ARTICLES

(1) Buyers Beware - CRM can bite

CRM gives many NPO’s a way to improve relationships with donors and prospects for income. However, the connection between friend and fund raising is not straightforward and can be counter-productive for NPO's and donors alike.

(2) Closing the Promise - Performance Gap

Capitalism has technical assets that non-profits can use, even without liking its business model. The for-profit search for excellence is the same as the non-profit search for sustainability. This paper borrows notions of excellence and sustainability from capitalist management science and transforms them for the democratic sensibility of the development sector. The borrowing is to close the gap between promise and performance. The transforming is to preserve the NPO’s virtues of kindness and generosity. These techniques offer the strongest hope that NPO’s can overcome a crisis in confidence by their own efforts. For NPO’s to be sustainable they need to be operationally excellent. To be excellent, each function needs to answer its “own” question in the right way at the right time. Doing the right thing right, and telling it like it is, gives NPO’s good relationships inside its departments and with the donors. Sustainability comes from donors! Excellence comes from NPO’s. Donors will give NPO’s sustainability if they are excellent in practice. This closes the gap between what donors want – great promises – and what NPO’s want – great performance.

(3) Some suggestions for Peer Educators

It is too soon to tell if Peer Education is failing in South African workplaces, but there is little to suggest it is succeeding. Peer education remains essential, but flaws in design and delivery are preventing significant lifestyle change. The challenge for people involved in programmatic design and operational delivery is to rethink what companies need to achieve and why peer education can help, and decide what needs to stop, to start and to change. Some design and delivery tips are provided to prevent and treat problem areas.

Peer Education is the latest and strongest weapon companies have to prevent HIV and encourage treatment. Ideally, Peer Education is informed by prevalence and KAP surveys and supported by an awareness campaign and leadership training. It is made vital in the absence of a medical solution to HIV/AIDS as the best mechanism for achieving voluntary lifestyle change.  It has certain steps, and all 10 must be taken well for the programme to be economical, efficient, effective and equitable, or in a word, excellent. This paper has a few suggestions for HR managers who want to improve their Peer Education programme.

(4) Sustainability

Sustainability is the public reward for the organisation's private work. This article shows what to measure and who to manage to thrive in the 21st Century.