Especially the sum up at the end, pasted below :D
"Revise your approach to donors
Swap the service delivery approach of “you give us some money and we keep the hungry and exploited away from your doorstep” for an activist donor one: “you engage in the following way (e.g. by changing specific aspects of your lifestyle) and support our common action by giving us some money”.
Revise your approach to recipients
Talking about “recipients” has become unpopular. Many CSOs speak of “partners” but often true partnership is hard to detect. Many recipients are much closer to activism than the donor CSO. But rather than strengthening the activist features, donors often expect recipients to prioritise professionalism over activism. Linking activist donors to activist recipients and thus sponsoring a more egalitarian “partnership in activism” is a way forward.
Revise your approach to your salaried employees
Many CSOs cooperate with companies that want to provide their employees with opportunities for activist engagement. The company usually supports the CSO financially and the CSO offers volunteering opportunities to the company’s staff. I have rarely come across CSOs seeing their own employees as a source for activism. CSOs should expect – and support – activism of their salaried employees. Today the highly qualified professional is the norm in most CSOs; tomorrow the highly qualified activist professional should be the norm.
Develop new strategies and tools to attract activists
An organisation with activist donors, -recipients and -staff will find it easier to attract further activists from the outside. Probably the single most important mind shift required on the part of the CSO is to move from directing activists to servicing them. Today, those CSOs that provide offers to activists usually give them the choice between a few tightly defined programmes and some tightly defined roles they may play in those programmes. Providing activists with a platform on which they can define their own contributions to the CSO’s overall mission would be a fundamentally different approach."
No comments:
Post a Comment