Week 8: Leadership, management and professionalisation of NGOs

Question 1

Drucker

Answer 1

(1990) - Nonprofit organisations

4 points:

1. NO lack bottom line that business has - need clear mission
2. NO need clear definition of their goal
3. NO are not owners of $ but = trustees of donors
4. It’s not just about good intentions, also need good performance

Question 2

Fechter

Answer 2

(2012) - Personal vs professional

5 points:

1. Personal relationships and values significantly shape perspectives and practices of aid work –> need to acknowledge that for a + comprehensive understanding of development work
2. Aid workers’ personal and professional lives = intertwined
3. Chambers: The “primacy of the personal”
4. Care of others = ethics and care of the self = “aesthetic ethics”
5. Ambiguity and moral complexity of aid = latent unease

Question 3

Hailey and James

Answer 3

(2004) - NGO leaders

6 points:

1. Importance of individual attributes and contextual relevance
2. Effective NGO leaders are able to balance competing pressures from different stakeholders, that don’t compromise their individual identity and values
3. Organisational capacities = important
4. Challenges for NGO leadership (limited resources, unvertain political and economic circumstances, help most marginalised and vulnerable people)
5. Need to adapt = not 1 size
6. Management in NGO sector = different from other sectors (= distinctive view)

Question 4

Lewis

Answer 4

(2014) - Pressures

4 points:

1. NGOs: charity vs political
2. NGOs = legitimised by existence of poverty
3. Pressures from donors and publics –> NGOs don’t show truth about difficulty of management (need to show results)
4. NGO management depends on different complex factors linked to contexts and task (missions, cultures, values, pressures etc)

Question 5

Lecture

Answer 5

1. NGOs aren’t held properly accountable - professionalisation
2. Most focus = what they do, not how they do it
3. Lewis (2018): NGO management = Generic view (NGO=business), Adaptive view (NGO ≈ business), Distinctive (NGO ≠ business)
4. Hildebrandt (2013): NGO leader ≠ just a cause, = a career
5. ex: Camila Batmanghelidjh (Kid Company) - collapsed 2015 and Mark Goldring - Oxfam
6. Professionalisation of NGOs + and -
7. Capacity building = buzz work (immaterial vs material)
8. Complex: to be authentic NGO vs NGO being open about failings