Welcome back to implementing a SWOT analysis for your business, your  ministry, whatever. And in this particular module, we're going to talk about the O, which is opportunities, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is  part three. We're going to talk about the opportunities that you're faced with, how to identify them, how to define them. And once you've done that, it puts you in a  position where you say, Here's how big this opportunity is. This is what that  opportunity looks like. This is how we're going to go after it. So let's pull up a  SWOT template that you have. We're going to talk about opportunities. And as  you might guess, there's a lot of factors about opportunities that contribute to  your success at growing your nonprofit or even your profit making venture.  These factors are typically outside of your control. The factors related to  opportunities, they're kind of like plopped in front of you, and that's why a lot of  times we'll consider these as being external factors. So here's a few categories  to consider when you're looking for business opportunities, ministry  opportunities, ways in which you might be able to serve the community that's  around you, whether it's your church, community, whether it's the physical  neighborhood around your church or around your your immediate environment,  physical environment. Look at the economy in your particular area, economic  trends. Where are you at in terms of people who actually have jobs that are  accessible, jobs that kind of fit the skill and the talent of the people that are living in your neighborhood? What's this all about? Is there opportunities there for you  to help with that? Marketing Trends your target market might be driving new  trends that could open doors for your ministry or your business. And this could  be a big company that might be moving into the neighborhood, so to speak. So  this is something that you want to be sensitive to. What are the trends? Are  people kind of moving away from your community? Are they moving in? Are jobs coming back? What's happening? What are the trends, what sort of macro type  things are going on in your neighborhood that you need to kind of just be tuned  into that, what kind of opportunities exist because of funding changes, and I'm  thinking of opportunities more than I'm thinking of threats at this point. If people  are available that are aware of some of the things that you're going after, things  that you're trying to solve with your ministry or your nonprofit, what kind of  donations or grants or revenue streams are available opportunities that aren't  necessarily just within your control? In other words, somebody's not making a  checking account available with money in it all the time. But think of some of the  things that exist that if you were to tackle a specific problem, that you know of  people who have a heart for that kind of ministry to actually make funding  available so you want to identify those kinds of revenue sources political  support, this could be a big factor, depending on where you're at, if you're within  the US, within certain regions of the US, cultural kind of influences, that kind of a thing on political support different communities who may not necessarily be very  receptive to having a Christian perspective on a particular nonprofit, they may 

not be very receptive to that. So you need to consider what those changes in  political environmental issues could be for whatever it is you're doing with your  ministry or with your nonprofit, government regulations that kind of falls into the  same thing, if you are subject to in the US, if you're subject to a local  government or a state government, or even federal type regulations that have  been around over the last 10 years, specifically, or if you live in Other countries,  so like in the Middle East or Southeast Asia or South America, think about  regulations that are changing either in a positive way that could afford you with  new opportunities as part of your ministry, as part of your nonprofit. Relate.  Relationships. This is a really a key issue, especially for profit making ventures,  who you link up with, being able to trust them. Is, are there opportunities that  that these people give you, that these organizations give you and to your  ministry as partners, as vendors or suppliers, what kind of capabilities do they  have that you don't have, that you're able to take advantage of? And another  thing to consider, too is target audience shifting. I'm thinking of like homeless  people here in the US, for example, when the weather gets cold, they shift  towards places that stay a bit warmer during the wintertime, or they as the  seasons change, they may need to have access more to buildings and facilities  that provide warmth and provide protection from severe weather. So you're  going to want to be aware of those kinds of shifts that take place from not only  day to day or week to week, but throughout the year, the seasonality of these  shifts. So what are some of the questions that if you were sitting down with your  team of people within your organization, say, even within your sponsoring  organization, if it's a larger church, for example, what kind of questions are you  going to ask to find opportunities that are available for you and your team to take advantage of? And we created a list of some of the questions again here, and  they're broken up by some of the categories that we've gone over in the  previous modules on strengths and weaknesses. And bear in mind that if any of  these questions don't apply to you, what you're doing simply move on to the  next one. So here we go. Economic Trends. Is the economy in your area looking up? Is it creating new opportunities? Are there again? Is there? Let's say  Walmart is going to build a big facility or big store, kind of on the edge of your  town or your edge of your area. Are they going to create jobs for people that  need jobs? Maybe you could partner up with them to actually provide jobs to  people who need jobs the most. Is the economy going to enable your audience  to make more purchases, more donations, more ties, whatever economic shifts,  what kind of economic shifts are happening currently that impact your target  audience? And one of the things that I will go back to is approximately in the  time period of, say, 2008 through 2010 this was a huge issue. And if you think  back to then, you will remember that there was a lot of stories in the media at  the time, almost on a weekly basis, about some big company announcing a  layoff of another 10,000 people, or it was really dramatic, the impact that the 

recession was having, the impact that a lot of the technological changes that  were starting to become more and more prevalent in our society, the changes  that that was forcing On the economy, and the real impact that it had of causing  people to lose their jobs. Market trends, the services that you're providing, how  is your market for those services or those products changing? What's happening if you're printing booklets, for example, about your ministry, about your nonprofit, anybody reading them anymore? Or are they looking for those on a website that they can download a pamphlet on a PDF, family pamphlet of some sort? You  need to be aware of those kinds of things. You don't want to spend $10,000 of  somebody's donation to print up a very fancy, very well done brochure or a  pamphlet if people aren't going to read it. On the other hand, maybe you're  doing service in an area where people don't have smartphones, they don't have  a tablet, they don't have a laptop or even access to a desktop, and how would  you reach them? Maybe you have to do a postcard kind of a thing. Maybe you  need to do a small pamphlet. And then again, if you're in an area where English  is sort of a second language, then you'd want to think very carefully about  printing your pamphlet or your materials or any type of marketing collateral in  English. You're going to have to say, Well, hey, wait a minute. We need to  deliver this on the internet. We need to do it in Spanish or whatever language  you need to work with to get your message out so you. Need to be aware of  these trends. If people are moving into your area that are not native English  speakers or native whatever language, then you need to be aware of those  kinds of trends taking place, and what kind of time frame surrounds these  trends. Is this a long term kind of a thing? Are you if you step back and you take  a look at how your neighborhood is changing, your community is changing. Is  this a long term thing, or is this something that's going to happen in the next  three, four months? Funding changes? Do you expect any opportunities to come along? Maybe somebody has passed away, and they've left a large amount of  money to a larger sponsoring church that is dedicated towards solving a  problem that your nonprofit is targeting, like hunger in the local community, or  taking care of homeless people or whatever kind of a thing. And you're aware of  that, what kind of opportunities would that create for you and for your nonprofit?  How is that going to how are those changes going to help your business? What  sort of details can you attach to that particular opportunity that you can articulate to the people who are charged with making those dispersing those funds or  making those donations political support. You know, in the US, we are always  constantly changing people who are in charge of the local politics, whether it's at the very local level, a township level or a village level, up to major cities to state  level, regional type situations. What sort of things are happening? Are they  seeking office based on promises that they're going to solve a certain issue,  whether it's more jobs or whatever? What kind of opportunities can your ministry get by enhancing some of these political relationships or partnerships, or maybe

you kind of want to keep a little bit of a glass wall between you and a politician,  maybe for obvious reasons, but again, being able to put yourself in a position to  take advantage of these opportunities that they might steer your way, just so  they can get a little bit of mileage out of it for their own political purposes,  government regulations, tax law changes on donations would be a huge thing to be aware of government regulations relative to delivering your services. What  sort of opportunities are there? What sort of things do you need to be aware of  as far as delivering services, such as prepared food or even like an overnight  shelter kind of a thing. What sort of zoning regulations are there? And this would apply especially into the US. This may very well even apply to other areas of the world as well changing relationships. We're talking about relationships with  ministry partners, whether it's a sponsoring partner like a large again, a larger  church that might be you might be operating under their umbrella. Some of the  larger nonprofit organizations in the US will a lot of times, function as an  umbrella for smaller nonprofits that kind of operate under their area of influence.  What kind of changes are happening there that may create more opportunities?  Maybe there's they're doing their own introspection on how well they're doing at  delivering their services, and they all of a sudden realize that you have a lot  more to offer than what they've been taking advantage of. What sort of  opportunities is that going to create for you? Are the vendors that you're working with that, like printing companies or digital media specialists or marketing people who are helping you get your word out, what sort of things are they doing? What sort of things are changing or shifting or expanding that you need to be aware  of? You need to be aware of these trends, especially if you rely on digital media.  This stuff is just changing almost on a weekly basis. And you need to be aware  that the people who are helping you to deliver your message through these  different channels are really up to speed with a lot of the opportunities that are  being created. Has your partner decided to move on? Have they gone  bankrupt? Have they gone out of business? Are they taking their talents to go  work somewhere? Else, is there an opportunity for you to work with someone  else that's new, that maybe has even more talent, that has more gifts that God's  given them to deliver a very key component of what it is that you need for your  own personal ministry application? And again, we'll talk about audience shifts.  How is your demographic? Who is your demographic, and how is that  demographic changing in the community? Now, assuming that you're working  kind of in a fairly finite local community, as opposed to a larger like, say, North  America, for example, or the Middle East or Europe or wherever it is. Yet, what  is your target audience shift in your specific area? What's going on? Are there  poor people that are arriving in your community that might not be doing all that  well, and you might want to say this is creating new burdens. This is creating  new opportunities for us to deliver additional services. You need to kind of get  tuned into what their needs, what their demands are to deliver services and 

products that they need to have from your nonprofit. Is your audience  expanding? If so, how is it exactly that you capitalize on that increase? What are you going to do to serve these people better next year? Do your research,  finding a lot of these answers to these questions is going to require a little bit of  time. It's going to require some digging. Google is your friend. Don't be afraid to  make some phone calls. Ask people for their opinion, set up meetings, pick their  brain a little bit, and start pulling this information together and do some real  market research to gauge a lot of the upcoming changes that are happening  right under your nose. Be creative. Find an opportunity where your competitors  can't take advantage of them. Takes a lot of skill, a lot of creativity. Don't be  afraid to think outside the box when you're listening to possible opportunities.  Don't get this whole problem of tunnel vision that you're so focused on solving  what it is people are going to eat for lunch today in your community that you  forget that there's kids that are going hungry because they're in school all day  and they're not around when you are and you're providing these you know,  there's just step back. Take a look at the whole big picture of what you're doing.  Be holistic about how you define your opportunities. Be holistic about how you  solve them, and keep your list of opportunities handy. We're going to add a lot of this stuff to your SWOT analysis in one of our next lectures. So keep this in a  really safe spot. 



آخر تعديل: الاثنين، 24 مارس 2025، 2:54 م