Introduction
To act as a successful change agent in a community, a social worker needs to focus on obtaining funds for the research and project realization. Therefore, it is essential to discuss the role of understanding organizations and communities in the process of obtaining funds. Furthermore, the discussion of ways to obtain important knowledge regarding a community and funders is also essential in this context. Much attention should also be paid to analyzing the role of collaborations in funding. Thus, the purpose of this discussion is to analyze the importance of understanding organizations and communities for obtaining funds, present the ways of collecting data regarding problems, communities, and funders, and examine the phenomenon of collaborations to affect funding efforts.
The Importance of Understanding Organizations and Communities to Obtain Funds
When it is necessary to obtain funds for the social research or change project, the focus only on the problem without understanding an organization and a specific community in which it is located can be inadequate. To obtain funds for the study and the further implementation of appropriate interventions to address the problem and resolve the identified issues, it is crucial to understand the nature of the organization and its resources, as well as the nature of the community as an arena for the project implementation (Netting, Kettner, McMurtry, & Thomas, 2012). When organizations have no adequate resources to support the change project, communities can provide the required resources or funds. In this context, the understanding of a community is essential to realize which stakeholders are most interested in the project outcomes and which stakeholders can provide the required funds for the project’s implementation. Therefore, before planning the change and intervention, it is important to assess the organization’s and community’s capacities or resources and choose funders who can help in finding the required resources or funds.
Ways of Obtaining Knowledge Regarding Organizations, Communities, and Funders
Social workers and researchers can apply a range of strategies and techniques to obtain knowledge of the selected organizations, associated communities, and potential funders. To collect the necessary data, it is possible to refer to using organizational and community assessments and surveys, conducting interviews and reviewing and analyzing the information provided in the scholarly literature, documents, statistical sources, and online sources (Netting et al., 2012). All these ways of collecting data can be used to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. Thus, interviews and reviews of the published or statistical data are used to conduct the qualitative research and understand the aspects associated with the observed problems, people’s experiences, and funders’ readiness to participate in the change project or planned intervention. The information collected with the help of analyzing assessment and survey data using statistical tools is important to conclude organizations’ and communities’ positions in numerical terms. The detailed analysis of the collected data and obtained knowledge is important to conclude the amount of the required funding and potential funders’ opportunities to provide the needed resources.
Collaborations and Their Role in Obtaining Funds
Collaborations are important for social work as they provide change agents with opportunities to unite their efforts in addressing organizational and community problems related to a certain population. From this point, collaborations are associated with social workers’ practice of combining resources and efforts to resolve the problem while working as a team (Netting et al., 2012). In this context, the collaborative practice can involve social workers as change agents, community representatives, and other stakeholders interested in resolving the problem, and potential funders.
Thus, it is important to note that collaborations are viewed as effective strategies to increase the probability of funding. The reason is that funders actively sponsor those projects and interventions which are planned to be realized by a professional team, the members of which are stakeholders interested in the successful implementation of the project. Thus, collaborations usually involve not only social workers and researchers but also specialists and practitioners who can contribute to achieving the project goals. The information about the persons who collaborate to realize a certain idea or intervention can affect funders’ conclusions regarding the project’s role for the community and its potential success (Netting et al., 2012). From this point, the collaborative practice is important to persuade funders to provide more resources to support the project and to join the collaborative team.
Conclusion
When organizations fail to serve communities, and some problems can be addressed with the help of social workers as change agents, it is important to focus on finding material resources to support the proposed interventions. In this context, much attention should be paid to understanding the nature of organizations, their problems, and communities to select appropriate sources of funding. Furthermore, it is also necessary to conduct an appropriate assessment or effective data collection related to organizations, communities, and funders to make reasonable decisions regarding the problem solutions and available funding. Finally, social workers should also refer to collaborations as a strategy to increase the probability of funding because of stakeholders’ interest in projects based on collaborative practice.
Reference
Netting, F. E., Kettner, P. M., McMurtry, S. L., & Thomas, M. L. (2012). Social work macro practice (5th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education.