Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
Back to Blog
Our Guest Blogger is Wendy Coulson. Wendy is a Rotary Peace Fellow Chula batch 18 of 2015. She is the Principal and Consultant of Peace and Development Education Consulting.
Peace and Development Consulting was born after she graduated from the Rotary Peace Fellowship. She has spent 20+-years career working in the field of education as a teacher, program coordinator, manager, trainer and now consultant. You can learn more about her projects at www.peaceanddevelopment.org.Rotary and CEDESA on Cistern Education Peace & Development Education Consulting was born after I graduated from the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand in March 2015. I chose this name because I had written down a phrase during one of our sessions that said “There is no development without peace, and no peace without development.” I design education programs for development projects in Rotary International’s 6 Areas of Focus based on the following peace principles learned during the fellowship. · Do No Harm · Non-Violent Communication · Gender Equality · Conflict Analysis · Community Building/Connectors · Prevention · Autonomy · Self-empowerment · Sustainability · Local Knowledge I am currently working in Medellin, Colombia as an English Language Fellow with the United States Department of State’s English Language Programs working at a binational center on children’s and special learning needs programs. Although I have been living and working in Mexico for the last 13 years, my work has also taken me to Jordan and the U.S. One of the most fulfilling projects took place in my adopted state Guanajuato, Mexico where I worked with a local Rotary Club and its local partner on an education program to accompany their water catchment development project. The club had been involved in the project for 5 years to remedy the dire situation facing rural communities of contaminated water. After five years, the local project managers observed that many of the beneficiaries were not using the cisterns that they built, not maintaining them or simply filling them with contaminated water. The Rotarians decided that an education component was missing from the program so that the beneficiaries could also ‘own’ the knowledge, not just the cisterns, and be able to teach others. I worked with the local partners, a community organizing association with more than 50 years of experience, to develop a 3-day education program complete with a facilitator’s manual and a booklet for beneficiaries. I also conducted a facilitator training and follow-up evaluations. A member of the local partnership conducted a qualitative evaluation of the project from the pre- and post-questionnaires and the results overwhelming supported the benefits of the education program. I heard one participant exclaim, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?! This is important!” The fact is that they were told before, but not shown. They hadn’t had time to process the information and make it their own. As a foreigner in Mexico, I sometimes get resistance from local organizations and am not accepted at first. In fact, one organization refused to work with me since I was not local. However, when they see my process of first observing and talking and then working together to develop goals and objectives, I gain their confidence. And when they see how the beneficiaries react and the results they achieve, they are happy with my work. After graduating from the Rotary Peace Fellowship, I infuse everything I present in my trainings and curriculum writing with peace principles even in my work as an English language professional. The dynamics of teaching and learning are not meant to pass on information, but to build communities and community.
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
Most non-profits operate alongside earned income-generating activities. In Canada, in a survey of 7,000 plus registered charities, 42% of them were involved in some form of income-generating activities. This is not an unusual. For charities to float, they need monies to cover for their general administration costs and most of the time they employ volunteers to implement these while paid staff focused on their mandates. This is also not an aberration since half of 170,000 charities and non-profits in Canada are entirely run by volunteers.
The survey did not look at how effective these activities are in actually tipping the point towards diversified financial portfolio leading to greater financial and organizational sustainability. One thing is that majority of these charities have very modest assumptions of growth in revenue noting that these activities ended up supporting programs rather than investing in areas of strategic value. This is definitely an underfunded, underutilized area in sector development that very few studies have been produced on this account. While non-profits are created for societal good, the benefits of having a thriving and robust income-generating activity are hugely untapped. It seems that this for-profit versus non-profit mentality is still prevailing in this sector which did not actually help organizations move from a position of greater knowledge and capacity to handle the shift from merely conduits of public money to actual running an activity much less an enterprise. How can an organization begin to understand that this is not just a way to get money but to integrate this in their overall strategy for financial sustainability? With financial freedom comes the ability to pursue to grow, innovate and evolve in different means. Here are some pointers to follow: 1. Align the income-generation to your mission-vision-goals and values Clarify what the purpose of these activities and ensure that it aligns with the organizational fundamentals. Most non-profits do this on the seat of their pants just because they can charge a fee for this and that. This is very counterproductive because without a purpose, the organization will end up scattered, scrambling for the next money-making adventure and the next shiny object leaving them tired, frustrated and disappointed of its results. Figure out what is the overall business value of this enterprise in your organization. What are the short term, midterm and long term plan for these activities and what business requirements are needed to be marshaled to be successful? 2. Run it like a business There is something to say about being professional about it. In most cases income-generation activities do not compete well with profitable business because they do not run it like so-to generate value to customers. Charity thinking is a hindrance to creating value. Your story is as good as the value of the product or service you bring to the table. Staff it with people that understand the business aspect of this enterprise and free them from unnecessary control to be able to deal with the market place with nimbleness and adaptation. 3. Invest in developmental areas I was sitting in a board of an organization years ago that collects surplus from their income-generating activity year after year after year. It pains me to see that this fund will become an emergency fund once the organization decides to fold up. It has no vision but to become another program in itself. We can do better than that. Tied public money is risk-averse. This will not let the non-profit innovate or take on risky projects unless it is proven to be the way of the future. Earned income can be used to invest in important developmental areas in the organization such as organizational development, innovations in programming, and novel experiments that will not fly with traditional donors but has the potential to create an expansive effect for the organization. Use that earned income strategically. 4. Evaluate and share your experience Surround your organization with supporters that understand the value of these activities in your organization. Yearly evaluate these activities if they are meeting your goals and expectations. Remember that there is always a leg room to make mistakes because there is no such thing as a perfect enterprise, only a learning enterprise. Learn from the non-profits that have a thriving income engine side. They have learned the art of balancing social good with a good business model. The for-profit versus non-profit is a false dichotomy. Having income-generating activities alongside the core mandates should not be a pain. Ensuring that the value that these activities provide to the organization is internalized and articulated to all parts of the organization can make a huge difference. Learn the best business model that works for your organization and reap the benefits and advantage of being financially sustainable. Thanks for reading this article. Let me know what works for you. Did I miss something important? |