Executive Summary
The community improvement project is concerned with involving the Home Depot Foundation in addressing the vulnerable populations’ needs in Atlanta, Georgia. These populations included veterans and victims of natural disasters who receive the non-profit organization’s assistance through several grants and programs sponsored by the Home Depot Foundation. In collaboration with Atlanta’s local government, the Foundation will identify communities in need and provide resources to build housing and sustain the overall comfortable living. Social media will be the key reporting tool for maintaining project transparency.
Introduction
With the support of the Home Depot Foundation, the community improvement project is targeted at addressing the needs of underserved individuals, predominantly veterans, and victims of natural disasters. The communities of Atlanta, Georgia, will be assessed to identify areas for improvement and determine which populations require most non-profit organization. Both collaborating parties will engage the public in charitable work to foster the environment of social responsibility.
Community Improvement Project
The main shared service provided to the target population of the project will be the provision of housing to veterans and other vulnerable populations in Atlanta, Georgia. In collaboration with the Atlanta City Council and the Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Home Depot Foundation will assess the local communities in the city, identify the target population, and proceed with improvement projects.
Organizations Roles and Responsibilities
The key responsibility of the Home Depot Foundation in the community improvement project is to provide financial support for its implementation, along with ensuring the appropriate supply of personnel. The local government will be responsible for fostering community support and encouraging volunteer work from responsible society members. To sustain the successful collaboration between the Home Depot Foundation and the government of Atlanta, a communication strategy of transparency and teamwork should be fostered. Both parties should set the objective of helping vulnerable populations and negotiate all procedures that should be implemented to ensure its success.
Fostering Strong Relationships
In terms of the relationships between the city government and the Home Depot Foundation, supplementary, complementary, and adversarial qualities should be discussed. In the supplementary form, the local government fills a need unmet by the non-profit (Schatteman & Bingle, 2015). For example, this may include engaging local officials in surveying communities and finding areas for improvement. In the complementary form, the government may facilitate an increased coverage of the project so that the general public knows about its goals. From the adversarial standpoint, the government may limit the Foundation’s operations if the latter does not comply with public policy changes or does not maintain transparent accountability. To foster good relationships and prevent the mentioned relationships from limiting the project’s success, preliminary planning and negotiations are essential.
The use of technologies will play an important role in fostering strong relationships between the Home Depot Foundation, the local government, and the community that the organizations serve. Engagement is the key goal in technology use, with the Foundation reporting the project’s progress on social media and its website. The local government of Atlanta should also keep in touch with the public by using the same tools.
Issues of Advocacy and Solutions
Advocating for fee-for-service, grants-in-aid, and eligibility service models come with some challenges, especially when the quality of relationships between governments and organizations (either profit or non-profit) is at stake. One of the major challenges is making sure that the spending on aid is fair and seen by the public. This means that organizations that fund different projects provide assistance to vulnerable communities and identify specific problem areas that need to be addressed. Another challenge is that some governments may act in personal interest and only assist non-profit organizations when there is a benefit. To solve the mentioned problems and strengthen relationships between organizations, work on a charitable basis, and local governments, transparency and frequent reporting are essential. Social media may be beneficial to hold collaborators accountable for their projects and ensure that they remain fair and unbiased to political or financial interests.
It should be mentioned that non-profit organizations can struggle with limited performance due to several restrictions. From a political perspective, changes in governmental leadership affect the performance of non-profits. For instance, during the Bush administration, military organizations were at the peak of their performance, while solar energy organizations benefited the most during the Obama administration. Social trends have also widely affected non-profits. Thus, when there is a public concern associated with a specific issue, it supports those non-profit that work on that issue specifically. From the tax perspective, there is always a risk of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code changing to force charitable organizations to pay federal taxes. Economic factors such as the uncertainty of the population to increase their giving to charitable organizations are also challenging. There has been a direct connection found between decreased contributions and economic circumstances (Cabrera, 2013).
To overcome the mentioned challenges that limit non-profit organizations’ performance, the Home Depot Foundation should seek the support of government officials while also securing its position with the public. On the one hand, the close governmental collaboration will ensure that the Foundation is up to date with any economic and financial changes. On the other hand, the engagement with the public will maintain the positive reputation of the organization and facilitate charitable work and donations when needed.
Collaboration/Contracting Challenges and Solutions
When collaborating or contracting with governments, non-profit organizations may encounter such challenges as the failure to cover the full costs of their programs, time-consuming and complicated reporting mechanisms or requirements of applications, contract or grant changes, as well as late payments (Boris, de Leon, Roeger, & Nikolova, 2010). These issues can be addressed by negotiating a solid action plan that will prevent both parties from deviating from the contract. Establishing a budget before project implementation is a solution to address late payments or the inability to cover full costs. A ‘buffer’ budget can help collaborators account for any additional costs that appear during project implementation and could not be predicted.
Reflection
The project showed that the collaboration between non-profit organizations and governmental bodies could significantly change for the better. The target population of the Home Depot Foundation, which included veterans and victims of natural disasters, was provided with new housing built with aid from the Foundation. An important takeaway to note is the organization’s collaborative work and the government did to raise awareness and report their accomplishments. Social media was the most important tool that engaged the public and offered a vehicle for the successful integration of new community enhancement projects in Atlanta.
References
Boris, E. T., de Leon, E., Roeger, K. L., & Nikolova, M. (2010). Human service non-profits and government collaboration. Web.
Cabrera, D. (2013). 3 factors affecting non-profit fundraising according to Blackbaud survey [Blog post]. Web.
Home Depot Foundation. (2018). Celebration of service press kit. Web.
Schatteman, A., & Bingle, B. (2015). Philanthropy supporting government: An analysis of local library funding. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 1(2), 74-86.