Resource Pie
What is in common between NGOs and business?
People who are far from the third sector are often surprised to hear that there are problems and issues there that are the same or close to what happens in business. For example, that there is competition. I mean you're doing one good thing. You do it obviously for free and on bare enthusiasm. What competition? What problems?
I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but people who have never had much contact with NGOs in their lives do ask what you do if you answer their question about your line of work by saying that you do charity work, legal defence, environmental protection, etc. They are also sometimes surprised that there is money in these fields (I mean, do you get a salary? Do you sell something? Where do you get the money from then?).
This is not a reason to laugh at them, but rather a reason to think about how we communicate our work to the outside world.
In general, NGOs have money, competition, accounting, management, and much, much more. And competition, as well as many other things, works differently in NGOs at first glance, but upon closer examination - almost exactly the same as in business. The difference is that while in business the person who pays money for a good or service will usually get it, in NGOs these are different entities. And competition can be both for recipients of services and for those who are ready to pay for them.
That said, as in business, in the third sector there are often resources that can be not only competed for, but increased in the interests of all market players.
In NGOs, such a ‘pie’ could be:
- Private Donors. A person has no experience in donating to social projects. And we can guide this person through all the stages to their first one-off donation and then to regular donations. Or someone before us can do it, and the person will already have an understanding of what private donations are, where they go, and why they are needed, and with this understanding he will come to us. Or we will help to form an appropriate picture of the world, and he will go to donate to someone else, but then, after a habit and pattern of behaviour is formed, he may come back to us too
- Foundations. Foundations shape their strategy, budgets and programmes. They see problems and it is important to show them who are solving those problems. Most often one person or one organisation cannot solve a big problem - and donors will not make a programme for this one organisation that cannot solve the problem. And if there are several such organisations, even if they do approximately the same thing, then it seems more appropriate to invest in this trickle, sharpening the stone of social injustice.
- Opportunities to solve the problem. What the previous paragraph says. The more people engaged in solving a problem, the greater the probability of solving it. And you're not working just to do anything - you're working to solve some problem.
That said, there is still competition: to be more attractive to donors, you need to improve your programmes; to be more credible to beneficiaries, you need to work more efficiently than your competitors, etc.
👯 But all this can be meaningless alone, so it is important to work to expand the ‘pie’ - the actors working with you in the same field and solving the same problem.
And if they do it better - improve and modernise. Otherwise, what's it all for?
