Why charities need to think about the “Third Player Running”

"It's just like looking at fish in a tank" is how a friend once described watching football on television. It's fair to say she didn't share my love of the beautiful game. And you don't have to either, to get some value from this blog. You could even be a little bit like Moss from the IT Crowd. But stay with me, please, footballing non-enthusiast, because I do have an important point or two to make here. The reason I'm talking about football (again) this time is because I want to mention "Third player running." This tactic is commonly known as "Third Man Running", but I've renamed it because you may have noticed that women play the game too! It's simple to execute but very hard to defend against. Player 1 passes to player 2. Even before player 2 gets the ball, player 3 is already running, knowing that they'll get the next pass. It's basically about thinking two or even three steps ahead. Liverpool were incredibly good at this in the 1980s, but I can see your eyes glazing over at this point so will move on. Watch Jack Wilshere, the eventual scorer of the goal in this clip. He is the third player running. But why is this relevant to charities? Well, I think the answer lies in the consideration of the Boston Matrix, as shown below. The "stars" are projects with high growth and high market share; the "?"s have high growth but low market share, the "cows" have low growth but high market share, and the "dogs" - poor things - have low share and low growth.