Upstream
An OffScript programme
You are good at what you do. But the job has got bigger.
Upstream is for experienced communications, fundraising and related professionals who have become the person everything lands on.
Over ten weeks, you get clearer about what your role is actually there to achieve so that you can make recommendations rather than take briefs, challenge a request without damaging the relationship and shape the work rather than simply absorbing whatever lands.
Strategic Practice & Influence Programme
Trusted to do the work. Rarely given the space to shape it.
You became the person people turn to because you know what you are doing. You can get the appeal out, solve the website problem, respond to the latest request and keep a project moving when nobody else has picked it up.
Then the role gets bigger. You are expected to think strategically as well, usually while carrying the work you were already doing. More responsibility arrives without a clearer remit, protected time or much say in what comes off the list.
The difficulty is not that you lack commitment. Nor can it be solved by telling you to prioritise better while the organisation continues to set more priorities than anyone could deliver.
You need a way to work out what the function is here to achieve, make a case for what matters and take your professional judgement into conversations where you have previously been expected to take the brief and get on with it.
Technical expertise got you here. It does not answer every question the role now asks. There are excellent places to learn the craft of fundraising, marketing and communications. Upstream addresses a different part of the job.
How do you operate when you are responsible for making the work happen? How do you respond when a senior colleague brings you a solution before anyone has agreed on the problem? What do you own, what do you influence and what has landed with you simply because you are capable?
It helps you move from being asked for your output to being asked for your judgement. You do not need to manage a team. You may lead a function, project, relationship or area of expertise without formal line management responsibility.
Upstream is structured professional development for people still doing the work.
This is a change in how you practise within your role. You will use what you learn on work already in front of you, then bring what happened back to the group.
What changes over 10 weeks
Everything is important
Deliberate priorities
Absorbing responsibility
Appropriate ownership
Order-taker
Advisor
Seeking permission
Professional judgement
Avoiding difficult conversations
Constructive challenge
Being personally indispensable
Clear ownership & sustainable capacity
Reactive
Strategic
Six models. One move towards strategic practice.
The six models
You examine a real part of your workload using four distinctions: own, influence, support and release. You identify one responsibility to hand back or renegotiate, rather than continuing to hold it by default.
Adviser, Not Order-Taker
From seeking permission to professional judgement.
03
Responsibility Reset
From absorbing responsibility to appropriate ownership.
02
You define what your role or function is actually here to achieve. Then you identify two things currently taking your time that do not serve that purpose. This gives you a basis for decisions when the next request arrives.
This is the centre of the programme. You take a live request and respond with a reasoned recommendation instead of moving straight to the deliverable. You practise asking what the person is trying to achieve before accepting their proposed solution.
Reactive to Strategic
From everything being important to deliberate priorities.
01
Sustainable Capacity
From being personally indispensable to structures that hold.
05
You change one aspect of how work reaches you or moves through the function. The focus is on the design of the role and the work, so that strategic thinking has room to happen alongside delivery.
You prepare and rehearse a conversation you need to have. The aim is to question a request or make a different recommendation while keeping the working relationship intact.
Influence & Pushback
From avoiding difficult conversations to constructive challenge.
04
You write your own operating principles and a dated plan. You share them with someone who will ask how they are going, so the approach does not remain an idea you only use during the programme.
Your Operating Model
06
Make the change visible and usable.
Upstream asks you to do three things while the programme is running:
- Answer one live request with a recommendation instead of simply producing the deliverable.
- Have one conversation you have been putting off, after rehearsing it with the group.
- Share your operating principles with someone who can ask you about them later.
A recorded masterclass on professional positioning sits alongside the six models.
What happens in your actual job
These are part of the work, not additional hypothetical exercises. You will see what happens when you use your judgement differently in the organisation where you already work.
You may be a manager, senior manager, lead, head of function or experienced specialist in a charity or purpose-led organisation. Your work may sit in communications, fundraising, marketing, engagement or income generation.
You are still close to delivery, but increasingly expected to set direction, advise others or represent the function in decisions. You want to strengthen how you work with the organisational pressures around you, rather than simply take on more.
Upstream is not technical fundraising or communications training. It is not a general management course or a qualification. If you need to develop a particular technical skill, specialist training is likely to serve you better. If you are in crisis, you deserve support suited to that situation before taking on a professional development programme.
Who Upstream is fo...
Upstream runs over ten weeks in a group of 10 to 12 people. There are five 90-minute small-group sessions with me and one 90-minute session with a guest expert.
Between sessions, you work through six short recorded models and use one practical tool for each on your current job. Application weeks give you time to try something before bringing the experience back to the group. There is also one confidential 60-minute session with me during the programme.
A private Circle space holds the materials, recordings and group discussion. You complete a diagnostic at the start and again at the end, so you can see what has changed in your practice. The programme finishes with a certificate of completion showing verified structured learning hours. We meet again for a follow-up session six weeks later.
Applications are reviewed. To make the group useful and allow people to speak openly, there are no more than two participants from the same organisation, and two people in a line-management relationship will not join the same cohort.
How the programme runs
- Six live group sessions. Five 90-minute sessions with me and one 90-minute session with a guest expert, in a cohort of 10 to 12.
- One confidential 60-minute session with me, at a point in the programme where it is most useful to you.
- Six recorded modules, one for each model, short enough to watch between sessions.
- Six practical tools, one per model, designed to be used on work already in front of you rather than saved for later.
- A recorded masterclass on professional positioning.
- A private Circle space holding the materials, recordings and group discussion, with lifetime access.
- A diagnostic at the start and the end, so you can see what has changed in how you practise.
- Your own written operating principles and plan, developed in the final model and shared with someone who will ask you about it.
- A certificate of completion showing verified structured learning hours, plus the programme descriptor (Strategic Practice & Influence Programme) for your CV or LinkedIn.
- A follow-up group session six weeks later.
- A one-page business case and a draft email if you are asking your organisation to fund your place.
What's included:
I am Sarah Swaroop, a Chartered Marketer with almost two decades of experience in charity communications and fundraising.
I have led teams, commissioned work, received recommendations and sat on hiring panels. I know what it is like to be responsible for delivery, and what makes a strategic contribution useful to the people making decisions around it.
Upstream is built on my OffScript approach and The Unscripted Path. It combines that wider understanding of how people work with practical models you can use in your role.
Learn with someone who knows both sides of the table
What you will get:
- You will have a clearer account of what your role is for, a way to make deliberate priorities and a better distinction between the responsibilities you own and those you have absorbed.
- You will have made a recommendation, held a difficult conversation and changed one structure affecting your capacity. You will also have your own written operating principles and plan, alongside a start-to-finish diagnostic showing where your practice changed.
- For your professional record, you will receive a certificate of completion with verified structured learning hours. The programme descriptor, Strategic Practice & Influence Programme, can be used on your CV or LinkedIn profile.
Upstream has a short application process so that the programme is relevant to each participant and the group can do useful work together. Joining the waiting list will let you know when Sarah confirms the dates and opens applications. It is not an application or a commitment to buy a place.
The first cohort is £795 plus VAT.
Upstream
Price and joining the first cohort
Funding Upstream through your organisation
Send your manager this business case, or use the email below.
Upstream is professional development designed to turn a capable deliverer into a strategic adviser, without losing them to another organisation on the way.
Participants develop strategic prioritisation, professional judgement, stakeholder influence and constructive challenge. They work on ownership and accountability, delegation where relevant, and structures that protect capacity for the work the role is there to do.
Asking your organisation to fund a place?
A place on the programme, an invoice and the one-page business case document. We can confirm attendance, completion, the development areas covered and verified structured learning hours. If two people attend from the same organisation, I can also provide an anonymised summary of themes from the programme.
What the organisation receives
What stays confidential
The organisation does not receive anything a participant writes, an individual assessment or anything discussed in the one-to-one session. It does not direct the programme content or have editorial influence over a participant’s work. That separation gives people room to apply the learning honestly and make better professional decisions.
AN EMAIL yOU CAN senD YOUR MANAGER
Subject: Professional development request: Upstream
I would like to apply for Upstream, a ten-week Strategic Practice & Influence Programme for experienced communications and fundraising professionals. It focuses on strategic prioritisation, professional judgement, stakeholder influence, constructive challenge and clear ownership of work.
I would use the programme on live work in my role, including making a recommendation on a current request and developing an operating plan. The first cohort costs £795 plus VAT. The programme provides a certificate of completion with verified structured learning hours.
Here is the one-page business case: [link]. Would you be open to discussing whether we could fund a place through the professional development budget?
If it would help to talk through the programme with your manager directly, I am happy to do that. If you would like to fund two places, please contact me before applying so we can check that the group arrangement is appropriate.
Is Upstream coaching?
It is a structured professional development programme with six models, applied tools, learning outcomes, a diagnostic and verified structured learning hours. A confidential one-to-one session is included to help you apply the work to your role, but it is one part of the programme.
Do I need to manage people?
No. You may be responsible for projects, expertise, relationships or decisions without line management responsibility.
Will this add a large amount of work to an already full week?
The recorded teaching is short, application weeks are built into the ten-week schedule and the tools are used on work you are already doing. The live sessions give you a place to examine what happened when you tried the approach.
Can my employer pay?
Yes. You can send them the funding section above or download the one-page business case. I can also provide an invoice and speak with the relevant decision-maker if useful.
You do not need to stop being good at delivery. You need a way to decide what the work is for, advise on how to achieve it and stop absorbing every request as if it were already yours. Join the waiting list and I will send you the confirmed dates and application details for the first Upstream cohort.
