Quality, standards, core performance indicators, the introduction of a marketing approach, the contract culture, increased trading activities, uncertainty about future funding – it’s hardly surprising that if you talk to anybody in the voluntary sector, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is but one subject occupying most charities at the moment – change.
You’ll hear talk of restructuring, changing demands on fundraising, the changes the Lottery has made to revenue, the changes ever increasing workloads have caused – all around the voluntary sector, irrespective of the size of the charity, the only constant is change.
It’s my firm belief that the voluntary sector as a whole is likely to be subject to some fairly radical changes for at least the next five to ten years; taking us to 2005 – 2010.
And with everything this change comes the need for an understanding and application of change management techniques.
If you’re about to do some accomplish for a charity on change management, then you can probably just reproduce this section of ‘What they don’t tell you about working for a charity’ – if you do, please talk to the publisher first (and make sure you give me an acknowledgement!).
The voluntary sector may be coming of age. But in coming of age there is a widely held belief that change and the need for skills in change management are of paramount importance in the early years of the 21st century.
I’ve already touched on many of the reasons which are contributing to a culture of change within the voluntary sector, but as we all know, people don’t like change. Interestingly, having witnessed the appointment of new Chief Executives in eight charities during the past year alone I have observed exactly the same influences leading to the need for change management skills to be brought to the fore:
Why we are here and what are we doing?
Put someone new in charge of a charity – or a large chunk of one – and you’re likely to introduce a dynamic and fresh management style to support what will inevitably be a major strategic review and resulting restructure of the organization.
This should lead within a year or so to what I’ll call a new VIMVO for the organization: Vision, Mission, Values and Objectives will buy defined (or redefined) and this is no bad thing, especially if the charity is a long established one, or even one which may have been through a difficult stage of development.
Embarking on a strategic review as part of a change management approach throughout the establishment will inevitably highlight what is good and bad about the established culture of the charity.
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