Organizing concepts and principles

¶ … organizing function of management: The use of human resources and knowledge at the nonprofit Night Ministry

The organizing function of management: The use of human resources and knowledge at the nonprofit The Night Ministry

One of the four essential functions of management is organizing, or optimizing the use of an organization's resources. An organization's assets include monetary, human, knowledge-related and technological resources. As a nonprofit organization devoted to serving the public, the Night Ministry must work especially hard to capitalize upon the services of its human resources and the knowledge resources of its paid staff and volunteers. Above all, the organization's use of human resources and knowledge are what make the nonprofit valuable and functional within the community it serves.

The central mission of the Night Ministry is to serve at-risk youth and adults in the city of Chicago. The Night Ministry provides at-risk individuals basic necessities like food, shelter, and clothing; free healthcare, and other supportive services. The need for these services has grown with the recent economic downturn. Also, because the Night Ministry has several permanent bases of operation within the city of Chicago, as well as mobile units that dispense basic essentials and care, it has a vast need for 'many hands' to make its efforts 'light work.' To serve the people, the Ministry requires high-quality people who are generous and committed to their volunteer work.

The Night Ministry has devoted the bulk of its financial assets towards its service efforts, rather than upon administrative costs. Only 12.22% of its overall 2008 budget was devoted to administrative costs, including salaries. 7.25% was devoted to fundraising efforts -- the rest was devoted to funding its actual activities (Financials, 2008, The Night Ministry). To keep salary costs at a minimum, it is thus highly dependant upon volunteers. "Volunteers are a vital part of The Night Ministry's programs. Each year, over 400 hundred volunteers -- individuals and groups -- help us with direct service, support projects, professional services, and office help" (Volunteer, 2010, The Night Ministry). To ensure the efficacy of these volunteers, the organization trains them in a specific, formal training program before they participate. These training efforts involve individual as well as group-related briefings and indicate the extent to which the Night Ministry values trained support staff. The existence of such extensive training programs also provides an additional incentive for individuals to volunteer, as even volunteers can gain critical additional skills that can help them in their own work, such as counseling, sensitivity-training, and administrative skills.

Group volunteer activities fall into two categories. The first, Direct Service Opportunities are where groups "prepare and serve meals at our site locations" (Volunteer, 2010, The Night Ministry). The second are Support Opportunities where groups hold in-house drives for items such as warm coats, which are then distributed to Ministry clients. Organizations affiliated with The Night Ministry include churches, schools, youth groups, and some local businesses. Many of these group efforts are regular and ongoing.

The Night Ministry always needs more volunteers, and must improve its efforts at recruitment. In terms of increasing the number of volunteers, anecdotes about successful experiences and testimonials from groups and individuals would provide a more motivating and positive tone to the Night Ministry's rather bare-bones website. At present, the website is extremely spare in its design and detail, and merely lists ways to volunteer and types of groups that volunteer, along with contact information and logistical details. Making the website more inspiring by including photographs and anecdotal examples would be a fairly easy way to solicit more donations aid. People often want to volunteer because of their determination to be like the shining examples of current members of an organization. Asking a local organization to donate their services in terms of website design might be one way to improve the appearance of the website.

Another under-use of human capital at the Night Ministry is the emphasis on food and clothing drives from student-run and charity-affiliated organization. Soliciting different forms of financial charity from businesses that can afford to donate funds and resources to the organization, when funds are scarce from individuals and government would enable the organization to more easily meet its financial goals. Traditional sources of Ministry funding, including people, state and local authorities, and charities are cash-strapped due to the dip in funding in the wake of the lagging economy. All donations to the Ministry are tax-deductible, and a business could also improve its public image by stressing how it gives back to community organizations.

Given the stress put on volunteerism today by prominent national leaders like President Obama and the ability for individuals looking for jobs to add to their resumes through volunteerism, the Night Ministry also capitalize upon the current national enthusiasm for volunteering by advertising the benefits of volunteerism for the individual, as well as for the recipients of aid. Emphasizing an exchange of knowledge in its volunteer efforts is essential.

The Night Ministry must also work harder to use the resources of knowledge of volunteers and encourage highly skilled individuals to volunteers. Because most of the volunteer-based services of the ministry involve food and clothing drives, the knowledge base of specific volunteers and staff members may under-utilized. Individuals could be asked to volunteer to use their skills and knowledge to offer free job retraining classes for individuals in need for the ministry. Helping people to become computer literate would be especially useful in enabling the community the Night Ministry serves to better their job prospects. Through the use of more highly-skilled and trained volunteers, the Ministry could provide valuable supplemental education for students who go to schools without adequate computer resources. Also, volunteers from IT departments and businesses could create on-site job search libraries. This could become a continuing a joint effort between IT companies and their employees and the Night Ministry.