20 Questions for Self-improvement for Charities
The knives are out in many quarters for charities and charity. To get better, we must look at ourselves, not blame others … Finding useful questions is a good starting point for improvement.
It is at best a quarter-truth that the problem for charities is the media, or government, or austerity — that the enemies of success and trust are out there, out-with our control. This is one of the checklists of questions I have evolved while informally helping a couple of charities in recent months, as well as to help me as a volunteer trustee reflect upon specific charities in a couple of very different settings.
These formulations reflect some premises. Charities exist in a world of both competition and collaboration. They operate in arenas, some of which are markets or take on or are being manipulated to have the characteristics of markets. However, they are not themselves commercial organisations and great care is needed in analysing what practices charities might borrow from market-based enterprises. Charities are not, however, ‘not-for-profit’; they do aim to profit communities and individuals, but their aim is not to make a finanancial profit. Hence, I talk of not-for-financial-profit organisations and enterprises. Charities have intended beneficiaries, who may directly ‘use’ their services and resources, and participate in their activities. They do not (usually) have customers, although they may have trading offshoots that do.
Charities in their purest form have givers of money and time — donors (individuals, individuals through personal grant-making trusts and companies, and organisations) give money, and volunteers give time. In a world where local and national government now seeks to ‘secure’ as well as ‘provide’ services, they may be commissioned to provide services or goods. (Commissioners are a form of organisational or ‘business-to-business’ customer). Successful charities understand that what they do should be sufficiently distinctive to provide a source of ‘comparative advantage’ in relation to others (even if sometimes this is just a matter of geographic scope, or giving expression to some specific donor’s and founder’s concern), and sometimes a source of ‘competitive advantage’ when competing for resources, legitimacy and influence.
Charities do not necessarily want or need to grow. They do not always even want or need to make a surplus. But they quite properly may do.
These questions do not magically generate answers about what is or should be going on, or about how exactly to improve. But, embraced in a constructive and creative spirit, they do generate conversations which may create such ‘answers’. They can enable people in charities to translate important and generous aspirations into effective, efficient and better practice.
- What arena (aspect of charity, ‘industry’…) are we in?
- How are we of benefit to ‘the public’?
- Who are our collaborators?
- Who are our competitors?
- Who are our beneficiaries?
- How do we help our beneficiaries?
- Why do they engage with us?
- What benefits do they get from us?
- Which beneficiaries do we like, and why?
- Who are our donors & granters (who give their money & resources), volunteers (who give their time), and commissioners (who buy services from us)?
- What do our donors, volunteers and commissioners want from us?
- Why do our donors, volunteers and commissioners choose us?
- Which donors, volunteers and commissioners do we like, and why?
- What do we have to be good at?
- What must we not be bad at?
- Do we need to generate a surplus, and why?
- How do we do generate a surplus, and what do we do with it?
- Do we need to grow, and why? If so…
- How do we grow?
- What values and behaviour(s) do we have to promote?
