We have seen Non-Profit organizations doing wonderful work at ground level for different causes across the globe. Millions of volunteers help Non-Profits to bring social change and make a great impact on the way the world is shaping today.
The size of Non-Profits varies from one person to several people working under one organization. It is very commonly observed in Non-Profit space that the helping hands are spread across the world. The biggest challenges Non-Profits are facing today is making their work more productive and achieving greater social impact. Engaging better with their stakeholders like volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, CSR companies etc. To be a more result-oriented Non-Profit, collaboration will become a key factor for any organization. It is in fact very important for overall survival of a Non-Profit. However collaboration is not a new concept, we have seen collaboration very commonly in the business sector. Collaboration in the social service sector is yet to be enhanced, but still we have many success stories, where many Non-Profits collaboratively perform amazing service.
Success stories of Collaboration for Non-Profits:
We have seen many great success stories of collaboration, every year Youth For Seva is helping hundreds of Non-Profits to realize their mission. Youth For Seva is helping Ramakrishna Mission Shivanhalli, Bengaluru for a digital transformation at RK Mission. Supporting RK Mission financially to complete one of the ambitious projects ‘Maadoo’ taken by RK Mission Shivanhalli to bring change in education through a digital portal for activity driven learning in government schools. Youth For Seva is helping almost more than 300+ non-profits which is one of the good examples of collaborative work in Non-Profit space.
Another success story is, each year, the Maryland Food Bank provides more than 41 million meals to people in need. The food bank collaborates with Maryland nonprofits and about 50 local farms to send pre-release inmates into the field to glean roughly 800,000 pounds of produce for hungry families. This effort annually provides 650,000 meals, or more than 10 percent of the food bank’s meals. We all know how collaboration will transform an organization, however we have to do quantitative analysis and have some better sense of the advantages of collaboration.
Advantages of Collaboration for Non-Profits:
1. More economic
Collaboration for Non-Profits can bring down their expenditure extensively and focus on social causes with minimal cost. An organisation will spend a lot of money for multiple purposes, it may be for travelling , accommodation, food and many more.
Through collaboration, Non-Profits can spread their network and take benefit out of it to do micro management on their expenditure and save costs through sharing administrative expenses.
2. Greater social impact
Collaboration for Non-Profits helps them to share resources for one common goal to be achieved, this helps them to make use of a more skilled, experienced workforce to achieve their goal and can achieve more productive work and take up many more projects.
3. Productivity and Efficiency
Collaboration will get more specialized people in the working segment and both the organizations were able to expand their offerings without increasing their budget with the help of a more skilled workforce to serve better.
4. Better outreach
From many days I was thinking collaboration can even happen at each event/campaign level, but very rarely we could see such a collaboration in Non-Profit space. For example if a Non-Profit working in education domain is conducting an event, it can seek the help of another Non-Profit, which is working towards bringing awareness on organic food to serve delicious organic food in the event. However, the expenditure will be taken care by host Non-Profit. This way both Non-Profits will be benefited in many ways and the outreach for both will be achieved.
However, we have many live examples of collaborative work doing greater impact. We have to excel better and provide more transparency within the collaborative work taking advantage of technology and also boost the collaborative work. It is like adding honey to a lemon tea to get that ultimate taste.
Impact of Technology on Collaborative Work.
Technology has a greater impact on almost every sector in today’s digital world. Technology has transformed our shopping experience, travelling experience and many more across the world. Somehow we have failed to introduce and take advantage of technology in the social sector.
Technology can help Non-Profits to find the right fit for collaboration, share the work to be done, organize it very well, document it better and refer to it in future keeping the context saved forever. It also reduces manual effort like paying a volunteer or reimburse the volunteer’s expenditure, generating reports and making it available for both the organizations at the same time, and at the same time making their collaborative work visible to their stakeholders and keeping it transparent.
Benefits of Adopting Technology for Collaborative Work
1. Organizing and managing the collaborative work much better.
2. Managing the workforce with clear instructions remotely and instantly.
3. Monitoring the entire program on a daily basis for both the organisations.
4. Managing financial aspects much better way by keeping the context of all expenditures.
5. Making reports available all the time for both the organisations.
6. Increase the transparency between the organisations.
By Sadanand Teggi
(Co-Founder, Soczen Technologies Pvt Ltd)
SociallyGood 