The last couple of weeks I’ve been pondering a simple question: are all for profit sector “best practices” applicable to the charitable sector? What has spurred my musings has been the recent case where Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) has been vilified for some of their spending on celebrating successes and team motivation.
I’m not going to defend any of TCHC’s spending habits (many seem to be rightly questionable and needing of better controls), and I’m very clear TCHC isn’t a charity in most aspects. However, one thing they did do as a public agency is something charities have been dabbling in, and they’ve received a lot of heat for it.
What I’m talking about is their following of a for-profit best practice of giving employees morale-building holiday parties and modest incentive gifts. In the Consumer Packaged Goods world where I grew up there are (to this day) major “Sales Conferences” where big bucks are spent to motivate the troops. And the level of “team building” only gets more expensive and crazy in the Pharmaceutical world… Pick your sector, most every for-profit organization spends money on celebrating with (and thereby building or motivating) the team
You might argue that this spending is wasted or misguided, and you might be right. But for profit companies large and small keep doing it, so surely there must be some payback or rationale for the spending? And would that rationale/benefit apply to the charitable world?
You might argue that it really is only done for the sales team. Maybe, but then would that apply to only the Fundraisers on the charitable side receiving the same motivation?
For once I don’t have an answer. But what is clear is that charities that seek to motivate or team-build using the same best practices as their for-profit peers do so at their peril.
No comments:
Post a Comment