Strategy development
Pwrpas
July 2026
Summary
Pwrpas, a Wrexham-based charity supporting men's mental health across North Wales, worked with Cranfield Trust volunteer Catharine Taylor to develop its strategy, mission and values, and a theory of change. With the charity growing quickly under sole staff member Berni Durham-Jones, Catharine helped create the space to step back, weigh up its future direction, and build clarity around what the organisation wanted to achieve and how. A Journey to Excellence assessment recorded a 21 percentage point rise in Pwrpas's organisational health score, with the charity now equipped with a clear mission, values and direction that its board has helped shape and is invested in carrying forward.
Background
Pwrpas is a small, fast-growing charity based in Wrexham, providing free, round-the-clock support to men across North Wales who are struggling with their mental health. It was founded in 2021, during lockdown. What began as a simple signposting website has grown to include workplace mental health awareness sessions, community outreach, and a "Men's Stories" resource. Berni Durham-Jones joined Pwrpas on a self-employed basis around 15 months ago. She’s the only paid member of the organisation and leads a small team of volunteers and trustees.
Challenge
As Pwrpas's reach and ambitions grew, so did its board of trustees. With that came plenty of energy and ideas, but no single clear direction to channel them into. Pwrpas was at a crossroads and could have taken its work in several directions, from staying focused on signposting and awareness to moving further into direct service delivery. Without a clear strategy, mission and theory of change in place, it was difficult to know which opportunities to prioritise and which to set aside, or how to demonstrate the impact of the work already underway to funders and partners.
Solution
Cranfield Trust's Wales Manager, Nicola Russell-Brooks, matched Pwrpas with volunteer consultant Catharine Taylor. Based locally in North Wales, Catharine brought more than 30 years' experience supporting nonprofit organisations, along with a strong grounding in theory of change work. It was Catharine's first project since joining Cranfield Trust in August 2025.
Over six months, Catharine worked alongside Berni to develop Pwrpas's strategy, refine its mission and values, and build a theory of change. Catharine sees her role as one of facilitation rather than direction: giving founders and small teams the time and space to reflect that's often hard to find when you're doing everything yourself. "They know their organisation, their challenges and their strengths much better than I could," she says. "But having the time to step back, to think, to reflect, in order to really define where you're going forward, that's a luxury smaller organisations often don't have." Together, she and Berni worked through where to focus Pwrpas’s work in the future. They also looked closely at the data behind the charity, uncovering a striking insight along the way: more women than men were currently using the Pwrpas website, opening up a new conversation about audience and reach.
"She challenged me quite a bit in my thinking," Berni says. "She asked lots of really good questions and made me think outside the box, because when you're the only person in the organisation, you can get a bit cocooned. I found her support invaluable."
Impact
A Journey to Excellence assessment, completed before and after the project, shows the scale of the shift: Pwrpas's self-assessment score rose from 44% to 65% across 48 measures of organisational health, with particularly strong gains in leadership and strategic direction and in financial management and sustainability.
For Berni, the impact goes well beyond the numbers. Pwrpas now has a defined mission and values statement and a clearer sense of what it's working towards, which has helped bring her board along on the strategic direction. "It really helps the trustees see a way forward," she says, "which will, in the longer term, have more of an impact on the men we support."
Nicola agrees the project has given Pwrpas a much stronger foundation: "They have a much more defined mission and values now, and a clear strategy to drive the charity forward. The trustees were really involved in shaping that, so I know it means they're also going to own it."
The relationship hasn't ended there. Berni is now being mentored one-to-one by another Cranfield Trust volunteer, continuing her development as a leader. "I'd really recommend anybody who can access Cranfield Trust to take it up," Berni says. "It's a really worthwhile process, not just personally, but also professionally, and for the organisation."
