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  NGO Manager: about us
 
 
1. What is NGO Manager
2. Mission statement
3. Our services
4. FAQ
5. Who we are
6. Partnerships with other organisations
7. Individual membership
8. Support
9. Contact information
10. Webmasters


What is NGO Manager?

NGO Manager aspires to provide a comprehensive range of nonprofit management services to managers of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including training courses and consultancy, and research on how to improve management capacity building. As of now, the NGO Manager website provides a selection of the best management tools and key articles which are available on the internet free of charge. The NGO Manager’s E-Library currently contains links to more than 300 commented tools and articles.

The website is in response to the fact that NGOs often lack the means to provide adequate management knowledge and training to their managers. In addition, there are relatively few nonprofit support organisations that focus on management capacity building for NGOs, particularly in the South. As a result, the capacity and skills needed for the successful planning and implementation of projects are often insufficient, which can translate into an unsatisfactory impact and overall performance of the NGO.

NGO Manager helps managers of NGO to find practical solutions to the following challenges:

  1. How to develop an organisational strategy, aims and objectives
  2. How to create, promote and manage projects successfully
  3. How to obtain funding and to use funds properly
  4. How to manage human resources well
  5. How to communicate an organisation’s aims internally and externally and how to plan and carry out a marketing strategy
NGO Manager is online since December 2001.

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2. Mission Statement

Our mission is to assist NGOs in the North and the South in developing sustainable management capacity to take effective action for the benefit of the communities or cause they serve.

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3. Our services

We currently offer the following services:
  1. The E-Library provides over 300 commented links to a selection of the best management tools and articles for NGOs. If you wish to share a particularly useful tool or article with other NGOs, please let us know! Send your contribution to editors@ngomanager.org.

  2. The e-Newsletter provides subscribers with updates on new tools and articles available on the NGO Manager website. To receive the e-Newsletter, please sign up here.

  3. The NGO Manager Jobs mailing list helps job seekers to find interesting vacancies in the field of management of NGOs and employers to post their management vacancies to a specialised public of NGO managers. To receive the Jobs Mailing list or to post new vacancies, please sign up here.
NGO Manager's E-Library, the E-Newsletter and the Jobs Mailing List are free of charge.

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4. FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

What is an NGO? | What is NGO management? | Why is NGOmanager needed? | Who are our users? |


What is an NGO?

NGOs: an NGO is best defined by describing what it is not:

  • Non governmental:As the term indicates, an NGO is not a governmental organisation, therefore basically independant from governmental control; their governing boards are usually constituted by members of civil society who serve in a personal capacity.

  • Non profit:The objectives of NGOs are non-profit. NGOs can generate revenues from their activities, but these go towards forwarding the organisation's goals. Essentially, an NGO does not belong to shareholders but to society at large.
  • In our view, non governmental (NGO) and nonprofit refer to the same organisations: the difference is more a question of geography. "NGO" is used by the United Nations, and generally used in the South. Nonprofit is generally used in the United States.


    What is NGO management?

    NGOs are active in a large number of fields: humanitarian, human rights, development, education, health, environment protection to name just a few. Yet despite this large diversity, many NGOs face common management challenges, such as:
  • How to ensure best impact for beneficiaries
  • How to obtain funding
  • How to lobby governments for social change
  • How to coordinate, cooperate and network with other NGOs
  • How to plan, implement, monitor, evaluate, learn
  • How to structure themselves, how to govern themselves
  • How to work according to values and principles
  • How to recruit and motivate volunteers
  • These common challenges are, in our opinion, what constitutes NGO management.


    Why is NGO Manager needed?

    NMG answers to an emerging need for a focal point on the topic of NGO management, to bring together learning and knowledge from the various strands of NGO management, presently separated:
  • By geography and language: NGOs world-wide have entered a phase of professionalisation and are busy development management skills and building capacity. Yet developments take place in an isolated fashion, with little communication between language and geographical groups. There is a clear need for a forum to bring together all developments concerning NGO management.

  • By field of activity: NGOs work in very different fields: humanitarian, human rights, the environment, education and literacy, health, to name a few. Within each field, these NGOs network together, yet there is little communication between fields. There is as yet no cross-cutting common platform where all NGOs can find answers to their management questions issues, even though many of these organisations share common management challenges.

  • Who are our users?

    NGOs and NGO federative bodies are our primary users as have an evident interest in the topic of NGO management. However other types of institutions also follow NGO management issues with interest:
  • Academic: universities are increasing their course offerings tuned to needs of NGO professionals, building on the strengths of business management, development management institutes, public management.

  • Donors: to ensure that funding achieves desired impact, donor organisations encourage NGOs to develop their management capacity and professional standards.

  • Consultants: an increasing number of management consultants specialise in NGO management; even major international consultants are also developing their services to this overlooked sector.

  • Businesses: understanding value-driven NGOs is becoming increasingly appealing to for-profits in their drive for corporate responsibility and partnership with civil society. Today many major corporations include social goals into their mission statements.
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    5. Who we are

    NGO Manager was created by a small group of professionals working in the humanitarian sector in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2001. Their starting point was to help NGOs improving their management capacity and performance through a non-profit Internet service. Members from the association NGO Management Group (NMG) maintain and develop the website. NMG is a small independent nonprofit association based near Geneva in Switzerland. Its members are NGO management specialists and practitioners who are working in the fields of development, environment, humanitarian aid and education in the South and the North. Several of NMG's members accomplished their studies in NGO management in the London School of Economics' Centre for Civil Society.


    The NGO Manager team:


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    6. Partnerships with other organisations

    Sharing knowledge and skills are crucial for the success of civil society organizations. For us, partnerships among organizations are the key instrument to achieve this aim. Our partnership development focuses on the development of nonprofit management services to managers of NGOs, including management training courses, and research on capacity building. Ideal partners are organizations with good knowledge of local needs and the interest to actively develop the management capacity of NGOs in your area or country. If your organization is interested in building up such partnerships and you wish to obtain further information, please contact Marco Kirschbaum, at mkirschbaum@ngomanager.org.

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    7. Individual membership

    Do you wish to contribute to the development of the NGO Manager website? You are most welcome to join us at the NGO Management Group. As a member, you can actively participate in a working group for the development of one of the main themes of the website. For details, please send an email to the editors, at editors@ngomanager.org, and indicate the subject(s) of your particular interest.

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    8. Support

    If you find NGO Manager useful, you can help us to maintain and develop the website and the services provided for NGOs. NGO Manager is planning to improve and extend its services and activities and is looking for sponsors to help it do so. Sponsors can be NGOs or donors interested in building the management capacity of NGOs. NGO Manager's unique approach is to be of direct service to the people who run NGOs by providing them with practical management tools and information. Through its efficient use of email notifications, it does its best to reach NGOs in developing areas with restricted internet access, which could not otherwise easily benefit from online resources. If you would like to sponsor NGO Manager and wish to know more about our strategic objectives and development plan, please contact Marco Kirschbaum at mkirschbaum@ngomanager.org.

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    9. Contact information

    NGO Manager welcomes your feedback! If you have questions, comments or suggestions about NGO Manager and its services, please contact us at editors@gomanager.org.

    Mail address:

    NGO Manager
    3 ruelle de la Repentance
    CH-1269 Bassins
    Switzerland

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    10. Webmasters: Link to us

    You are more than welcome to link to NGO Manager, either our homepage, or a specific page of the resource directory which is particularly useful to your website. Just send us an email to let us know. Here is a text you can use to describe NGO Manager:
    "The NGO Manager website provides managers and staff of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with a selection of the best management tools and key articles available on the internet free of charge."
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