Funding for charities – overcoming internal barriers to new revenue streams
Property is proven as a source from which new short and long term revenue streams can be generated but the ability to access this funding is often frustrated by organisational silos and internal fiefdoms.
Evidence shows that teams and groups are self-organising as an organisation grows. Not-for-profit organisations can be predisposed to internal segregation as programs and funding sources compartmentalise staff and management. This can constrain the flow of information within the organisation, creating barriers to new ideas and approaches from which the organisation could benefit. In this way internal fiefdoms can get in the way of taking positive action.
The potential to create new revenue streams from a charity’s property assets is magnified when the assets are considered from a portfolio perspective, where all the organisations properties with all of their opportunities and limitations are assessed against all of the charity’s property related requirements, and where opportunities to release value to support the charity’s purpose can be identified. This process is compromised, sometimes fatally, if one or more silos choose not to cooperate.
An effective mechanism to combat this inertia is to have a property strategy prepared by an independent advisor with commercial property and development expertise. A necessary prerequisite of a successful strategy is that the advisor is truly independent with no incentive other than to provide good advice. The advisor should not be, for example, a developer interested in developing some of the organisation’s property or a real estate agent with an interest in creating a transaction and thus earning a fee.
A major benefit of expert independent advice is that it enables good communication about property strategy within a charity. It provides a common language, analysis and recommendations for staff and management which promote better communication, comprehension and decisions.
For the organisation’s decision makers, advice from an independent expert carries a significant probity benefit. Adopting the advice can’t be interpreted as pandering to any particular internal interest and is demonstrably free of external conflicts or vested interests. The decision makers can be seen to have acted in accordance with independent expert advice.
For similar reasons independent expert advice can cut through internal politics and breakdown internal silos in relation to the organisation’s property strategy. It’s difficult to argue internally against independent expert advice when it has the twin objectives of furthering the organisation’s mission and supporting the services that it provides.
Independent expert advice is an effective tool that charities can use to overcome silos and access new revenue streams from property.
To learn more about generating low risk revenue streams from property please contact us on 02 9966 8898 or email us at admin@augustaadvisors.com.au.
