Relying on donations to survive

My recent survey on organisations addressing social issues in South Africa, shows that the vast majority of the sample surveyed, are reliant on donations to survive.

The survey was completed by 153 organisations, and the full results can be found on this blog.

All the organisations surveyed have been set-up to directly address social or environmental issues in South Africa.

Two-thirds of the organisations are reliant on donations and grants to survive, meaning they do not have an independent way of generating an income to help the organisation to survive.

Some organisations that completed the survey are, arguably, in the fortunate position where they are completely sponsored by a parent organisation or trust.

But what happens if the parent organisation gets into financial difficulties or their objectives change, meaning they can no longer support the subsidiary organisation that is striving to address social causes?

Without an independent income source, the organisation will continue to be reliant on hand-outs and have little control over their future existence.

The good news is that a fifth of the organisations that were interviewed do sell products or services that cover their costs.

It's important that more organisations that are set-up to address social and environmental issues start to use the principles of social business so that they can become financially independent and no longer be at the whim of philanthropists.


Mike.