Free Essay Sample: Challenges Facing Non-Profit Expansion

Centrum Counsel is a non-profit organization that pulls together resources from other stakeholders of the legal community to help provide legal services to victims of natural disasters in the city of New Orleans. The organization has successfully managed to offer legal support to the residents of New Orleans who happened to be the victims of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. Despite the fact that this organization operates successfully in New Orleans, it has been unable to expand to other neighboring cities and other states. Typically, having an in-depth knowledge of the challenges facing the organization is instrumental in developing viable strategies for expansion into new localities.

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Centrum Counsel, just like other non-profit organizations, faces the challenge of raising funds to help them initiate their projects. Galaskiewicz says institutions like World Bank, IMF, The European Union, Foundation Centre, USAID and other umbrella organizations fund such projects (192). It is the mandate of non-profit organizations to apply for grants from these institutions. However, it is sometimes difficult to secure funds because of a high demand for impact and quality which would sometimes be difficult for organizations to achieve. There is also the challenge of stiff competition from organizations planning to undertake the same projects and require funding from the same organizations. The strategies set up by an organization are what make it stand out in the face of stiff competition for funds. The fiscal patterns of an organization help it to identify new sources of funding which is also a challenge.

The organization also faces the challenge of recruiting volunteers. Anheier defines volunteering as "the donation of time for a wide range of community and public benefit purposes such as helping the needy, distributing food, serving on boards, visiting the sick" among other roles (9). Centrum Counsel faces a number of challenges in recruiting and working with volunteers. For instance, getting, securing and retaining good volunteers is usually time and resource consuming. This is because there are situations when volunteers quit the program after losing interest. As part of the recruitment, training new volunteers requires a tight budget. Specialized tasks to be performed by the volunteers usually require extensive training which in most cases is expensive to run. From the general perspective, despite the fact that volunteers are not paid like other employees in an organization, they require close monitoring in order to get quality output from them. In addition, it is not a guarantee that the recruited volunteers will be committed to the cause of the program. This makes it hard for the organization to expand if these challenges are not worked on.

Growth and expansion are very important dimensions for every organization. When done with the right timing, it gives the business the chance to grow effectively. The right timing makes the organization to set itself for growth at the right choice. In order for Centrum Counsel to effectively grow and expand, a number of strategies have to be initiated by the organization's management to facilitate its expansion. A well-defined strategic process is laid out in order to facilitate its expansion (Bryson 222).

To begin with, it is very important to develop a strategy focusing on a long-term growth. This strategy should spell out the mission and vision of the organization. According to Zhang, Garrett, and Liang, this strategy will enable the creation of value and also an effective implementation (157). Centrum Counsel has been entirely concentrating much on carrying out its mission and has not been doing much on marketing their activities. A good vision will direct a mission to achieve the spelled out goals in form of a strategy. This will lead to a successful expansion of the organization.

Secondly, Centrum Counsel can work on building a social media presence in order to facilitate its expansion. Social networking sites can provide a platform for Centrum Counsel to reach a large audience within a short time. Nah and Saxton reveal that such platforms can maximize the involvement of people in the affairs and programs of Centrum Counsel as well as use these platforms to facilitate fundraising (pp.294-313). The use of online tools such as Google forms can be remotely used to help in recruiting volunteers who would wish to join the organization. To facilitate its expansion, the organization can also develop partnerships with an organization that focuses on addressing the same issues that Centrum Counsel addresses. This will help the organization to open more doors of opportunities. This can also facilitate possibilities of getting more financial support which would help it to spread its wings to new locations.

In conclusion, in order to expand an organization, it is important to think big and execute smart objectives. For Centrum Counsel, thinking would mean initiating new ideas to scale up its work and serve more people. This can only be achieved if there are proper strategies that have been put in places to be executed as the organization expands. It is also important to work on team dynamics to help expand the operations of the organization.

Works Cited

Anheier, Helmut K. Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. Routledge, 2014.

Bryson, John M. Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

Galaskiewicz, Joseph. The social organization of an urban grants economy: A study of business philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. Elsevier, 2016.

Nah, Seungahn, and Gregory D. Saxton. "Modeling the adoption and use of social media by nonprofit organizations." New Media & Society 15.2 (2013): 294-313.

Zhang, Hao, Tony Garrett, and Xiaoning Liang. "The effects of innovation-oriented mission statements on innovation performance and non-financial business performance." Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 23.2 (2015): 157-171.