All non-profit organizations, irrespective of size and purpose, share one central concern: how to effectively lead performance of the organization's resources.
THE CONCERN:
The concern, however, boils down to another singular practice or tool: strategic planning. The core objective of strategic planning in nonprofit organizations is to figure out the short-term as well as anticipating long-term trends and conditions not only specific to the organization but broad enough to cover the organization's field, scope of service, and benefactors, and beneficiary alike.
WHAT TO DO:
To resolve or appropriately respond to concerns around this issue, the organization must entertain an evaluation of its environment, also known as situational analysis. This process involves analyzing and making the most accurate estimate of the organization's strengths and weaknesses and the industry vis-à-vis marketplace and public policy force.
MEASURE OF RESOLUTION:
The most appropriate resolution of the organization's concerns and issues is said to have occurred when the evaluations, analyses, and estimates of the organization's posture and position lead to creative decision making around how resources are mobilized and allocated, and how mobilization and allocation accommodate or exploit the organization's environment for organizational gains. It is important to note here that the entirety of the process must be carried out in such a way that further develops repairs, and strengthens stakeholder relations.
WHAT'S THE POINT:
Research has shown that there are at least two significant reasons why non-profit organizations must engage in strategic planning in order to lead resource management. The first among these reasons is identification of needs. The process helps to bring decision-makers to the realization of what specifically the organization needs. This is important because in order to effectively address the human resources concerns of the organization, there must exist a credible level of understanding of what human resource needs the organization has as well as potential needs it will have when the organization’s conditions change. By knowing this, managers can plan on appropriately supplying strategies to help respond proactively to those changes over time.
The second important reason for which nonprofits engage in strategic planning in managing organizational resources is to be able to ensure that the right numbers of the right kind of people are available at the right times and in the right places to translate organizational plans into reality.
CHALLENGES
Some of the challenges that obstruct an organization's capacity to lead resources performance involve how best to develop internal leadership and overall management of the process.
Leadership development is a challenge because it is the only way to secure the organization for the future. When the outlook or potential supply of leaders is limited, the future of the organization is set to be affected. To address this, the organization must begin by growing/cultivating potential leaders from within.
In addition to leadership development, development of line management is another possible challenge to leading resource performance. This is so because line managers are the immediate users of the human resources management strategy and as such obstacles arise when this group is unable to use the processes correctly.
Do you run a nonprofit organization? Do you feel your organization is leading in its resource performance? Contact us for an assessment.