How Enterprise and Entrepreneurism operating in NGOs?
When people mention words like Enterprise and Entrepreneurism, the first thing comes to mind must be business, companies and traders, even In some British universities entrepreneurism was once only mentioned in the business school — a part university then shunned by other disciplines, but the fact is enterprise and entrepreneurism can be use in every disciplines, they not only a simple method or spirit can be showed in the process of start a business, run a business, but a key to start and been successful in many fields.
First, what is enterprise? Enterprise is the actions of someone who shows some initiative by taking a risk by setting up, investing in and managing a business. It focusses on two main words: initiative and risk. No matter in business or some other fields, people who able to take the initiative is the one who ‘made things happen’, is the one who tends to be decisive, the one who to lead, and start the whole process. Most successful entrepreneurs started their stuff by what they need but missing, so enterprise also means care about people’s needs, but there are billions of ideas been created everyday, so only people who has enterprise is bold enough to decide, and make their minds come true, Also, a pioneering time is full of risks, no matter what kind of idea or program, risks always exist, it can be a chance or probability that things will go wrong, and the worst is the founder, will lost all his/her money, debts even confidence, so the one who able to take the risks is the one who has enterprise.
Entrepreneurism is something different. It affects the performance of daily operations, is a state of mind, a way of looking out at the world, the capability of seeing opportunities constantly. It’s a skill attune their own organisations or minds, become more suitable for the field,or the market, like been adaptable. Also, entrepreneurism means keep looking at every situation and evaluate for its potential (http://onlinejournalismguide.com/what-is-entrepreneurism/), measure and draw out the potential, gain more chances.
Aside business field, enterprise and entrepreneurism are more like a spirit which makes someone a leader who is decisive and brave, an ability to fit demands, seeking chances and be resourcefulness, like an ‘entrepreneur’ in traditional views.
It fits nicely with NGOs as NGO always full of challenges and risks.
People might think is much easier to found a NGO than a business company due to NGOs not established for profit, but the truth is, run a NGO is as hard as a company, some professionals believe that start a business is much better to do goods than start a NGOS due to start a NGO have to face several challenges like lack of money, poor governance, absence of strategic planning, poor networking, limited capacity and so on.. just same and even more issues will be happened when an enterpriser try to establish a new company. Also, it’s easy to measure a business company by their profit but it’s hard to evaluate a NGO. Meanwhile, NGOs always start with a idea, and few people, like two or three, the division of works are blurred, but during the growing process, there will be more staffs, more missions, If a NGO’s leader who is lack of enterprise, he or she can’t be initiative and understand change of the NGO’s structure and the social trends, the NGO will failed, and lost their passions, so NGO need someone who has enterprise to keep the NGO developed steady, work as a individual system, avoid or minimising the risk, to build a stable structure of NGO, get rid of the dependency of one specific person, or mission. no matter there’s pressure on profit or not. It’s not that easy to start a NGO.
In addition, from the angle of organisational behaviour, NGOs and enterprises are the same things, they all organisations, similar structure, just different goals. NGOs aim to serve and improve a better society, enterprises focus on maximising shareholder’s profit. The difference is NGO also may engage in business activities but all the proceeds will continue to use in NGOs operations, but enterprise can utilize the profits as retained earnings or dividend for shareholders.
People usually consider NGOs as ‘Non-profit organisation’ and ‘the third party’, and believe NGOs are nothing about business,and usually people not gonna show more support to a NGO than a company just because NGO don’t seek profit. The truth is NGOs always connected with business fields and have a complicated relationship with it due to no organisations can operate without money. Most NGOs need to find their own sponsors, mostly relying on charitable donations and grants from various local and international donors during the process they dealing with companies, NGOs have to understand the business model, chart with the traders in a business way, persuade companies to believe there is profit to cooperate with the NGO in order to get the sponsor, and gain more opportunities, that is exactly how entrepreneurism operating in NGOs.
A typical thing is the trends of NGOs’ PPR(Public Private Relationship) nowadays, which is the cooperation between NGOs and business organisations, instead of simple business project or non-profit program, NGOs provides programs which help the society and make profits at the same time. One of the famous examples is GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition), which is a global NGO focus on the nutrition issues in developing countries. PPP(Public Private Partnership) is the mainly model of the organisation, they help developing countries to improve their science and technology to make healthier food, in order to achieve their goals. Every time when GAIN start a new project in a country, instead of build their own factory or company, they cooperate with local industries, which is a better way to save money, fit local market better, just like what entrepreneurism mentioned, attune their mind. On the other side, work with NGOs like GAIN cannot only improve local factories’ technology, but also establish a good reputation. It’s like a win-win model, get profits for business complained and serve the society in a easier way, entrepreneurism played a important role in the whole process to help NGOs get involved, and get more opportunities, they don’t even need to promote themselves the second time, just spread their concepts through the original local enterprises.
NGOs can’t work alone, everything of NGO is connected with the whole society which force, or push the NGO to build relationships with different industries and customers, it’s no doubt that if a NGO want be successful, they have to treat themselves like a company, have enterprise and entrepreneurism, be innovative and make the organisation suit for the market, and the society.
