Today I used my free weekday to go visit a school just outside of Arusha, St. Jude. For those of you who don't feel like clicking around the website, here is a brief excerpt from the 'About Us' section:
In 2002 a young lady, Gemma Rice (now Gemma Sisia), from a sheep farm in Australia, opened a small school in Northern Tanzania with the help of her family, friends and local Rotary Club. What started with only a handful of children and one teacher [again, in 2002] is now in 2009 a thriving school of almost 1200 children, 130 teachers and 200 staff. In January 2008 another free primary school with an initial enrollment of over 550 children opened. These schools really have the potential to influence the quality of Tanzania's future leaders.
Over 90% of the children at the school receive a totally free education as local and international sponsors individually cover the costs of not only the educational fees but also the uniform, stationery, transport, hot meal, snacks and drinks of each child. What makes this school even more special is the fact that this success comes about due to the group effort of thousands of ordinary people from all over the world coming together to do something quite extraordinary. Individuals, families, schools, church groups and service clubs are joining forces by supporting the school's various sponsorship programs.
Every day staff and students work hard to fulfil the school's philosophy of "Fighting Poverty through Education" helping our students break the cycle of poverty that has gripped their families for generations. If this is what such a team effort can achieve in six short years, then imagine what could be achieved in ten years!
Author's Note: Bolded font and bracketed comments added by meIf you think this sounds like an amazing place, you're right. I had heard about this school several times from the moment I arrived, as it has a reputation for being one of those 'small miracles' here in Africa. What the blurb doesn't mention is that in order to even qualify to attend there, your family must pass a 'poverty test' to prove that you are truly in need (While public primary school is free, it is often overcrowded and the quality of education is poor. And not only does St. Jude offer a superior education, it also offers free meals and, once the students get to 4th grade, free boarding throughout the weekdays as well). Yet even with this poverty requirement, the school still turns down hundreds (maybe even thousands) of students each year who show up for testing to be admitted into the school. And having actually now visited, and been to several other Not-For-Profits (NFPs) in Tanzania as a basis for comparison, I can tell you that I understand why the school is in such demand. The sheer scale of the place is incredible, and the resources that they have, including a large computer lab, an arts and crafts wing, several libraries, and a science lab, are luxuries that I have rarely seen or heard of in Africa, let alone all in one place.
As I was walking on the tour of St. Jude's, I couldn't help but think about something that has been on my mind a lot since I arrived in Tanzania; a Not-For-Profit's ability to deliver it's service. Specifically, I was wondering what seems to separate good NFPs from great ones (I have to believe Jim Collins would be proud of me). At any rate, here is a short list of five factors I came up with that I believe have the biggest impact on the success of an NFP:
Vision: I don't believe simply having leaders who dream big by itself differentiates one organization from another (although I do believe most people and organizations vastly underestimate their potential). However, if you have leadership that sets huge goals, and then is able to inspire others to share that vision so those goals are constantly permeated throughout the entire organization, then I think you can truly differentiate yourself. This is also important from an external marketing perspective; if you can convince potential donors and volunteers to share and believe in your vision, you are much more likely to succeed.
Networking: Everyone has heard the saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know", and I think it's entirely applicable to NFPs. Those organizations that have a network of motivated, skilled, and wealthy people will have a much easier time staying funded and finding capable volunteers (I mean wealthy as a relative term. In Africa, any Westerner would be considered wealthy enough to have a considerable impact on the organization. For NFPs in the US, you might truly need to be wealthy to be able to make a 'significant' contribution).
Excellent Management: I think this has the potential to be a huge differentiator from one NFP to the next. When I was still at Deloitte, I spent a brief amount of time working with one of the largest NFPs in the US, and one of the directors with whom I was working told me that he believed that oftentimes the people in the organization had "hearts bigger than their heads." This isn't to say he thought they were stupid; just that their desire to do good in the world often trumped their technical expertise and ability to effectively deliver their services to those in need. Also, not being governed by shareholders demanding a profit, they often didn't have the proper incentives to force themselves to develop it (e.g., they aren't necessarily measured by how many people they help, where a business manager would definitely judged by how much revenue his department is bringing in) . Because this can be such a problem, especially with smaller organizations (e.g., St. Judes, as opposed to the United Way), I think that those organizations who do have the expertise and abilty to effectively manage themselves are at a great advantage compared to those who are just learning as they go.
Excellent Strategy: I debated this one for a while, and decided that it did indeed make sense to include, although not in the same context as a business would gain an advantage with superior strategies. Businesses have a natural incentive to try and keep their strategy and technical expertise a secret to gain an advantage over those who are directly competing with them. Almost all NFPs, with the exception of those at the largest level who compete for both donations and talent, rarely feel they are in direct competition with other organizations in their line of work. St. Jude, for instance, isn't going to try and hoard the knowledge it has gained in the last six years from other individuals looking to start similar organizations in Malawi, or even other parts of Tanzania. Nonetheless, I think NFPs can benefit from superior strategy, specifically during their inception phase. Often organizations can set themselves up for mediocre success because they simply fail to fully understand the problem they are trying to help with. Are they addressing the entire problem, as opposed to just part of it (in my AIDS thesis in college, I read about how an organization was distributing anti-retroviral drugs to HIV victims with little success, only to realize that these same people were literally starving, and therefore even with the drugs weren't able to fight off the effects of the disease)? Do they understand all the challenges of addressing the problem, including from a political, economic, and social standpoint? It's questions like these that, when properly understood, can lead to one NFP having a superior strategy, and therefore a superior organization, over others.
Success Breeds Success: People like being associated with winners. This is as true with charities as it is with sports teams. When you are a proven organization that has shown it's capable of having a significant impact, you are going to have a much easier time convincing others to donate their time and energy to help you.
Again, this is all just guesswork; I have never actually studied NFP organizations to truly understand what differentiates one from all the others. Nonetheless, I think it's an interesting topic, and one I hope to learn more about, as I would like to someday in the future (and I do mean much further down the road), start my own NFP, although in what arena I don't know. If anyone has any materials on the subject, please be sure to let me know. Additionally, if any of you have any thoughts on my criteria, whether you think I'm wrong or that I might be missing something, I'd love to hear your opinion, either publicly through the blog forum, or privately if you are more comfortable with that.
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