“SWOT” stands for
Strengths
Opportunities
Weaknesses
Threats
Capturing these aspects of your work/ideas helps you to analyse which are the best to pursue, and to identify risks you need to manage. This exercise is best done by a group, aiming to capture as many thoughts and perspectives as possible, using the grid below (often on flip chart paper).
The grid below shows some ideas of things that could fit in each category – but these are just examples, and the whole purpose of this exercise is to map and capture your specific situation. Bear in mind that for a fundraising strategy, the only weaknesses or threats that matter are the ones that would undermine your fundraising options. An organisation can be weak in many ways, and be operating under a range of threats, and still be very successful at fundraising!