For the business [for profit] world of commerce, it’s not just the gifting of $$’s to community groups, it’s also the contribution of expertise towards the building of sustainable organisations, strong and resilient families and communities.
The community sector must be more commercial in its strategies to achieve its goals, to be open to ideas of business, modifying and adapting as the sector aims for sustainability.
Lets look at a few possible opportunities:
- Operative Training: A business could offer a % of places on training courses, conferences or seminars to NFP’s! Its just as easy to present to 12 as it is to 10!!
- Skills Share: Planning, Finance, marketing ie social networking, the areas of expertise in which business excels and NFP’s are lacking.
- Specific project Development and Implementation: eg; architectural, environmental, product development, target research/marketing, media. Companies could take on a project specific to their skill set and use it as a marketing and/or training project as well as supporting a community organisation.
- Asset Share: loan of a vehicle, sharing of excess capacity.
- Joint Marketing: Advertising, Branding, Database sharing.
- Volunteering: Volunteering programmes where skills and processes may be exchanged.
- Capacity Building: The focus must be Capacity Building.
- Developing partnerships: Developing partnerships between traditional NFP organisations and business to support collaboration and planning whilst engaging with non-mainstream sectors of the community such as CALD [Culturally & Linguistically Diverse], ATSI [Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander], PWD [People with Disabilities].
- Reduction of sector administration, building on productivity.
- Measurement of outcomes, performance and failures against consistent standards.
- Strengthening of governance, management capacity and effective leadership
- Building a sector workforce with appropriate skills
Which should lead to:
- Skilled workers with sector understanding.
- Cultural Awareness
- Effective Governance
- Effective Networking beyond the norm.
- Strong Community Partnerships.
- Robust & Resilient processes & systems
- Good Management
- Streamlined funding
Check out the following interview