Our strategy to 2010 and beyond

Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, Director General, considers the future of the National Trust and introduces the strategy to 2010 and beyond.

• Engaging supporters
  

• Improving conservation and environmental performance

Engaging supporters

Our overwhelming priority for the next period is to involve more deeply all the people who support us – or who might support us – inspiring them with the excellence of our conservation work and purpose. We’ll remind them of how vital the work of the Trust is in looking after special places for ever, for everyone and as champions of a perpetual cause that today goes beyond conservation excellence and access to embrace the environment.

©NTPL / Paul Harris

Properties are at the heart of our new strategy. This means our supporters will see a change when they visit us. Each property is unique, but what will be common to all is that people won’t just be welcomed as visitors and customers, they will be encouraged to explore the property and its stories, to see and understand the significance of what is there and the conservation work that goes on, to get involved, and to connect what they see at our properties with what is going on in the wider world.

We’ll also be communicating more with our supporters, finding out what interests them and helping their interests to grow, whether it be through historic properties and their contents, gardens, the coast, archaeology, countryside, fine art, outdoor activities, wildlife or specialist research and publications. We want to turn more people from ‘just’ being customers into more active supporters, and to that end we will replace the word ‘customer’ with ‘supporter’ throughout the Trust. We’ll aim to make every encounter with the Trust a positive one.

©NTPL / Joe Cornish

Improving conservation and environmental performance

For this approach to be successful our supporters need to be inspired by what they see. Excellent conservation and access delivered to a high standard is a pre-requisite for the new strategy to work. For the first time we will be able to track conservation performance at every property and be able to say what needs to be done to meet our conservation objectives.

We’ll be investing a great deal of money and time in conservation – addressing maintenance and backlog; improving cottages; maintaining footpaths; managing wildlife habitats; and ensuring inspiring and appropriate interpretation, care and presentation of our gardens and the contents of our houses. We’ll enable people to see and share in both the process of discovery and conservation, and we will promote the research, scholarship, skills and expertise we rely on.

We’ll also be building on our credentials as one of the country’s oldest environmental organisations, tackling environmental challenges like climate change by setting specific targets to reduce our environmental footprint. We’ll be focusing on our use of water, energy and management of waste, setting an example, and sharing our experience with others.

©NTPL / John Hammond

This all adds up to an exciting agenda for the next few years. It’s built on a record of phenomenal achievement over 110 years during which time the Trust has become admired and envied throughout the world. Our future depends on continuing to inspire, enthuse and engage millions of people around our cause.

Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, Director General
July 2007