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"Organizational Problems Of
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)






















Ibrahim AKSEL
and Muhtesem BARAN












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Abstract


The nongovernmental sector is a growing worldwide phenomenon.
Organizations across the globe account for growing and impressive figures in
employment, revenue, services provided and sheer numbers. Whereas the past years
have seen quite a few insolvencies and business collapses caused by management
failures.

NGOs concerned with development face the management of a complex and
diverse range of issues. NGOs face internal management issues, for example
questions of strategic planning, budgeting, staffing, and the governing
structure of the organization, growth and change within the organization. NGOs
also face the management of external relationships; relations with government,
the private sector, other NGOs and with their target communities. All of these
come to bear on the possibility of NGOs managing development. The effectiveness
of NGOs as actors in development and change depends on successful engagement
with both internal and external management questions and also on the successful
articulation between issues of internal and external management.


Although NGOs share many individual characteristics with other sorts
of organizations, the various collections of characteristics that are observable
in many NGOs create a package that is quite different from most for-profit
organizations (FPOs). Some scholars argued; legal constraints, revenue sources,
types of personnel, and the nature of governance in NGOs make them unique. There
is a growing debate within the nongovernmental management literature and the
community of nongovernmental about whether NGOs should become more “business
like”.

This article which is a literature review type summarizes managerial
and organizational problems of non-governmental organizations and the aim of the
paper is to denote solutions of these problems.


Key
w
ords:
NGOs, organizational
problems





1. Introduction


This study aims to provide more insight that determines the
organizational problems of non-governmental organization and to evaluate the
solutions in order to assist in the development of a new strategy for the
NGO.

Globalization during the 20th century gave rise to the importance of
NGOs. Many problems could not be solved within a nation. International treaties
and international organizations such as the World Trade Organization were
perceived as being too centered on the interests of capitalist enterprises. In
an attempt to counterbalance this trend, NGOs have developed to emphasize
humanitarian issues, developmental aid and sustainable development (
Wikipedia

,
2006).

NGOs are increasingly visible and diverse, from small
grassroots NGOs to multi-million-dollar budgets giants, such as CARE or Human
Rights Watch, largely funded by governments. NGOs fast and often unchecked
growth has raised serious questions of transparency and accountability in their
operations (NGOWatch, 2006).

Over the past several decades, NGOs have become major players in the
field of international development. Since the mid-1970s, the NGO sector in both
developed and developing countries has experienced exponential growth. From 1970
to 1985 total development aid disbursed by international NGOs increased ten-fold
(Malena, 1995). The structures of NGOs vary considerably. They can be global
hierarchies, with either a relatively strong central authority or a more loose
federal arrangement. Alternatively, they may be based in a single country and
operate transnational. With the improvement in communications, more
locally-based groups, referred to as grass-roots organizations or community
based organizations, have become active at the national or even the global
level. Increasingly this occurs through the formation of coalitions (Willetts,
2002)





2. Definition
of NGO


Non-profit literature the term ‘voluntary organization’ is commonly
used for domestic third sector organizations. NGO literature the umbrella term
‘non-governmental organization’ is generally used throughout, although the
category ‘NGO’ may be broken down into specialized organizational sub-groups
such as ‘public service contractors’, ‘people’s organizations’, ‘voluntary
organizations’ and even ‘governmental NGOs’ or ‘grassroots support
organizations’ and ‘membership support organizations’ (Lewis,
2006)

The NGO literature has tended to see NGOs as one of a number of key
actors in processes of development alongside the state, local government,
foreign donors and private corporations. In contrast to this relatively
‘integrated’ approach, the non-profit literature has to a greater extent focused
on the organizations themselves and on the concept of the ‘sector’ as a
distinctive subject for research non-profit has concentrated on service delivery
and welfare organizations more than advocacy and social change organizations
(Lewis, 2006)

‘Non-governmental’, ‘third sector’ or ‘not-for profit’ organizations
have in recent years become high profile actors within public policy landscapes
at local, national and global levels. Around the world, there is an increasing
commitment to the delivery of social services through involving neither
voluntary organizations which are neither government agencies directed by the
state nor organizations committed to the ‘for-profit’ ethos of the business
world (Lewis, 2003)

Nongovernmental organizations are a heterogeneous group. A long list
of acronyms has developed around the term 'NGO': INGO stands for international
NGO, BINGO is short for business-oriented international NGO, RINGO is an
abbreviation of religious international NGO, ENGO, short for environmental NGO,
GONGOs are government-operated NGOs. (
Wikipedia

,
2006).

“Formal (professionalized) independent societal organizations whose
primary aim is to promote common goals at the national or the international
level” (Chang, 2005)

The World Bank defines NGOs as "private organizations that pursue
activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the
environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development"
In wider usage, the term NGO can be applied to any non-profit organization which
is independent from government. NGOs are typically value-based organizations
which depend, in whole or in part, on charitable donations and voluntary
service. Although the NGO sector has become increasingly professionalized over
the last two decades, principles of altruism and voluntarism remain key defining
characteristics (United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe,
2006).




3. Organizational problems of NGOs


Research into this area produced a number of common problems and
dilemmas that NGOs experienced. One of the most mentioned was that of the decision-making processes. Tensions
often occurred between staff and senior managers because of the staff
expectations that they would be equal partners in the decision-making process
(Mukasa, 2006).

Another common problem was to do with the governance of the organizations and the
relations between board members and
staff. These stemmed largely from the boards’ inability or unwillingness to
carry out their responsibilities of governing the organizations. Board members
often lacked the time or the expertise to be able to carry out these
responsibilities effectively. As a result, senior staffs were often left to make
policy decisions with little or no support from board members (Mukasa, 2006).
Governance and decision
making; The
governance picture of many NGOs is quite complex. Most nonprofits are governed
by self-perpetuating, largely self-appointing boards of directors. “Though
trustees are not elected by society at large, their essential purpose is to hold
an organization in trust for the benefit of society, as specified in its papers
of incorporation and grants of tax exemption” (Lewis,
2005)

Other problem is about staff;
such as; recruitment, assignment and layoff as well as human resources
development and administration and finally everyday management of staff (Vilain,
2006). NGOs were found to be weak
at staff career development. Often organizations lacked a career structure in
which staff could develop. In addition they were not good at budgeting for staff
training. In situations where the organizations were expanding rapidly, it
created problems for many who were unable to keep up with the demands of their
work. Not all people working for non-governmental organizations are
volunteers
.
Paid
staff
members typically
receive lower pay than in the commercial
private sector
. Their
members usually do not get paid in any way and only invest little of their
leisure in order to fulfill their duties. Sometimes they only have little
organizational and professional skills (Mukasa, 2006). The poor quality of
training or lack of importance attached to training NGO workers has been
discussed elsewhere (Ahmad, 2002)

Fund raising activities were often the source of much tension in organizations.
The strategies and images used to raise funds from the public were often felt to
compromise the nature of the work done by other members of staff. These images
often depicted beneficiaries as helpless victims in need of assistance, which
other staff felt was inaccurate and lacked respect for the beneficiaries
(Mukasa, 2006).

The difficulties of managing NGOs with operations in several
countries also raised concerns. The difficulties came from the inability to
define proper lines of autonomy on policy issues. Field staff often felt
isolated unsupported and felt there was a lack of understanding of the issues
they were dealing with at field level. In addition, they often found it
difficult to be loyal to headquarters. Headquarters staff on the other hand,
felt that field staff had too much power which needed to be controlled if all
the interests within the organization were to be adequately addressed (Mukasa,
2006).

Funding such large budgets demands significant fundraising efforts on
the part of most NGOs. Major sources of NGO funding include
membership
dues
, the sale of
goods
and
services, grants from international institutions or national governments, and
private
donations
. Even though the term
'non-governmental organization' implies
independence
of
governments, some NGOs depend heavily on governments for their funding (
Wikipedia

,
2006).

The most commonly identified weaknesses of the sector include;
limited financial and management expertise, limited institutional capacity, low
levels of self-sustainability, isolation/lack of inter-organizational
communication and/or coordination, lack of understanding of the broader social
or economic context
(Malena, 1995).

NGOs can have members
but many do not. NGOs may also be a trust or association of members. The
organization may be controlled by its members who elect the Board of Directors
or Board of Trustees. NGOs may have a delegate structure to allow for the
representation of groups or corporations as members. Alternately, it may be a
non-membership organization and the board of directors may elect its own
successors (
Wikipedia

,
2006).

The structural growth problem; once they are successful, small businesses world-wide commonly face
the problems of replacing one-person management (or family management) with a
more institutionalized structure. The founder is used to having total control
and doing things his or her way. It is difficult to persuade her/him to create
independent management or expert roles, or to respect the authority and autonomy
of independent managers and experts once they are in place. Their styles, ethos,
and values are often severely challenged by the formality and the bureaucratic
discipline that is imposed by this volume and variety of external funding from
public organizations. The accountability problem; This has both a
`real’ and a `perceived’ dimension. The `real’ problem is quite clear and is
articulated repeatedly; Who are these
people accountable to? (Moore
& Stewart, 1998).

The evaluation problem; this is most immediately a problem for donors, but failure to resolve
it reflects back on NGOs eventually, and should be perceived as their problem.
Performance evaluation; is
relatively easy in `post-office’ type organizations where (a) activities are
routine; (b) objectives are few and clear; (c) there is no great distinction
between immediate `outputs’ , medium-term `effects’ , and long-term `impacts’ ;
and (d) outputs, effects or impacts can be measured relatively cheaply and
reliably without the measurement process itself distorting the objectives of the
organization or the goals of the staff. Few public organizations are like
post-offices. Many, including many development NGOs, are very different: their
activities are experimental rather than routine; their goals are often
intangible (such as changing the consciousness of clients or the opinions of
policymakers); they may be operating in the face of official obstruction and
hostility; and it may be difficult to find other organizations with which their
performances can usefully be compared in any quantitative sense. (Moore & Stewart,
1998).

The economies of scale problem; most NGOs are very small. They lack easy and cheap access to the
specialist knowledge they require. For example, they may be aware that `staff
development’ is important, but have little idea about how to do it (Moore & Stewart,
1998).

Volunteer relationships; “volunteering means any activity in which time is given freely to
benefit another person, group or organization”. Organizational volunteering can
further be defined as proactive (e.g., signing up to serve meals at a shelter
every Sunday) rather than reactive (e.g., stopping to help an accident victim
after a car accident) and entails commitment of time and effort (Lewis,
2005)

Mission, effectiveness, and accountability;

for NGOs to thrive, it must fulfill a mission that is valued by the
community, staff, board, and founders. NGOs must create value within operational
and environmental constraints that are at once more complex than those faced by
corporations and more opaque than those confronted by government (Lewis,
2005).

Main future needs: more funds and more staff,
and above all the former, is more or less universal. Older voluntary
organizations desire more paid staff. Younger voluntary organizations appear in
relatively greater need of information and management advice. The desire for more volunteers is very
widespread. (Marcuello, 2001)




4. Solutions of organizational problems of
NGOs


The tendency is to offer decentralization, in which some power is
devolved to field level, as a solution to the problem of tensions between field
offices and headquarters. However, decentralization can have the paradoxical
effect of increasing bureaucracy as organizations devolving power on the one
hand, tend to set up all sorts of control measures on the
other.

These problems revealed a clear gap between the values that NGOs
espouse and what actually happens in practice. Balancing the needs of the
different stakeholders who each feel they have an equal right to the
decision-making process has created a number of management problems for these
organizations. (Mukasa, 2006)

NGOs have to make strategic choices between confrontational,
complementary or collaborative strategic relationships with government. The
process of making these strategic choices gives rise to internal tensions
concerning expenditure priorities, the conflicting demands of clients and
donors, which result in disagreements over an appropriate balance between
quality services and meeting fundraising targets. Service-deliverers are pulled
towards clients and fund-raisers towards donors. The result can be a split
within the organization, which can be resolved by the voluntary organization
acting as a mediator or bridge between donor and client (Norrell,
2006)

Focus on fostering the participation of all sectors of society in
environmental decision-making and in supporting regional cooperation. Offer the
following services: information exchange and publications, with an emphasis on
facilitating access to information; training and capacity building; and grants
programs for NGOs with limited access to local resources. Consist of a network
of national offices, as well as a head office that acts as a coordination and
information center with financial authority (REC,
1997)

To develop the organization, individuals have to be able to
contribute in the decision making process and they need to learn. All
participants need to understand their responsibility to represent their
particular stakeholders and to support the implementation activities (Inglis
& Minahan, 2006).

NGOs could form voluntary national professional associations, like
associations of engineers, accountants, or insurance companies, aimed at
promoting the sector, partly through self-policing of standards. The solution
list is likely to include several of the following issues (Moore & Stewart,
1998).:



Timeliness of issuing of annual reports;

Issues to be included in the annual report (or elsewhere publicly
available), such as degree of disclosure of assets and liabilities, of salaries
and all other benefits paid to staff, directors, board members, and
consultants;

Employment, recruitment and staff development policies and
practices;

Sources of finance;

Arrangements for internal or external scrutiny of financial
transactions, employment practices, organizational policies, etc.;
and

Arrangements for the evaluation of organizational performance.







Conclusion


Increased examination of NGOs will not only allow us to more fully
describe the field of organizational types (corporate, government,
nongovernmental) and their communicative characteristics and dynamics but also
will provide a wealth of opportunities to validate and/or question our current
theoretical assumptions that have largely been based on the empirical picture
presented in corporate organizations (Lewis, 2005)

Although NGOs have become established organizational actors within
development policy and practice, critical questions are increasingly being asked
of their performance and accountability. In general, the roles and activities of
NGOs have been relatively well covered in the literature, but there is far less
systematic research on internal organizational processes and management (Lewis & Madon,
2004).

There are many positive changes in development policy and practice
that can be associated with the increased role and profile of NGOs. They include
the growth of participatory planning techniques, the integration of gender
concerns into mainstream development thinking, and the continuing advocacy of
human rights and environmental concerns. There is every reason to believe that
NGOs of various kinds will continue to play important roles as actors in
development processes (Lewis &
Madon, 2004).





References





Ahmad, M. M. (2002) “Who cares? The personal and professional problems of NGO
fieldworkers in Bangladesh”, Development in Practice
, Volume 12, Number
2

Chang, W. (2005) “Expatriate training in international
nongovernmental organizations: A Model for Research”, Human Resource Development Review

Vol. 4, No. 4 , pp. 440-461

Inglis, L.& Minahan, S. (2006) “Stakeholders and strategic planning:
experiences of an Australian nonprofit organization 1993-2001”,
http://www.sba.muohio.edu/abas/2001/Quebec/Inglis_Stakeholdersand
StrategicPlanninginNPOs.pdf
, , (Accessed, August 11
2006)

Lewis, D. & Madon, S. (2004) “Information systems and nongovernmental
development organizations: advocacy, organizational learning, and
accountability”,
The Information Society
, 20:
117–126

Lewis, D. (2003) “Theorizing
the organization and management of non-governmental development organizations
towards a composite approach”, Public Management Review
, Vol. 5
Issue 3, pp. 325–344

Lewis, D. (2006) “Bridging
the gap?: the parallel universes of the non-profit and non-governmental
organisation research traditions and the changing context of voluntary
action”,
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,
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Lewis, L. (2005), “The civil society sector; a review of
critical issues and research agenda for organizational communication
scholars”, Management Communication
Quarterly
, Vol.
19, No. 2, pp. 238-267

Malena, C. (1995) “A Practical Guide to Operational Collaboration between the World Bank and Non-Governmental Organization”, World Bank (available
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet /WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1995/03/01/000009265_3961219103437/Rendered/INDEX/multi_page.txt
)

Marcuello, C. (2001) “Approaching the third sector from a
management perspective: what does this offer?”
http://www.istr.org/networks/europe/marcuello.pdf
,
(Accessed, August 11 2006)

Moore, M. & Stewart, S.(1998) “Corporate governance for
NGOs?”, Development in Practice
, Volume 8, Number
3

Mukasa, S. (2006) “Are expatriate staff necessary in
international development NGOs? A case study of an international NGO in
Uganda”, CVO
International Working Paper 4,
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections
/CCS/pdf/int-work-paper4.pdf#search=%22%22Research%20into%20this%20area%20produced%20a%20number%20of%20common%20problems%20and%20dilemmas%20that%22%20%22
,
(Accessed, August 11 2006)

NGOWatch; NGOs,
http://www.ngowatch.org/ngos.php
,
(Accessed, August 11 2006)

Norrell, A. (2006) “Bridging gaps or ‘a bridge too far’? The
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,
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,
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)

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,
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(Accessed, August 11
2006)"

Thank you for your discussion differentiating between domestic and international nonprofits. You pointed out that the differences are most clearly defined in funding and organizational goals. You did a good job in identifying the major similarities and differences in the aims and revenue streams of domestic and international NGO’s. I have found that while there is an enormous amount of information about the governance and reporting requirements of domestic organizations, the legal requirements for international organizations vary in ways that I am not yet sure how to identify. I am looking forward to learning more about how these organizations deal with the different legal requirements and respond in ways that are compatible within the cultural demography they serve. Philips and Smith (2011) point out that there are compounding tensions between multiple actors on the regulations of organizational governance on NGO’s, and that sometimes humanitarian efforts may conflict with the governance practices of a certain country making it difficult to develop unified relational governance. I am looking forward to see how those differences are handled.

Thank you for your discussion.

Melissa

Reference

Philips, S.D. & Smith, S.R. (2011) Governance and regulation in the third sector: international perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.