Understanding Challenges In The Third Sector - Essay Example

Understanding Challenges in the Third Sector Understanding Challenges in the Third SectorAs far as financing modes of my organization, I think that charitable organizations like St. Elizabeth depend largely upon social charity for meeting their financial requirements. Sometimes they need to borrow from banks or other organizations to meet daily expenses, which could prove risky for the organization. I work for the local branch of St. Elizabeth in the finance department and one of my tasks’ is managing finances in an organized manner to ensure smooth running of the St.

Elizabeth. In the beginning, the organization was financed primarily from donations. Now besides donations, the organization charges for its services from people who can afford to pay, which enables them to look after poor and destitute people. Large businesses and corporations donate generously to such organizations in the form of cash and kind. They help with the purchase of equipment, construction and contribute whatever is needed for extraordinary circumstances. The public also trust charitable organization and appreciates the work that they are doing.

The public also donates in their individual capacities according to what they can afford. Besides cash and kind, many people voluntarily give their time to these organizations, which spares the organization from spending money to hire people for performing these tasks. People also organize walks and other special events such as musical programs, shows or organize dinners for raising funds. All proceeds are all donated to charitable organizations such as St. Elizabeth to meet all its expenses.

What I think is that to be successful, charitable organizations need a local as well as an international perspective. The local chapter addresses and looks after communal issues, while their global perspective, reputation and image is looked after by the international wing. In this technological age, the international image is as important as the local image and reputation of the organization. The global recession has left more people without jobs and needing help from charitable organizations.

Cost of Medicare have more than tripled in the last decade, and even people who are earning well might not be able to afford medical expenses for their dependents, especially those requiring special care. With the economy in such a bad condition and people without jobs, it is not possible to raise adequate funds from local communities. Charitable organizations have to look outside their localities and sometimes even outside their countries for support for their charitable work. . I know for a fact that organizations operating globally also need global presence and goodwill from people in other countries to promote their companies on a global scale.

The best way to obtain goodwill is to donate generously to organizations such as St. Elizabeth so that people will view them not just as foreigners but as humans who have donated generously to help their fellow humans. Organizations that receive donations from local and foreign philanthropists acknowledge their help via the media. This makes the populace that benefit from these donations sympathetic to the foreign donors. This gives these donors valuable positive publicity which is good for the image and naturally for their business (Prusak & Dan, 2001)I am aware that most companies make a lot of investment in social capital and work hard to be in step with the local culture of social capital.

Investment in social capital means investment in communities and charitable organizations that work for the community like St. Elizabeth. Social capital flourishes on legitimacy and dies down if the intentions of the donors or recipients are not serious. Corporate leaders must encourage, develop and improve social capital. However, their involvement should only be made if they understand the existence of social capital and social realities. Their intervention must not disrupt the work of the organization, which must be allowed to develop even though things are not done according to the directions.

In fact, they must not push the fact of their contributions to the manager of charitable organizations. The main principle for corporate leaders is “Do no harm”. This means that damaging social capital must be avoided at all costs. It is quite easy to damage something of which a person has no understanding of the functioning of charitable organization (Weiner & Chen, 2004).According to my understanding, the ‘theoretical perspective” of social capital was stressed by Robert D. Putman as having moral obligations and standard patterns of behaviour, social values like have faith, and social connections, especially voluntary relations.

The theory is based on the thesis that if a county is politically integrated it successfully collects and increases it social capital. The accumulation of social capital envisages a consistent network of trust among families, citizens and voluntary organizations. Likewise governments in modern societies are based on trust of the authority by citizens. The theoretical perspectives of the Putnamiam perception and the issues that need to be solved are can be practically applied to understand the challenges to organization in the third sector (Siisiäinen, 2000).

List of ReferencesPrusak, L. & Dan, C., 2001. In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Harvard: Harvard Business Review Press.Siisiäinen, M., 2000. Two Concepts of Social Capital: Bourdieu vs. Putnam. In ISTR Fourth International Conference. Dublin, 2000. University of Jyväskylä.Weiner, B.J. & Chen, W.L., 2004. Communities and Hospitals: Social Capital, Community Accountability, and Service Provision in U.S. Community Hospitals. Health Services Research, p. 1487–1508.