Strategic development
CAPITAL
May 2026
Summary
When CAPITAL came to Cranfield Trust, they were looking for support with strategic development. But the project quickly shifted when the charity received news it was soon to lose up to 80% of its funding. Volunteer Paul Kimber worked alongside CEO Duncan Marshall throughout, helping the team cut costs, launch a new commercial arm, and navigate an extraordinarily difficult period with professionalism and purpose. The result is a charity that has emerged leaner, clearer, and more focused on what makes it unique.
Background
CAPITAL is a lived experience-led mental health charity that has been serving communities in West Sussex for nearly 30 years. Through peer support, advocacy, and training, the charity works to bring the lived experience perspective into mental health services and to champion the voice of people who use them. It supports around 300 members and reached almost 2,000 people in its most recent year.
Challenge
When CEO Duncan Marshall first approached Cranfield Trust in late 2024, the conversation was about growth and strategy. CAPITAL had been through a significant period of rebuilding and was ready to consolidate that progress into a clear plan for the future. “Initially we got in touch with Cranfield Trust because we were interested in exploring further the ideas of re-strategising and rethinking what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” Duncan explains.
Sue Elder, a Regional Manager at Cranfield Trust, matched the charity with Paul Kimber, a volunteer with a strong commercial background and considerable experience in strategic development.
However, just as the project was getting underway, the landscape shifted considerably. A major contract renewal with the NHS resulted in a fundamental restructure of how services were commissioned; one that left CAPITAL facing the loss of around 80% of its funding. What had begun as a strategic development project needed to adapt rapidly.
“It was quite chaotic and quite dramatic in terms of the organisation being thrown into turmoil,” Duncan reflects. “We were suddenly faced with something that we weren’t anticipating being quite so impactful.”
Support
Paul’s work with CAPITAL followed two strands. The first was supporting CAPITAL as they navigated the immediate funding crisis. Paul helped Duncan and the team work through the practical implications: reducing the cost base, streamlining financial management systems, and thinking clearly about which activities to prioritise as the organisation restructured. Throughout it all, Paul provided a steady, objective presence at a time when having an independent voice mattered enormously.
The second was returning to the original brief: helping the charity develop new income streams and build a more commercially resilient future. Working alongside CAPITAL’s Business Development Manager, Paul supported the charity in establishing a new commercial entity, CAPITAL Impact Solutions, designed to generate income through consultancy, training, and insight work rooted in the charity’s unique lived-experience expertise.
“Although we’re from different backgrounds and different experiences, that worked really well,” says Duncan. “The experience around business development, strategy, change management, it was really helpful to gain that insight from Paul. And I think that having that objectivity and advice from a different space, which wasn’t entrenched in the whole organisation, was really important.”
For Paul, keeping the focus forward-looking was key. “My role was partly to help steer and guide Duncan through what was quite an overwhelming scenario,” he explains. “But throughout, we could see that things were becoming a little clearer, and Duncan was taking some comfort from the fact that we were doing absolutely everything possible to try and protect CAPITAL.”
Impact
CAPITAL came through a deeply turbulent period with its purpose intact and a clearer sense of direction than it had previously. The charity has restructured its cost base, launched a new commercial arm, and secured short-term funding that has given it valuable breathing space.
More fundamentally, the process of working through the crisis with Paul has helped CAPITAL sharpen its identity. “We’re really starting to drill down into what it is that we are doing as an organisation and what difference we bring and how we’re unique,” says Duncan. “We’re going back to our roots, really focusing on lived experience independence and championing the voice of people in a very unique and different way.”
That renewed clarity has direct implications for the people CAPITAL serves. A more focused, financially stable organisation is better placed to be the independent advocate its members need it to be.
Duncan’s own summary speaks to what the support meant at a deeply human level: “During a period of extreme financial shock, Cranfield Trust helped our senior leadership team think clearly, make difficult decisions, and stay focused on our purpose. Our consultant brought clarity, challenge, and reassurance when it mattered most.”
