PCB Blog - Non-Profit Organisations
Non-Profit Organisations |
| 2011/06/29 |
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Melanie Veness: PCB CEO I was at a tea hosted in aid of Save the Children the other day and I was reminded that there are so many wonderful organisations out there, doing excellent and very necessary work. Our world would be very much poorer if they didn't work so hard to make a positive difference. But, all these organisations are operating in the same space and competing for the same resources. As international donor funding becomes scarcer due to world economic conditions, they are all forced to try and secure funding closer to home. The problem is that you just can't support all of them, and it is difficult to decide, as an individual, who you should support. That made me think that it must be just as confusing for government to know who is operating in areas that are their responsibility and could therefore potentially be funded. Equally, it must be difficult for businesses to decide how to spend their social responsibility funding. It seems that there are a number of organisations doing work in the same arena - sometimes overlapping, but often complimentary - since there is certainly no shortage of work, this cannot be a bad thing. To my mind, good organisations miss funding opportunities, because they are trying to compete with other organisations, rather than working towards being part of a co-ordinated solution. What would be extremely helpful, and I suspect probably more rewarding for the Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs), is for this sector to be more organised and hence better understood. For example, if each geographical area was to produce a brochure showing what all the registered NPOs in the region do, how they fit together, how long they have been in existence, how many people or animals they help, success rate, and so on, it would assist potential donors enormously. We have an excellent example in Cindi - the Children in Distress Network - that co-ordinates, as much as possible, the various activities of organisatiosn working in this sector. This collaborative paradigm should be replicated in other sectors; not only would a more co-ordinated approach make things easier from a sponsorship point of view, but it would mean better engagement between organisations working at the proverbial coal face in the strive towards social cohesion. |
| Tags: NGO(1) funding(3) Government(9) CINDI(1) |
| Comments |
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Tasmia Dayaram 2011/06/29 01:02:05 PM Great Blog Melanie. I totally agree with you.Funding has become so scare in the NGO sector. We really need to collaboarte and work together to clearly define our services and what our organisations stand for.This will certainly asist potential donors and also allow for transparency and openess with public funds. I salute anyone who works in this very demanding,yet very rewarding sector. God Bless. (CANSA-PMB) |
