Support from the Foundation

The Foundation provided what the CEO described as an “armada of strategic development support”, including:

• Strategic planning consultancy to develop a five-year plan
• Leadership development for the CEO and chair of trustees
• Whole-team strategic away days
• Access to peer support meetings with other leaders

The results

Organisational growth and structure development 

The impact was transformative. The Lantern Trust moved from shortterm survival to long-term strategy:

• Staff growth from 5 employees when they first worked with the Foundation to 33 employees
• Development of a senior management structure that could operate independently
• The CEO shifted from focusing on operational management to becoming what they called “a system change leader”

System change and partnership strategy

The strategic development led to wider influence beyond the charity itself. The CEO noted that the confidence and capacity gained through the Foundation’s support enabled them to:

• Develop new partnership models, including inviting  peers to collaborate in shared community spaces
• Create integrated neighbourhood teams that brought  services together around local needs
• Influence how the local authority designed and  delivered services
• Shift focus from individual service delivery towards system-wide change

Long-term strategic impact

The CEO described the Foundation’s funding and development support as one of the charity’s key “lift-off moments”, alongside later funding from the National Lottery. This strategic foundation enabled them to:

• Diversify funding sources, reducing dependence on local  authority income from around 80% to a broader funding base
• Develop sustainable operational models
• Build capacity for continuous strategic development  and reflection
• Establish systems capable of functioning effectively without constant CEO involvement