Civil society (CS) sustainability is gaining traction in international policy. But what do we really mean by sustainability of CS? What indicators and dimensions can we identify under the umbrella term sustainability? Are there some frameworks that can be used to track sustainable CS? And do people have a case study of a sustainable organisation to share?
One of the dimensions is financial sustainability.
Service sustainability
Sustainability of services is when the services provided and /or the health impact made by an organization continue long after the original or primary donor funding is withdrawn (USAID, 2011).
Benton and Monroy (2004) argue that “sustainability is a generic concept defined more by the context of its application than by any settled meaning.” They define sustainability as “the ability of a given organization to reduce its dependency and to improve its significance in the market while maintaining its social mission.”
Smukowski (2006) defines business sustainability as “a pro-active approach to ensure the long-term viability and integrity of the business by optimizing resources needs, reducing environmental, energy or social impacts, and managing resources while not compromising profitability.”
In my experiences the problem with participatory design in squatter settlements is the public administration and its the bad management. They waste money and social capital...why? I want to know. It is not because they do not know the profound details of their public. For exemplo, right now I am very angry and alone about "my" last project in Salvador-Bahia Brasil. The place is behind the very famous touristic Church called Senhor do Bonfim. The community and me spent every single day during all year 2009 to understand the landscape and then to develop the project to the future. The government in that time wanted to push a diferent project. The community' reaction was against the idea, they want to discuss what we did and making some adjustment. The government took out the money and the possibility to build reurbanization. So the government waited until now 2014 and persueded the community to that project. No matter how much money you have, to mantain the society desire or even a dialogue, the society has to be permanent nigth watch. So there is no prescription. Fight for have a voice all the time.
I have compared in my recent book (attached) 143 countries and thereby developed a framework with 13 indicators that could be useful also when discussing civil society sustainability. I have also made a typology of organisations and discussed their relationships with human traits. This could be used for analysing sustainable organizations.
Book Missing a Decent Living for Everyone: Success and Failure in...
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Methodology
- Research Methodology
- Research Papers