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How to use dynamics?
A lot of organisational problems, regarded at face value, seem to point to a simple and direct solution. Problems are mostly described in a negative formulation: goals are too vague, expertise is lacking, no one keeps agreements. The solutions seem to be the inverts of the negatives: define goals more clear, start capacity building, agree on agreeing.
But simple solutions often fail, because other forces are at work. Underlying mechanisms often affect the potential capacities of the organisation. We call these forces the dynamics of the problem. The dynamics often explain why a specific problem was not solved by the self healing capacity of the organisation. The dynamics may invisibly nourish the problem. They prevent simple solutions to work. Growing individualism for instance explains why top down commands in hierarchical organisations have become less effective.
Knowing the dynamics of a problem may help to take the underlying factors into account when trying to solve the problem. Recognising the dynamics may help to prevent looking for simple solutions.
The dynamics themselves are always refractory and hardly ever manageable.
Most NGO's in former Yugoslavia began their existence during and after the war.
Society was facing huge war related problems and GO's, because of the connections with the fighting parties, were not the ones to handle the situation.
Voluntary actions of civilians tried to bring about relief. A lot of women initiatives were started. Some feminist organisations, already existing before the war, became active as relief organisations. Refugees, women war victims, traumatised women and children were helped, supported, and given shelter.
A lot of those first initiatives were founded by feminists, active in the anti-war movement, and thus strongly ideologically motivated.
Rather soon an immense invasion of international humanitarian aid organisations took place, followed by donor organisations of a variety of nationalities, all looking for possibilities to offer assistance. This invasion took place especially in Bosnia and – a bit less- in Croatia. Serbia was put under a ban by the international community, many NGO’s never profited of the international urge to support NGO’s, other received help, but belated. Helping the fresh initiatives of voluntary women seemed to be a good way to express international solidarity. And so a lot of women action groups and women initiatives turned into NGO's, internationally an accepted organisational form to receive foreign financial support.
The community of NGO's was born. Without NGO models, without a NGO tradition, but gifted with strong ideas, energy, enthusiasm, (wo)manpower and... money. Donors in general did not put much effort into checking the reliability of NGO’s with whom they worked.
In the beginning, those young organisations generally functioned quite well. Enthusiasm made up for the eventual lack of organisational experience and knowledge. The needs of the society were immense, the power of action was proportional. As long as the need was overwhelming, most of the organisations did not suffer from their imperfections.
Organisations able to execute the donors wish to alleviate the war related problems were overrun by donors, jostling each other to spend. In terms of marketing: donors were in a sellers market. Some donors offered money for well defined projects, others offered assistance, training, goods for refugee camps etc. Especially the NGO's dealing with psycho-social help (as was the key product of most of the new women organisations) could choose by whom they wanted be trained, educated or subsidized for their projects. The effect was a comfortable offer of attention and goods (although not always in the right place and not always at the right moment), sometimes an overkill of training and education possibilities and often (especially in big cities) access to funds for relief related work. So relatively small NGO's, with 3 to 10 activists, could contract a lot of people who could do the growing job of visiting refugee camps, taking care of sheltered women and children, counselling, etc.
The young NGO's grew in personnel, often before the own structure and decision making process was organised or crystallized.
Most of the young NGO's had no other model than the strictly organised worker's self-management, or the horizontal anti-war and women's movement. The most desired structure for the young NGO seemed to be a horizontal consultative one. But in the circumstances of rapid growth the time consuming horizontality did not satisfy.
The activists who founded the organisation fell back on their early decision making structure: the leader, two leaders or a small management team became the policy making and decision core of the organisation. Contacts with the donor organisation, other important external contacts, financial control and control over the personnel were all centralised.
NGO's born in another era, without the immense demands caused by a war, get the chance to have an organic development. The founders are for a long time the decisive core of the organisation. If the organisation is successful and survives (not all of them do), sometimes the possibility for funding gradually comes into sight. Some organisations will never be funded, and continue being based on volunteer work, others will get some funds that permit them to transform a part of the voluntary work into paid jobs. Professionals enter the organisation, and with trial and error some organisations learn to deal with such new conditions. Some do not.
Even if organisations get the time to develop gradually, the process of growing will not proceed without problems. Young NGO's will meet setbacks, internal conflicts, problems concerning the founders and power struggles. But a 'normal' growth will lead to a natural selection: organisations which appear not to be viable will disappear, those which are successful will survive, will grow and will enter new phases of development.
This natural selection is working in countries of former Yugoslavia. But in a delayed manner because money was also made available to NGO's that did not have the quality to deliver good service in the first place.
Some time after the war foreign donors began to shift their interest to other parts of the world. Afghanistan is in need, Iraq becomes the next focus of international attention. The international humanitarian aid organisations pull out, leaving the NGO's organisations behind which got used to be funded by them. Panic everywhere. Some foreign donors are willing to continue funding, some of them only if NGO's will change their objectives to meet priorities of the donor or priorities of the donors government. Trafficking of women for instance, becomes a topic for which some donors still want to pay. Some NGO's adjust their goals and start to cover the topic of trafficking as well. They may survive, but there is no funding for their original work: helping refugees, treating war related traumas, fighting sexual violence.
The national government or the local communities sometimes can bring some relief, but the subsidy from these sources is incomparable with the amount of money the NGO's were used to receive.
The shortage of money causes a fight for the available donors and their money. This fight is not only being fought out among the NGO's, but also within organisations, weakening their stability. Paid professionals cannot be contracted any longer, management tries to control the flow of money wherever possible.
However sad it may be, the retreat of donors can have positive effects on the sanity of the NGO community. All the improper reasons to continue, slipped in by paying donors, can be reconsidered.
The moment has come for a firm reorientation of goals. Why are we existing? And what do we want to realise?
As a consequence most NGO's will undergo big changes.