The Management of a Community Organization Report (Assessment)

Introduction

Over the last several years, there has been concern on how community organizations are run. While some people have called for better and efficient, other people have still been going for autocratic decision making type of leadership. An efficient management system should have a room for everyone where every stakeholder feels that he or she is involved in the management while autocratic leadership is usually a one man’s show.

In case of a community organization, it is important to understand the importance of managing the organization efficiently as everybody in the community looks upon you. The leadership of the organization is thereby very important as most of the times it is the sole determiner on the performance of the organization. For the leadership to be successful, management needs to balance on how power, governance and accountability are portrayed in the community organization.

If the management is able to achieve a balance between how these three are managed, the community organization can run to success very easily (Zadek 2006). It is in that line that this paper will discuss on how the management of a community organization can apply power, governance and accountability leading to the success of the organization.

Community Organization

Community organization is defined as the planned process through which a community is encouraged to use the resources existing within its vicinity or at their disposal to enhance their lives or in order to achieve some of the goals and objectives it might be in need of (Hardina 2002). Community organizations thus engage in activities such as health issues and social problems.

Most of the times, community organizations are ran by community representatives and they are usually supposed to manage the organization inline with the desires of the community. Community organizations are seen as one of the ways through which the community can be empowered, become knowledgeable about some issues and join hands towards achieving development.

The community organization which we shall analyze in this discussion is the River Hudson Management Community Organization (RHMCO shall be used to refer to this community organization from here henceforth). This community organization runs across several states in the United States of America. The group was established fifteen years ago and it addresses environmental problems related to the rapidly accelerating case of water pollution in River Hudson.

The community seeks to encourage the reduction of pollution of the water through sensitization campaigns, cleaning or dredging processes as well as pushing the Federal Authorities towards making and legislating laws which seek to punish those who pollute River Hudson either through penalties or by introducing new taxes.

To succeed in its activities, the community organization has been receiving funding from the government through the social services department, private donors and also from the world body concerned with environment, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

These funds together with what the community contributes has in the past been used to support the activities of the group, either by buying the equipments needed for dredging the river or for any of the stakeholders who can be sent to conferences or meetings which the community organization has got some interest in.

The money is also used in running the basic organization requirements such as paying for the offices which are located in New York City and also for compensating the sectoral committee who are permanently employed by the organization to run its activities.

Governance within the organization

Governance is the process through which the involved stakeholders are able to share their interests or their wishes to the leadership. After sharing their ideas, their input is then absorbed and finally implemented as desired. The decision makers are usually accountable for all activities which take place within the organization (World Bank 1994).

An organization with good governance can be described as an open and enlightened policy making institution where bureaucracy is minimal and the leadership works towards the achievement of the community goals. On the other hand, poor governance can be described as a form of leadership where policies and decisions are made arbitrary without considering the wishes and the desires of all the involved stakeholders.

RHMCO like any other organization operates in a complex environment which requires several coordination mechanisms for it to succeed. The co-ordinations are required to get the resources on board, get funding on time and ensure that none of the activities stall. In case of funding, the money got is used as compensation benefits in exchange for the goods and services.

The governance of RHMCO ranges from the political, organization to the administrative processes through which all the involved stakeholders are able to forward their views in the development and management of the river Hudson. The governance of RHMCO takes route from the environmental instruments which specifically focus on how the water from River Hudson can be conserved or used efficiently.

The organization is governed by a sectoral committee which is composed of representatives from the states where the river passes through. Besides the representatives, there are also officials from the forestry and environment departments whom their main roles are to oversee and ensure the activities of the organization are in line with what is required under the established laws.

The government also has some representatives in the governance of the organization. There are also work groups that are drawn from the partner states specializing in the relevant sectors which organization deals with. Each of the organization department has got its heads and subordinate staff.

The decision making within the organization is carried out collaboratively through the sectoral committee but the decisions must be approved by majority of the stakeholders. Other than the major decisions which may involve huge use of the organizations money, for example let’s say in running a sensitization campaign to all those parties which use river Hudson, the sectoral committee is served with the role of organizing for such meetings and budgets for everything.

The stakeholders are only left with the option of approving or not approving the idea. Most of the times, since the sectoral committee takes time into considering the problems facing the community or what needs to be done in the interests of most of the stakeholders, it is very unlikely for the stakeholders to disapprove the decisions or the propositions of the sectoral committee.

The company structure of governance is simple where every department is charged with the activities which suit it. The organization has a Board of Directors which is made up of o are mainly the donors who fund the community organization in their activities and a representative from the government to ensure everything is taking place as planned.

The role of the board of directors is to oversee the organization activities and also ensure that the funds they give out to the organization are used efficiently and in a transparent manner. They can also allow or refuse to authenticate the withdrawal of money depending on the activity which the organization wants to conduct

Stakeholders’ power

To involve the right people in any activity, it is always important to choose the stakeholders carefully. Stakeholders are persons, groups or even communities which are likely to be affected by the activities of the organization. They can be affected either negatively or positively.

In case of RHCMO, the stakeholders include the communities living around River Hudson, the forest department who were charged with ensuring that the trees planted around River Hudson were taken good care off during any of the activities on the river, the federal authorities in their role to protect the people of its States from cases of pollution and the government in ensuring that its citizens live in a clean environment.

Those who also pollute the river, though most of the times are not considered as stakeholders also form part of the stakeholders’ team as their activities are the main cause why the community organization has been formed. Each stakeholder has different powers depending on the interest and the role one plays in the success of the organization (Lawrence& Weber 2008).

Stakeholder power levels are usually divided into four groups and these all four groups are evident in our case as we shall see. The first group of stakeholder is those who exert high influence and high interest in the organization’s activities. This type of stakeholders is usually the people who show much interest over the performance of the organization.

It is always important to understand their view points as the success of the organization primarily depends on them. In case of RHMCO, the stakeholders who yielded much power were the community since as one of the provider of the required funds and the main driver of the organization activities; their views could never be overlooked.

The community derives much power both from the money it contributes towards the organization activities and the fact that they have to be involved in the decision making process since these activities affect them directly. The second level of stakeholder power is the low influence, high interest stakeholders.

In this type of stakeholders, the stakeholders usually have high interest in the activities of the organization but they cannot influence how the activities are carried. Examples of stakeholders exhibiting this characteristic in case of our organization are the officers from the forest and environment department. They provide the organization with necessary help with the authorities whenever they need to perform any activity.

They ensure that the organization activities are in line with sustainable development following all government regulations. They know how to deal with any type of difficulties which may arise. Their work is to foresee the likely impacts of the organization activities and to those which have negative impact, what need to be rectified.

The last group of stakeholders in case of our organization is those stakeholders who have high influence but low interest. This group of stakeholders is made up by the donors whom although they have little interest in the activities of the organization, the funds they provide plays a very great role in how the organization performs. They are also greatly involved in authorizing the activities of the community group (Thiry 2010).

The Board of management and its role

Every organization comprises of a variety of stakeholders, including a board of committee. The board of management is a group of individuals who are charged with the responsibility of overseeing the completeness in every strategies implementation (Druker 2007). In our case, they are charged with overseeing how the funds available are allocated for use and how they are used.

The board also formalizes the decisions which are made by the sectoral committee by either refusing or giving them the go ahead to allowing them to withdraw the funds from the bank and use it for the planned activities (as long as the activities are likely to contribute in making River Hudson better).

The board of management also sets reviews and evaluates the present and the future opportunities analyzing both the risks and weaknesses of certain ideas which the organization can use in future to further its goals.

Leadership and decision making in the community organization

Leadership success requires the formalization of appropriate models as well as following the right decisions (Graen 2004). A deep insight into the leadership of RHMCO shows that although the organization is run by the sectoral committee while the board of directors oversees its activities, it is a collective form of a leadership. The views of each and every stakeholder are taken into thought and considered carefully so as to ensure the activities of the projects are successful.

The sectoral committee is charged with the role of coming up with the ideas and planning of activities which should take place during a stipulated time. They do this by discussing with all the stakeholders especially the community who are the drivers of these activities. The stakeholders are allowed to discuss their views openly.

The sectoral committee then takes into consideration all the views and among the ones proposed, depending on the available resources and the importance, they choose the one that optimizes the goals and the objectives of the organization better.

After the activity is chosen, the sectoral committee budgets for the activities which will be conducted and after the budget is prepared, the board of directors scrutinizes the budget and if it seems good to them, withdrawals of funds to run the activities is the allowed.

However, if the board feels that the budget has been inflated, it can send the sectoral committee back to prepare a leaner one. In this organization, each and every stakeholder collectively participates in the leadership and the decision making processes of the organization.

Accountability within the organization

Accountability is one of the key internal organizational values, which has to be evaluated in an environmental, scanning each and every process in regard to organizational continuity as well as its success (Anheier 2005). Every organizational leader or employee at any capacity should cloth himself with the accountability virtue, which is a key driver to organizational success.

Accountability is the ability of a person being in a position to stand in a particular phenomenon, of which he is answerable at any time when require (Shah 2007). In the case of RHMCO, the organization is run in a transparent and accountable manner where there is no single department or person who can be said to dominate the other since the decisions are made collectively.

This is evident when you consider the fact that the sectoral committee has discuss with the community before making a decision on which activity has to be taken. The process involves all the stakeholders in which their final word is important before the decision can be made. After the decision is made, the sectoral committee then prepares the budget.

To avoid the chances of the sectoral committee embezzling the funds or misappropriating it in any way, the budget has to pass through the hands of the board of directors who have to scrutinize the budget further. It is only after they are satisfied that the budget is real and not overestimated is the withdrawal of funds then allowed to necessitate the beginning and the conducting of activities.

To ensure accountability and transparency is maintained, within all the company activities, the organization has a constitution in which every stakeholder roles and responsibilities to each player within the organization. Any person who does not follow the stipulated guidelines either ceases from being a member of the group or is penalized. If the case involved embezzling of money, the individual can either pay back voluntarily or be taken to a court of law to face the charges.

The major problem right with the organization’s governance and how to fix it

The major problem with the governance of this organization is its overreliance on the board of directors to make crucial decisions on what activity should be funded or what activity should not be funded. This is a problem to the community who formed this organization since they can plan for activities in which they think will be able to do successfully within a certain period and after all planning and investing of time in the project, the board of directors can decide the activity is not worth the money.

This problem can be fixed by ensuring that some of the community representatives are also members of the board of directors due to the fact that although the community contributes less money when compared to the other donors, they are the sole reason why the organization exists.

Their goals, objectives and activities form the basis of the organization. The representative in the board of directors would play a great role by informing the other members of the board of what the company intends to do, collecting their views and then giving feedback to the community.

Reference list

Anheier, K. 2005, Nonprofit organizations: theory, management, policy. Routledge, New York.

Druker, P. 2007, The Practice of Management. 2^nd Edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York.

Graen, G. 2004, New frontiers of leadership. New York.

Hardina, D. 2002, Analytical skills for community organization practice. Columbia University Press. New York.

Lawrence, A., & Weber, J. 2008, Business and society: stakeholders, ethics, public policy. 12^th Edition. University of California.

Shah, A. 2007, Performance accountability and combating corruption. World Bank Publications. Washington D.C.

Thiry, M. 2010, Project management. Gower Publishing, Ltd. Farnham, England.

World Bank: 1994, Governance: The World Bank’s experience. World Bank Publications. Washington D.C.

Zadek, S. 2006, “Governing collaborative governance: Enhancing development outcomes by enhancing partnership governance and accountability. Web.