The Contemporary World of Community Organizations

Question: Discuss about theContemporary World of Community Organizations. Answers: Introduction Over and over again people have been found to belong to two or more communities, but this is changing in the modern world where communities have become more individualistic and as varied as its members (Salamon, et al, 2000). Some of the communities that we most often belong to includes business communities, educational communities, work communities, religious communities, sports and cultural communities. With that communities have been defined as the foundation that enable societies to make sense of the world they occupy, share experiences and participate in making the world a better place to live in. Therefore communities offers sense of belonging to, being part of and a purpose to live in this world (Hudson, 2009). The characteristics of community organization are as follows; having rules and regulation, being private, operate on nonprofit basis, involving some degree of voluntary commitment and the financing of these communities is more complicated than the profit and the governm ent organizations. These characteristics are elaborated further in the paper. The Contemporary World of Community Organizations Australia provides a good foundation of these study as community organizations have been given a good consideration in the region. This is because non-profit organizations in the region are among the many well-known organizations. Nonprofit organizations are many and diverse in Australia, but together they form a distinct and separate class of organizations. These organizations differs from the government organizations as they formulates their own rules and regulations (Hudson, 2009). To start with, the non-profit organizations are in themselves an organization. This means that all of them have regulations and guiding principles that govern their day to day activities. While majority of non-profit organization are not incorporated as they majorly rely on volunteering labour. Some of the non-profit organizations are integrated, meaning the cooperation is autonomous to its associate members (Jackson, Donovan, 1999). The large non-profit organization offering employment are a good exam ple of the integrated organizations. The non-profit organizations are categorized as private. This means that the non-profit are not directly controlled by the government. The government is only involved when such organization rely on the government to finance large part of the organizational operational revenue (Edwards, Yankey, 2006). The most important indication that shows that non-profit organization are not part of the government is that their action are not subject to the parliamentary scrutiny and are not subject to ministerial directions. Thirdly the non-profit organizations as the name suggests are non-profit making organizations. This should not be misunderstood with entirely not making any profit as it makes some surplus at the end of the financial year. If this were the case like any other private organization, the non-profit organization would cease to exist. The difference between the non-profit and the private organization is that, the non-profit organizations do not distribute the profit the company ac quires to its members at the end of financial year like the private organizations. Nonetheless, the main target of the organization is not to make an enormous returns (Hudson, 2009). The non-profit organization can be distinguished from the government and the private sectors as they involve some voluntary commitment of time by members of the non-profit organization. Some non-profit may employ people to provide labour, services and management but to some extent they still rely on voluntary labour (Craig, Mayo, 1995). Majority of non-profit organizations depend and rely entirely on the volunteering services to obtain labour for the organization. Another distinction of nonprofit organization from the private and government organization is that the non-profit are member owned organization. Schools and hospitals owned by religious groups like Catholic Church provides a good example of the exemptions whereby a non-profit is owned by a fellow non-profit organization. In this case the stakeholders to a school includes, the religious group which is Catholic Church, the pupils or students, the parents, the teachers and the non-teaching staff. Here the members expectation differs largely from the shareholders of the organization to an individual owner who expect to financially benefit from ownership of the school institution (Edwards, Yankey, 2006). Lastly the mechanism of financing a non-profit organization tend to bear some forms of complications as compared to a same size government or private organization. The funds running the organization are sourced from various sources including unrelated business ventures, donations from individuals and companies, returns on investments, government funding, and revenue from various fundraising events, and sponsorship (Lyons, 2001). As indicated above the non-profit organization differ from the private for profit in terms of obtaining their operational finances from a wider variety of sources while for profit obtain their day to day revenue from sale of goods and services. A group of non-profit still rely on third parties even though they provide services to the public. A few number of non-profits entirely depend on the government to provide them with fund to carry out their daily activities. Thus the difference is manifested in the source of income and the form in which this income is r eceived (Iriye, 2002). As highlighted above many non-profit organization globally lack of legal mandate which forms part of the challenges experienced by the nonprofit organizations. Despite the fact that lack of legal mandate may not be problematic for the small non-profit community organizations, this brings about a lot of challenges to the larger organizations that are involved in contracts, employ people as well as those that own property. As for the Australian government the non-profit have benefited as the government has provided an opening to allow integration. This is especially important because it prevents groups with intension of gaining profits and also indicates to all the importance of the non-profit. The Australian government has made an effort to encourage formation of the nonprofit organizations, whereby, in each territory groups of people come together to form an association (Lyons, 2001). Conclusion In conclusion, the non-profit organization for instance in Australia, offers a great deal of social, political and economic benefits to the country. This includes provision of education, health, community and other general public services to all community members. The aspect of the non-profit organization not being driven by the government nor desire for profits provide a good background that should be emulated and adopted by all nations in the globe. References Edwards, R Yankey, J 2006, Effectively managing nonprofit organizations, NASW Press, Washington. Hudson, M 2009, Managing without profit: leadership, management and governance in third sector organizations in Australia,UNSW Press, Sydney. Iriye, A., 2002. Global community: The role of international organizations in the making of the contemporary world. University of California Press. Jackson, A Donovan, F 1999, Managing to survive: managerial practice in not-for-profit organizations, Allen Unwin, Sydney. Lyons, M 2001, Third sector: the contribution of nonprofit and cooperative enterprises in Australia, Allen Unwin, Sydney, NSW. Craig, G. and Mayo, M., 1995. Community empowerment: A reader in participation and development. Zed Books. Salamon, L.M., Hems, L.C. and Chinnock, K., 2000. The nonprofit sector: for what and for whom?. Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies. Taylor, M., 2007. Community participation in the real world: opportunities and pitfalls in new governance spaces. Urban studies, 44(2), pp.297-317.