Domestic Violence Stakeholders Influences - Assignment Example

PEACE Domestic Violence Agency is working with the mission of providing direct services to the trauma victims, helping dependents, and initiating the healing process of the affected Portland community members from such social evils as sexual attack and domestic violence by educating the community not to practice and promote violent behavior. PEACE has taken a major initiative to help the affected community through such programs run with the help of the funding organization. In this case the National Foundation is the funding partner of the agency, a major and crucial stakeholder of the program. Other important stakeholders of this program are the administrator and the staff of the agency, and the community of Portland. Purpose The aim of this paper is to know how the funding program would meet the needs and expectations of all stakeholders including the victims of assault, abuse and road rage. No program can serve the purpose if the stakeholders’ interests suffer due to any of the reasons like delay in the release of funds, lack of cooperation and administrative inability to successfully run the program for the victims. Funding agency wants clarity in the vision of the non-profit agency, its strong leadership, and a list of related requirements to invest its funds for the welfare of end-users of the program (Patterson, 2010). Likewise, other stakeholders’ interests are equally important, which is the aim of this paper. Stakeholders’ Influences As stated above the major stakeholder in the case of PEACE Domestic Violence Agency is the funding organization – the National Foundation – whose stakes would get aligned with the interests of PEACE. The National Foundation runs a program named Supporting Families, the aims of which match exactly with the objectives of the Agency. One of the primary aims of the National Foundation has been to promote the well-being of young men, women, and children whose lives have been affected by domestic violence, and to reduce the prevalence of such violence through increased service provision, education, and awareness. So, from the perspective of the funder, the agency’s aim is highly influenced by the aim of the funding organization, which is good for both the partners of the program. One of the Portland community problems in the past five years has been incidents of road rage involving community members in criminal cases. Stakes of the community are also interlinked and influenced by the aims of the funding organization one of which is to improve the standard of life of families with a member or members in prison by providing effective services as per the needs of the affected families. The National Foundation’s program, Supporting Families also supports young people involved with the criminal justice system through a rehabilitation program structured to provide the skills, faith of the community, and personal support networks to help them to lead satisfied and successful lives. The funding capacity of the National Foundation supports two grant programs worth $500,000 a year and $ 150,000 a year for consecutive three years. So from funding perspective also the influence the National Foundation on the Agency and the community aligns well for supporting to registered charities for Supporting Families program. The above discussion makes it clear how the needs and expectations of the stakeholders influence a program plan. Imagine a reversal in the aims of the major stakeholders – the National Foundation – and the Agency! The funder would never have agreed to support the agency cause. Doubts could have prevailed in the minds of board members of the funding body on whether PEACE would be able to do justice with the aims of the program or not. Funders and grantees want to partner in community welfare programs with a focus on long-term relations but with the shrinking budgets and ever-increasing needs of the affected community, sustainability has become crucial to the success of the program. Sustainability among the collective stakeholders becomes crucial to favor a particular community and charitable agency for a cause that needs funding from different other communities in the adjoining areas of a particular city or state. In this regard, alignment of interests of all the stakeholders can help greatly; the vision of the Agency should be clear with strong leadership capabilities, and the funding organization should possess a robust financial background. Essential programs and services should be delivered through active participation and collaboration among all the stakeholders from the top-down to bottom-up. The needs and expectations of each group, as stated above, can be met by maintaining sustained communication among them. Although there seems to be no reason for making compromises but largely it depends on the situation and circumstances of the affected community, particularly it becomes difficult to achieve positive results from those community members involved in criminal cases; it becomes difficult to bring them back to the community away from criminal activities. In such cases, compromises must be made if results fall below the expected outcomes. Regarding the expectations for evaluation of the National Foundation, the funding institution in this case scenario, there is very little scope of any change in the expectations of the Agency from the National Foundation reason being proper alignment in the objectives of both the organizations. The agency’s expectations are that funds would be invested in the Portland community where number of victims of domestic and youth violence has increased sharply along with other related crimes like spousal and child abuse, assault and cases of road rage. The agency wants a funding institution like the National Foundation, whose funding program, Supporting Families, is striving to fulfill the same objectives, as cherished by the Agency such as promoting the welfare of young men, women, and children whose lives have been affected by domestic violence, and reducing the practice of domestic violence through increased service provision, education, and awareness. The mission of PEACE Domestic Violence Agency, not somewhat but altogether, adheres to the aims of the National Foundation by educating the community and propagating non-violence among community members. The question does not arise on influencing the program or for that matter evaluating plans because the aims of all stakeholders are streamlined for a singular social cause of redressing the pains of the community by supporting families. The funding opportunity offers an additional welfare function of rehabilitating people involved in criminal activities. The Agency, on the other hand, needs to add this important aim in its priorities of the program plan and make changes accordingly by taking a step further for sustaining stakeholders’ interests and influences in the long-term. References Patterson, Sally J. (2010, October). Checklist for sustainability. The Grantsmanship Center, 3(10). Retrieved from http://www.tgci.com/centered/ Read More