Sustainability of the Organization

Criteria of External Sustainability

Do you think your organization is sustainable? Do you think that, for instance, the training that you deliver to your target group will be implemented with the same intensity after several years? Do you have a clear plan how to do that? Will you have the support of the target group in the implementation of your regular activities and will they be satisfied with your services?

The answers to all these questions should bring you to the answer to the question whether your organization is sustainable.

So, is your organization sustainable?
The sustainability of the organization can be defined as an ability of the organization to have continuity of their basic activities, i.e. probability the organization to remain capable to continue their main activities during a certain period.

In the organizations there are two types of sustainability, internal and external.

The external sustainability depends on political, socio-cultural, economic and other factors that influence the work of the organization, as well as the actors (clients, target group, donors, deliverers and others). In order to provide external sustainability, the management of the organization has to take into consideration all the possibilities and threats that come from the external surrounding. We can say that the surrounding of one average organization from Republic of Macedonia changes very fast. The changes in the politics of the donor and the economic, social and political changes represent a challenge for the management of every organization. The question that is asked here is how the organization can maintain their basic activities and develop in conditions of turbulent surrounding. The organizations, i.e. their management and employees, should look for instruments and tools for proper analysis and on the basis of the findings and the analyses to decide what steps to take in order to provide the continuity of the organization.

In order to evaluate the external sustainability, it’s common to use the following criteria:
·        Suitability (shows whether the organization is suitable (adequate) for realization of the given and foreseen activities);

·        Legitimacy (shows how much the organization is accepted by the others in its surrounding);

·        Efficiency (shows how much the products and services of the organization really satisfy the needs of the target groups and the users).

The suitability of the organization means whether the planned activities are according to the mission, the number of people necessary with the needed capacities, and the budget and material resources that can be mobilized for implementation of the organizational goals. The evaluation can be done through the current size and quality of the products/services, the recommendations of the target group and the other relevant organizations, the experience of the organization etc.

The legitimacy of the organization can be evaluated through the number of clients that support the organizational mission, the satisfaction of the target group of the products/services of the organization, the number of partner organizations, the size of products/services etc.

The efficiency can be evaluated through the percentage of implemented results as opposed to previously set goals, the target group that use them and that are satisfied by the products and services etc.

 

Concept page

SWOT-matrix is a very efficient tool that is used for analyzing the organization and its immediate surrounding. This analysis is a combination of the internal analyses (strong and weak points) with the external analyses (possibilities and threats).

Possibilities can be defined as external factors-influence that if used, can contribute considerably for the realization of the organization’s mission or for the success of the project.

Threats can be defined as an external factor or influence that has or can give a negative effect in the implementations of the organization and in the success of the project/programme.

Strong points are defined as internal characteristics of the organization that contribute towards the implementation of the mission of the organization or towards the success of the project/programme.

Weak points are internal characteristics of the organization that considerably influence, in a negative way, the functioning of the organization or the success of the project/programme.

 

Liljana Alcheva (trainer/associate at the MCIC)