2.9.1.1. The quality of the output often is not at question so long as the organisation fills a gap. The fact that the service (or product) is offered at all, is the most important issue. Refugees are given shelter. Violated women are offered a safe house. Silence around sexual abuse is broken. Raped women are helped to pursue the perpetrator. Etc. It is not a problem that the help is given by people who are not professionals. Maybe it is even a advantage that they do not belong to the professions who failed at the crucial moments. But gradually if the organisation is growing, the expectancies are growing too. The workers themselves feel the same thing, they are no longer satisfied with offering the basics, they want to be of help by counselling or therapy, by education, training, consult etc., all based on their own experiences and new methods of approach. If one of the NGO's aims is to influence regular institutions to offer products or services better adapted to the existing demands, then the professional status of the workers becomes more important. The receptiveness of psychiatric practitioners for instance, in principle willing to listen to possible ameliorations of their approach of violated women, will diminish if members of the NGO do not share with them the same body of knowledge. Especially if the message sounds too simple ('you have to listen to the woman in question') a lacking comparable status or formal education can harm the cooperation.

In short: NGO's whose activities pretend to go beyond filling the gap should professionalize.

Look at solution 2: from pioneer to professional.