2) National Societies
Understanding National Societies
National Societies (Movement Statutes-Article 3 on National Societies) are diverse because they have grown out of different economical, historical, cultural and political traditions. As pointed out in the 1975 Tansley Report on the state, performance and future of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, this diversity is a strength. However, to maximise the positive effects of diversity, a National Society’s dominant logic needs to be understood by change agents, organizational development facilitators and external partners. A realistic understanding of the cultural context of a National Society directly impacts upon the relevance of advice put forth by facilitators and partners alike.
In the early to mid-1990s, the International Federation developed and adopted the Characteristics of a Well-Functioning Society. These are a set of maximum standards that every National Society should strive to meet and are widely used as a point of reference in organizational development processes throughout the Movement. However, applying these standards is challenging as this framework treats every characteristic with the same importance.
For instance, it places the key element of service delivery at the same level as having in place a staff policy or having a headquarters. Furthermore, it is void of clear guidance on which aspects to prioritise during a change process or evaluation. While these characteristics can serve as a general guide for capacity building, it is important to understand different organizational traditions that affect National Societies.
Different National Society models
The 1999 Federation volunteering review project established that National Societies in Western Europe and in North America define themselves in two ways. National Societies in Western Europe are membership-based while those in North America are based on service delivery. This difference is due to the fact that they have grown out of different organizational traditions.
Initially, it was wrongly assumed that all other National Societies would also belong to one of these two models as a result of being influenced by sister National Societies that have supported them financially and technically over the years. This assumption is now corrected as there are at least two other dominant National Society models: state-structured and foreign-funded.
Membership-based model
The membership model allows for a high degree of accountability and democratic practice. Its major disadvantage is that it can become an exclusive organization that runs a high risk of prioritising the needs of its members rather than focusing on the relevance of their national services to current vulnerabilities.
Almost all National Societies in Western Europe exist in and belong to the same broad tradition of being membership-based. But this does not mean that they are completely similar. On the contrary, historical, cultural, religious and legal differences and evolution over the years have created many sub-traditions between and within different countries. The main organizational tradition is traced back at least 150 years and stemmed from Germany and Britain.
There is no standard membership model, but below is a sample description of what a membership-based National Society can look like today.
Everything starts with the member. Members, and members alone, give the member-based organization its legitimacy. Therefore, the importance of an organization is measured by the number of its members. In some countries, governments give economic support to organizations in proportion to the size of their membership. Members are attracted by the idea of the organization. By joining the organization, they show their moral support for this idea.
The traditional way of becoming and staying a member is to pay an annual fee. This fee has nothing to do with fund-raising. It is a symbol of support and establishes a legal contract between the member and the organization.
Most members only pay their fee. A minority of the members also attend meetings and do some work for the organization. These so-called active members can be divided into two groups: elected and non-elected. Those who are elected represent the other members and make decisions or do other work on their behalf. Their duties might be regulated by common law. Of the non-elected, only some attend meetings, while others carry out work as volunteers. Traditionally they are not called volunteers.
All members, regardless of activity, have the same membership rights. They are considered the owners of the organization. As such they have the right to elect leaders and stand for election. They have the right to take part in annual meetings, to take decisions about the organization, its work and its policies.
Members are usually organised in local branches. These branches are led by a board elected among the members. The branch represents the whole organization and carries out its work in the locality. There are usually no paid staff in the local branch.
All branches together form the national organization and elect its leadership. Large member-based organizations often group their local branches into regions led by regional branches.
Usually the organization has staff at headquarters and at the regional level. Inclusion of staff to the organization is a relatively new element in the membership-based organization (it began during the 1960s and 1970s). There is still no clear understanding of how to combine staff and active members successfully into effective service delivery.
The membership-based society is strong in democratic decision-making, running local services and building civil society. It is weak in the areas of mission-driven work, uniform service delivery and volunteer management. It is slow in adapting to changing needs. There is a high risk that local branches over the years turn into social clubs, where the social needs of the group of members become more important than the delivery of any services.
Service delivery-based model
In contrast to a membership-based model, the service delivery model tends to be efficient in terms of providing tangible and relevant services to vulnerable people, but has a lower degree of democratic control. Since there are no members, control and decision-making are mostly exercised by a small group.
On the other hand, National Societies in North America are considered public organizations and as such the level of support they receive from the public (voluntary contributions) impacts decisions and direction alike. In the service-delivery model, public support to the National Society is based on both the quality and the relevance of its humanitarian services. Fund-raising, marketing and public relations are strong organizational elements in the service-delivery model.
State-structured model
This model exists mainly in China (Volunteering in the Chinese Red Cross) and few other countries with a communist tradition. This model requires a detailed study. The current understanding is based on observation rather than explicit experience. However, it can be said that the state-structured model is closely tied to the government, it is top-down, has both members and volunteers, but draws most if not all of its resources from state organs.
Foreign-funded model
A foreign-funded National Society depends to a large extent on foreign funding for its daily existence and work. Its normal business is to seek and run projects together with or on behalf of one or several foreign funding organizations. It acts as a handling agent. This behaviour is a natural adaptation to the fact that there are foreign donors on the market seeking partners to support. The donor and the funded live in symbiosis.
Here are some important and typical characteristics of the foreign-funded model:
The organization
· Top heavy with weak and unreliable regional and local structures.
· Weak or non-existing network of service-delivery units at the community level; branch level does not reach down to community needs and resources. Relatively few branches and the country only partly covered by the National Society.
Programmes
· A history of dealing mainly with emergencies, ad hoc work and projects. Hardly any experience in developing and running large-scale, ongoing services at community level.
· No national programmes, only islands of services without countrywide coverage. During emergencies, service resources are moved to the place of action.
· Little measuring, publishing and evaluating of output.
· Bureaucratic approach to services: money for services are allocated in a top-down manner.
Resource mobilisation
· Service delivery is partially or totally financed by foreign donors. Donor money is given for projects limited geographically and in time. There is no money for investment in building service-delivery capacity or to finance ongoing programmes.
· The headquarters role is to attract, control and report on resources from donors. “Handling charge” on donor money is an important source of revenue for the headquarters.
· There is hardly any national fund-raising and mobilisation of local resources is non-existent.
Volunteering
· Weak ability to mobilise volunteers who are not motivated by economic incentives; they leave when other organizations offer better incentives.
· Weak ability to recruit volunteers other than unemployed youth; they leave when no longer unemployed, or young.
· No established system to organise and support grass-roots volunteers who work a few hours a week in their spare time to help vulnerable people in their communities. Volunteers are instead recruited to centralised branches, work full days and are often sent on duty to other places when needed.
This description may come across as rather bleak (but realistic) and one-sided. It is important to understand that donors are perpetuating this situation and not addressing capacity building and OD needs adequately.
Additional organizational models
There are two additional organizational models for National Societies to considerDifferent National Society models
The 1999 Federation volunteering review project established that National Societies in Western Europe and in North America define themselves in two ways. National Societies in Western Europe are membership-based while those in North America are based on service delivery. This difference is due to the fact that they have grown out of different organizational traditions.
Initially, it was wrongly assumed that all other National Societies would also belong to one of these two models as a result of being influenced by sister National Societies that have supported them financially and technically over the years. This assumption is now corrected as there are at least two other dominant National Society models: state-structured and foreign-funded.
Membership-based model
The membership model allows for a high degree of accountability and democratic practice. Its major disadvantage is that it can become an exclusive organization that runs a high risk of prioritising the needs of its members rather than focusing on the relevance of their national services to current vulnerabilities.
Almost all National Societies in Western Europe exist in and belong to the same broad tradition of being membership-based. But this does not mean that they are completely similar. On the contrary, historical, cultural, religious and legal differences and evolution over the years have created many sub-traditions between and within different countries. The main organizational tradition is traced back at least 150 years and stemmed from Germany and Britain.
There is no standard membership model, but below is a sample description of what a membership-based National Society can look like today.
Everything starts with the member. Members, and members alone, give the member-based organization its legitimacy. Therefore, the importance of an organization is measured by the number of its members. In some countries, governments give economic support to organizations in proportion to the size of their membership. Members are attracted by the idea of the organization. By joining the organization, they show their moral support for this idea.
The traditional way of becoming and staying a member is to pay an annual fee. This fee has nothing to do with fund-raising. It is a symbol of support and establishes a legal contract between the member and the organization.
Most members only pay their fee. A minority of the members also attend meetings and do some work for the organization. These so-called active members can be divided into two groups: elected and non-elected. Those who are elected represent the other members and make decisions or do other work on their behalf. Their duties might be regulated by common law. Of the non-elected, only some attend meetings, while others carry out work as volunteers. Traditionally they are not called volunteers.
All members, regardless of activity, have the same membership rights. They are considered the owners of the organization. As such they have the right to elect leaders and stand for election. They have the right to take part in annual meetings, to take decisions about the organization, its work and its policies.
Members are usually organised in local branches. These branches are led by a board elected among the members. The branch represents the whole organization and carries out its work in the locality. There are usually no paid staff in the local branch.
All branches together form the national organization and elect its leadership. Large member-based organizations often group their local branches into regions led by regional branches.
Usually the organization has staff at headquarters and at the regional level. Inclusion of staff to the organization is a relatively new element in the membership-based organization (it began during the 1960s and 1970s). There is still no clear understanding of how to combine staff and active members successfully into effective service delivery.
The membership-based society is strong in democratic decision-making, running local services and building civil society. It is weak in the areas of mission-driven work, uniform service delivery and volunteer management. It is slow in adapting to changing needs. There is a high risk that local branches over the years turn into social clubs, where the social needs of the group of members become more important than the delivery of any services.
Service delivery-based model
In contrast to a membership-based model, the service delivery model tends to be efficient in terms of providing tangible and relevant services to vulnerable people, but has a lower degree of democratic control. Since there are no members, control and decision-making are mostly exercised by a small group.
On the other hand, National Societies in North America are considered public organizations and as such the level of support they receive from the public (voluntary contributions) impacts decisions and direction alike. In the service-delivery model, public support to the National Society is based on both the quality and the relevance of its humanitarian services. Fund-raising, marketing and public relations are strong organizational elements in the service-delivery model.
State-structured model
This model exists mainly in China (Volunteering in the Chinese Red Cross) and few other countries with a communist tradition. This model requires a detailed study. The current understanding is based on observation rather than explicit experience. However, it can be said that the state-structured model is closely tied to the government, it is top-down, has both members and volunteers, but draws most if not all of its resources from state organs.
Foreign-funded model
A foreign-funded National Society depends to a large extent on foreign funding for its daily existence and work. Its normal business is to seek and run projects together with or on behalf of one or several foreign funding organizations. It acts as a handling agent. This behaviour is a natural adaptation to the fact that there are foreign donors on the market seeking partners to support. The donor and the funded live in symbiosis.
Here are some important and typical characteristics of the foreign-funded model:
The organization
· Top heavy with weak and unreliable regional and local structures.
· Weak or non-existing network of service-delivery units at the community level; branch level does not reach down to community needs and resources. Relatively few branches and the country only partly covered by the National Society.
Programmes
· A history of dealing mainly with emergencies, ad hoc work and projects. Hardly any experience in developing and running large-scale, ongoing services at community level.
· No national programmes, only islands of services without countrywide coverage. During emergencies, service resources are moved to the place of action.
· Little measuring, publishing and evaluating of output.
· Bureaucratic approach to services: money for services are allocated in a top-down manner.
Resource mobilisation
· Service delivery is partially or totally financed by foreign donors. Donor money is given for projects limited geographically and in time. There is no money for investment in building service-delivery capacity or to finance ongoing programmes.
· The headquarters role is to attract, control and report on resources from donors. “Handling charge” on donor money is an important source of revenue for the headquarters.
· There is hardly any national fund-raising and mobilisation of local resources is non-existent.
Volunteering
· Weak ability to mobilise volunteers who are not motivated by economic incentives; they leave when other organizations offer better incentives.
· Weak ability to recruit volunteers other than unemployed youth; they leave when no longer unemployed, or young.
· No established system to organise and support grass-roots volunteers who work a few hours a week in their spare time to help vulnerable people in their communities. Volunteers are instead recruited to centralised branches, work full days and are often sent on duty to other places when needed.
This description may come across as rather bleak (but realistic) and one-sided. It is important to understand that donors are perpetuating this situation and not addressing capacity building and OD needs adequately. They are presented below for consideration and require further application.
The open-system model
The Open-system model illustrates how an organization work and places the National Society in the context of its environment and lays out the dynamic ways it relates to external forces. Image 3 below shows that, by considering a National Society as an open system, it is an organization that responds to changing needs in a changing environment. The image also reveals the ripple effects any capacity-building activity or intervention has throughout the organization.
What makes the open-system model “open” is that it illustrates that resources are brought in from the environment, a transformation process occurs within the organization, and results and output are created. Resources are affected by outside forces that cannot be controlled such as disasters and by the results of the organization’s actions. If the organization's resource management results in favourable performance, this should impact upon future resources, if it manages resources inappropriately and this results in poor performance, this should negatively impact upon future resources.
Inputs & Resources
ORGANIZATION DECISIONS
Outputs & Outcomes
Operating
Environment
uncontrollable influences
Operating
Environment modified by results
Open System Model
This feedback loop is central to the open-system model, showing how organizations go through sequential phases of activity with the results of previous choices and actions affecting strategic choices in the future. The capacity to deliver relevant activities and its adaptability to external changes determines the social presence and influence of the National Society within its environment.
One important consequence of applying the open-system model is a dynamic capacity-building and organizational development. Capacity-building interventions are closely inter-linked and interdependent. Any modifications or changes within the organization in one area are bound to affect other areas. For instance, if there is a change of structures and systems, it is likely to affect the people and the outputs of the National Society.
Another important consequence is the recognition that the National Society is interacting in a complex environment with many other stakeholders. Stakeholders include groups of vulnerable people, other volunteer organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local agencies, government and local authorities, sister National Societies, the International Federation's Secretariat and the ICRC, and their respective delegations. Each of these stakeholders has their own interests, capacity and activities, and often address the needs of the same target groups and compete for the same resources.
The community-based model
The International Federation’s Strategy 2010 captures the vision of “National Society programmes being responsive to local vulnerability” and of capacity building as “work with the capacities, skills and resources of vulnerable people, empowering them to take charge of their lives”. The strategy further states that “National Societies are open to all individuals who can find in the Red Cross and Red Crescent a space in which to come together to exercise their responsibility to assist others and find solutions to community problems”.
Diagram 1
In order to support communities achieve self-sustainability in a manner which “protects life and health and ensures respect for the human being”, National Societies must acquire the strengths necessary for development and empowerment of communities. For example, Diagram 1 shows how the characteristics of well-being at the community level might be defined if people are to experience access to appropriate health care, reduced exposure to natural hazards or sustainable incomes.
A National Society branch is the closest and the most natural link to a community. For a branch to promote such characteristics within the community, it should have identifiable characteristics itself, such as:
· having a clear role within the organization’s mandate;
· having a skilled human resource base network;
· having effective relations with local government, NGOs and humanitarian actors;
· having a strong position through a coherent communications strategy;
· having the ability and resources to conduct needs assessments to understand the vulnerabilities as experienced by local communities;
· having the capacity to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate programmes; and
· promoting and mobilising local sustainable resources.
By extension, for branches to perform their role successfully, the roles and capacities of the National Society’s headquarters must be defined. The headquarters must demonstrate strength in the following areas:
· support and co-ordination between branches knowledge sharing to ensure best practice is documented and can guide programme development in other branches skills;
· development and training in monitoring, review, evaluation and learning resource mobilisation designed to build self-sustainability external relations and networking; and
· strategic management skills.
In order for National Societies to achieve Strategy 2010’s vision of leading to a richer social fabric which has a direct effect on building civil society and community development, the Federation emphasises the need for all levels of institutional capacity building to focus on developing intimate knowledge of local reality. The regular and systematic use of Diagram 2
tools such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) (Participatory Community Development) and Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCA) enables National Societies to centre their capacity-building efforts around this primary knowledge and to understand local reality.
Diagram 2 shows how a PRA process can be applied at community level through a branch or other local-level National Society structure. This will lead to the identification of who might volunteer to improve the situation, how much is needed in resources (human, technical and financial), and how this could be communicated to others. The next capacity-building step would be to support the process of designing, managing and evaluating programmes to address the community’s needs.
Diagram 2 also shows how a branch can address communities’ needs that remain outside of the Movement’s mandate. For instance, a future search conference can be convened where other humanitarian and development institutions may be able to better respond to the community’s longer-term needs. To empower a community to even articulate its needs is an important role for National Societies in line with Strategy 2010’s vision of the work of the Federation leading to a richer social fabric which has a direct effect on building civil society and community development.
Diagram 3
Diagram 3 shows how the participatory community-based planning through PRA may lead a National Society through an institutional change and capacity-building process. Through this process, all partners can offer strategic and time-bound support to assist the National Society to increase its relevance and response to community needs.
Integrity
The Movement is seen and judged by the outside world to be only as neutral, strong and effective as its single components. Integrity includes full transparency and accountability towards beneficiaries and other stakeholders, in all actions at all levels.
To safeguard the Movement’s integrity, National Societies must act in accordance with the Fundamental Principles and basic humanitarian values. This implies providing humanitarian assistance in an independent, neutral and impartial way as well as full accountability for the efficient use of material and financial resources placed at its disposal for humanitarian purposes.
The International Federation’s constitution calls upon it to be the guardian of the integrity of National Societies and the protector of their interests. Similarly, the ICRC is entrusted with the task of recognising new National Societies as members of the Movement and is responsible for ensuring that the conditions for such recognition are respected.
The International Federation deals with integrity through a development approach. The idea is to engage with a concerned National Society, to support a process to help it recognise integrity issues, and to work with the National Society to implement corrective measures. Sanctions are used only as the last resort.
Additionally, organizational development activities such as working on good governance and management as well as more effective systems contribute significantly to ensuring a higher degree of integrity. Addressing integrity through development work is to be clearly distinguished from compliance monitoring and interventions.
In the early to mid-1990s, the International Federation developed and adopted the Characteristics of a Well-Functioning Society. These are a set of maximum standards that every National Society should strive to meet and are widely used as a point of reference in organizational development processes throughout the Movement. However, applying these standards is challenging as this framework treats every characteristic with the same importance.
For instance, it places the key element of service delivery at the same level as having in place a staff policy or having a headquarters. Furthermore, it is void of clear guidance on which aspects to prioritise during a change process or evaluation. While these characteristics can serve as a general guide for capacity building, it is important to understand different organizational traditions that affect National Societies.
Different National Society models
The 1999 Federation volunteering review project established that National Societies in Western Europe and in North America define themselves in two ways. National Societies in Western Europe are membership-based while those in North America are based on service delivery. This difference is due to the fact that they have grown out of different organizational traditions.
Initially, it was wrongly assumed that all other National Societies would also belong to one of these two models as a result of being influenced by sister National Societies that have supported them financially and technically over the years. This assumption is now corrected as there are at least two other dominant National Society models: state-structured and foreign-funded.
Membership-based model
The membership model allows for a high degree of accountability and democratic practice. Its major disadvantage is that it can become an exclusive organization that runs a high risk of prioritising the needs of its members rather than focusing on the relevance of their national services to current vulnerabilities.
Almost all National Societies in Western Europe exist in and belong to the same broad tradition of being membership-based. But this does not mean that they are completely similar. On the contrary, historical, cultural, religious and legal differences and evolution over the years have created many sub-traditions between and within different countries. The main organizational tradition is traced back at least 150 years and stemmed from Germany and Britain.
There is no standard membership model, but below is a sample description of what a membership-based National Society can look like today.
Everything starts with the member. Members, and members alone, give the member-based organization its legitimacy. Therefore, the importance of an organization is measured by the number of its members. In some countries, governments give economic support to organizations in proportion to the size of their membership. Members are attracted by the idea of the organization. By joining the organization, they show their moral support for this idea.
The traditional way of becoming and staying a member is to pay an annual fee. This fee has nothing to do with fund-raising. It is a symbol of support and establishes a legal contract between the member and the organization.
Most members only pay their fee. A minority of the members also attend meetings and do some work for the organization. These so-called active members can be divided into two groups: elected and non-elected. Those who are elected represent the other members and make decisions or do other work on their behalf. Their duties might be regulated by common law. Of the non-elected, only some attend meetings, while others carry out work as volunteers. Traditionally they are not called volunteers.
All members, regardless of activity, have the same membership rights. They are considered the owners of the organization. As such they have the right to elect leaders and stand for election. They have the right to take part in annual meetings, to take decisions about the organization, its work and its policies.
Members are usually organised in local branches. These branches are led by a board elected among the members. The branch represents the whole organization and carries out its work in the locality. There are usually no paid staff in the local branch.
All branches together form the national organization and elect its leadership. Large member-based organizations often group their local branches into regions led by regional branches.
Usually the organization has staff at headquarters and at the regional level. Inclusion of staff to the organization is a relatively new element in the membership-based organization (it began during the 1960s and 1970s). There is still no clear understanding of how to combine staff and active members successfully into effective service delivery.
The membership-based society is strong in democratic decision-making, running local services and building civil society. It is weak in the areas of mission-driven work, uniform service delivery and volunteer management. It is slow in adapting to changing needs. There is a high risk that local branches over the years turn into social clubs, where the social needs of the group of members become more important than the delivery of any services.
Service delivery-based model
In contrast to a membership-based model, the service delivery model tends to be efficient in terms of providing tangible and relevant services to vulnerable people, but has a lower degree of democratic control. Since there are no members, control and decision-making are mostly exercised by a small group.
On the other hand, National Societies in North America are considered public organizations and as such the level of support they receive from the public (voluntary contributions) impacts decisions and direction alike. In the service-delivery model, public support to the National Society is based on both the quality and the relevance of its humanitarian services. Fund-raising, marketing and public relations are strong organizational elements in the service-delivery model.
State-structured model
This model exists mainly in China (Volunteering in the Chinese Red Cross) and few other countries with a communist tradition. This model requires a detailed study. The current understanding is based on observation rather than explicit experience. However, it can be said that the state-structured model is closely tied to the government, it is top-down, has both members and volunteers, but draws most if not all of its resources from state organs.
Foreign-funded model
A foreign-funded National Society depends to a large extent on foreign funding for its daily existence and work. Its normal business is to seek and run projects together with or on behalf of one or several foreign funding organizations. It acts as a handling agent. This behaviour is a natural adaptation to the fact that there are foreign donors on the market seeking partners to support. The donor and the funded live in symbiosis.
Here are some important and typical characteristics of the foreign-funded model:
The organization
· Top heavy with weak and unreliable regional and local structures.
· Weak or non-existing network of service-delivery units at the community level; branch level does not reach down to community needs and resources. Relatively few branches and the country only partly covered by the National Society.
Programmes
· A history of dealing mainly with emergencies, ad hoc work and projects. Hardly any experience in developing and running large-scale, ongoing services at community level.
· No national programmes, only islands of services without countrywide coverage. During emergencies, service resources are moved to the place of action.
· Little measuring, publishing and evaluating of output.
· Bureaucratic approach to services: money for services are allocated in a top-down manner.
Resource mobilisation
· Service delivery is partially or totally financed by foreign donors. Donor money is given for projects limited geographically and in time. There is no money for investment in building service-delivery capacity or to finance ongoing programmes.
· The headquarters role is to attract, control and report on resources from donors. “Handling charge” on donor money is an important source of revenue for the headquarters.
· There is hardly any national fund-raising and mobilisation of local resources is non-existent.
Volunteering
· Weak ability to mobilise volunteers who are not motivated by economic incentives; they leave when other organizations offer better incentives.
· Weak ability to recruit volunteers other than unemployed youth; they leave when no longer unemployed, or young.
· No established system to organise and support grass-roots volunteers who work a few hours a week in their spare time to help vulnerable people in their communities. Volunteers are instead recruited to centralised branches, work full days and are often sent on duty to other places when needed.
This description may come across as rather bleak (but realistic) and one-sided. It is important to understand that donors are perpetuating this situation and not addressing capacity building and OD needs adequately.
Additional organizational models
There are two additional organizational models for National Societies to considerDifferent National Society models
The 1999 Federation volunteering review project established that National Societies in Western Europe and in North America define themselves in two ways. National Societies in Western Europe are membership-based while those in North America are based on service delivery. This difference is due to the fact that they have grown out of different organizational traditions.
Initially, it was wrongly assumed that all other National Societies would also belong to one of these two models as a result of being influenced by sister National Societies that have supported them financially and technically over the years. This assumption is now corrected as there are at least two other dominant National Society models: state-structured and foreign-funded.
Membership-based model
The membership model allows for a high degree of accountability and democratic practice. Its major disadvantage is that it can become an exclusive organization that runs a high risk of prioritising the needs of its members rather than focusing on the relevance of their national services to current vulnerabilities.
Almost all National Societies in Western Europe exist in and belong to the same broad tradition of being membership-based. But this does not mean that they are completely similar. On the contrary, historical, cultural, religious and legal differences and evolution over the years have created many sub-traditions between and within different countries. The main organizational tradition is traced back at least 150 years and stemmed from Germany and Britain.
There is no standard membership model, but below is a sample description of what a membership-based National Society can look like today.
Everything starts with the member. Members, and members alone, give the member-based organization its legitimacy. Therefore, the importance of an organization is measured by the number of its members. In some countries, governments give economic support to organizations in proportion to the size of their membership. Members are attracted by the idea of the organization. By joining the organization, they show their moral support for this idea.
The traditional way of becoming and staying a member is to pay an annual fee. This fee has nothing to do with fund-raising. It is a symbol of support and establishes a legal contract between the member and the organization.
Most members only pay their fee. A minority of the members also attend meetings and do some work for the organization. These so-called active members can be divided into two groups: elected and non-elected. Those who are elected represent the other members and make decisions or do other work on their behalf. Their duties might be regulated by common law. Of the non-elected, only some attend meetings, while others carry out work as volunteers. Traditionally they are not called volunteers.
All members, regardless of activity, have the same membership rights. They are considered the owners of the organization. As such they have the right to elect leaders and stand for election. They have the right to take part in annual meetings, to take decisions about the organization, its work and its policies.
Members are usually organised in local branches. These branches are led by a board elected among the members. The branch represents the whole organization and carries out its work in the locality. There are usually no paid staff in the local branch.
All branches together form the national organization and elect its leadership. Large member-based organizations often group their local branches into regions led by regional branches.
Usually the organization has staff at headquarters and at the regional level. Inclusion of staff to the organization is a relatively new element in the membership-based organization (it began during the 1960s and 1970s). There is still no clear understanding of how to combine staff and active members successfully into effective service delivery.
The membership-based society is strong in democratic decision-making, running local services and building civil society. It is weak in the areas of mission-driven work, uniform service delivery and volunteer management. It is slow in adapting to changing needs. There is a high risk that local branches over the years turn into social clubs, where the social needs of the group of members become more important than the delivery of any services.
Service delivery-based model
In contrast to a membership-based model, the service delivery model tends to be efficient in terms of providing tangible and relevant services to vulnerable people, but has a lower degree of democratic control. Since there are no members, control and decision-making are mostly exercised by a small group.
On the other hand, National Societies in North America are considered public organizations and as such the level of support they receive from the public (voluntary contributions) impacts decisions and direction alike. In the service-delivery model, public support to the National Society is based on both the quality and the relevance of its humanitarian services. Fund-raising, marketing and public relations are strong organizational elements in the service-delivery model.
State-structured model
This model exists mainly in China (Volunteering in the Chinese Red Cross) and few other countries with a communist tradition. This model requires a detailed study. The current understanding is based on observation rather than explicit experience. However, it can be said that the state-structured model is closely tied to the government, it is top-down, has both members and volunteers, but draws most if not all of its resources from state organs.
Foreign-funded model
A foreign-funded National Society depends to a large extent on foreign funding for its daily existence and work. Its normal business is to seek and run projects together with or on behalf of one or several foreign funding organizations. It acts as a handling agent. This behaviour is a natural adaptation to the fact that there are foreign donors on the market seeking partners to support. The donor and the funded live in symbiosis.
Here are some important and typical characteristics of the foreign-funded model:
The organization
· Top heavy with weak and unreliable regional and local structures.
· Weak or non-existing network of service-delivery units at the community level; branch level does not reach down to community needs and resources. Relatively few branches and the country only partly covered by the National Society.
Programmes
· A history of dealing mainly with emergencies, ad hoc work and projects. Hardly any experience in developing and running large-scale, ongoing services at community level.
· No national programmes, only islands of services without countrywide coverage. During emergencies, service resources are moved to the place of action.
· Little measuring, publishing and evaluating of output.
· Bureaucratic approach to services: money for services are allocated in a top-down manner.
Resource mobilisation
· Service delivery is partially or totally financed by foreign donors. Donor money is given for projects limited geographically and in time. There is no money for investment in building service-delivery capacity or to finance ongoing programmes.
· The headquarters role is to attract, control and report on resources from donors. “Handling charge” on donor money is an important source of revenue for the headquarters.
· There is hardly any national fund-raising and mobilisation of local resources is non-existent.
Volunteering
· Weak ability to mobilise volunteers who are not motivated by economic incentives; they leave when other organizations offer better incentives.
· Weak ability to recruit volunteers other than unemployed youth; they leave when no longer unemployed, or young.
· No established system to organise and support grass-roots volunteers who work a few hours a week in their spare time to help vulnerable people in their communities. Volunteers are instead recruited to centralised branches, work full days and are often sent on duty to other places when needed.
This description may come across as rather bleak (but realistic) and one-sided. It is important to understand that donors are perpetuating this situation and not addressing capacity building and OD needs adequately. They are presented below for consideration and require further application.
The open-system model
The Open-system model illustrates how an organization work and places the National Society in the context of its environment and lays out the dynamic ways it relates to external forces. Image 3 below shows that, by considering a National Society as an open system, it is an organization that responds to changing needs in a changing environment. The image also reveals the ripple effects any capacity-building activity or intervention has throughout the organization.
What makes the open-system model “open” is that it illustrates that resources are brought in from the environment, a transformation process occurs within the organization, and results and output are created. Resources are affected by outside forces that cannot be controlled such as disasters and by the results of the organization’s actions. If the organization's resource management results in favourable performance, this should impact upon future resources, if it manages resources inappropriately and this results in poor performance, this should negatively impact upon future resources.
Inputs & Resources
ORGANIZATION DECISIONS
Outputs & Outcomes
Operating
Environment
uncontrollable influences
Operating
Environment modified by results
Open System Model
This feedback loop is central to the open-system model, showing how organizations go through sequential phases of activity with the results of previous choices and actions affecting strategic choices in the future. The capacity to deliver relevant activities and its adaptability to external changes determines the social presence and influence of the National Society within its environment.
One important consequence of applying the open-system model is a dynamic capacity-building and organizational development. Capacity-building interventions are closely inter-linked and interdependent. Any modifications or changes within the organization in one area are bound to affect other areas. For instance, if there is a change of structures and systems, it is likely to affect the people and the outputs of the National Society.
Another important consequence is the recognition that the National Society is interacting in a complex environment with many other stakeholders. Stakeholders include groups of vulnerable people, other volunteer organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local agencies, government and local authorities, sister National Societies, the International Federation's Secretariat and the ICRC, and their respective delegations. Each of these stakeholders has their own interests, capacity and activities, and often address the needs of the same target groups and compete for the same resources.
The community-based model
The International Federation’s Strategy 2010 captures the vision of “National Society programmes being responsive to local vulnerability” and of capacity building as “work with the capacities, skills and resources of vulnerable people, empowering them to take charge of their lives”. The strategy further states that “National Societies are open to all individuals who can find in the Red Cross and Red Crescent a space in which to come together to exercise their responsibility to assist others and find solutions to community problems”.
Diagram 1
In order to support communities achieve self-sustainability in a manner which “protects life and health and ensures respect for the human being”, National Societies must acquire the strengths necessary for development and empowerment of communities. For example, Diagram 1 shows how the characteristics of well-being at the community level might be defined if people are to experience access to appropriate health care, reduced exposure to natural hazards or sustainable incomes.
A National Society branch is the closest and the most natural link to a community. For a branch to promote such characteristics within the community, it should have identifiable characteristics itself, such as:
· having a clear role within the organization’s mandate;
· having a skilled human resource base network;
· having effective relations with local government, NGOs and humanitarian actors;
· having a strong position through a coherent communications strategy;
· having the ability and resources to conduct needs assessments to understand the vulnerabilities as experienced by local communities;
· having the capacity to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate programmes; and
· promoting and mobilising local sustainable resources.
By extension, for branches to perform their role successfully, the roles and capacities of the National Society’s headquarters must be defined. The headquarters must demonstrate strength in the following areas:
· support and co-ordination between branches knowledge sharing to ensure best practice is documented and can guide programme development in other branches skills;
· development and training in monitoring, review, evaluation and learning resource mobilisation designed to build self-sustainability external relations and networking; and
· strategic management skills.
In order for National Societies to achieve Strategy 2010’s vision of leading to a richer social fabric which has a direct effect on building civil society and community development, the Federation emphasises the need for all levels of institutional capacity building to focus on developing intimate knowledge of local reality. The regular and systematic use of Diagram 2
tools such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) (Participatory Community Development) and Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCA) enables National Societies to centre their capacity-building efforts around this primary knowledge and to understand local reality.
Diagram 2 shows how a PRA process can be applied at community level through a branch or other local-level National Society structure. This will lead to the identification of who might volunteer to improve the situation, how much is needed in resources (human, technical and financial), and how this could be communicated to others. The next capacity-building step would be to support the process of designing, managing and evaluating programmes to address the community’s needs.
Diagram 2 also shows how a branch can address communities’ needs that remain outside of the Movement’s mandate. For instance, a future search conference can be convened where other humanitarian and development institutions may be able to better respond to the community’s longer-term needs. To empower a community to even articulate its needs is an important role for National Societies in line with Strategy 2010’s vision of the work of the Federation leading to a richer social fabric which has a direct effect on building civil society and community development.
Diagram 3
Diagram 3 shows how the participatory community-based planning through PRA may lead a National Society through an institutional change and capacity-building process. Through this process, all partners can offer strategic and time-bound support to assist the National Society to increase its relevance and response to community needs.
Integrity
The Movement is seen and judged by the outside world to be only as neutral, strong and effective as its single components. Integrity includes full transparency and accountability towards beneficiaries and other stakeholders, in all actions at all levels.
To safeguard the Movement’s integrity, National Societies must act in accordance with the Fundamental Principles and basic humanitarian values. This implies providing humanitarian assistance in an independent, neutral and impartial way as well as full accountability for the efficient use of material and financial resources placed at its disposal for humanitarian purposes.
The International Federation’s constitution calls upon it to be the guardian of the integrity of National Societies and the protector of their interests. Similarly, the ICRC is entrusted with the task of recognising new National Societies as members of the Movement and is responsible for ensuring that the conditions for such recognition are respected.
The International Federation deals with integrity through a development approach. The idea is to engage with a concerned National Society, to support a process to help it recognise integrity issues, and to work with the National Society to implement corrective measures. Sanctions are used only as the last resort.
Additionally, organizational development activities such as working on good governance and management as well as more effective systems contribute significantly to ensuring a higher degree of integrity. Addressing integrity through development work is to be clearly distinguished from compliance monitoring and interventions.
Personas
Contactos externos
Linda Micciche