Understanding Challenges In The Third Sector - Essay Example

Understanding the Challenges in the Third Sector The third sector organizations play instrumental role inshaping the lives of children and persons with varied challenges. Running of activities in the Third Sector Organization is quite challenging owing to a number of factors. Some of these factors borders on the managements whereas others borders on finance (Heather, 2012 p15). In a bid to achieve the goals of the third sector firms, approaches taken by these firms often seek to raise funds from donors as well as displaying effective use of any resources at its disposal.

My volunteer work at the third sector has enabled me to understand a number of challenges affecting this sector. I realized that human resource is a challenge to the third sector. Specifically, distinction between the role of the volunteer and the regular employees often bring many challenges (Tilly, 2011 p 23). among them include planning the activities of the agency with the volunteers. The agency depends on the human resource in running its activities an aspect that makes reliance on the volunteers quite challenging.

As the name suggest, a volunteer may seize to be a staff of the agency. I think soliciting funds is a challenge to the agency because it has a direct impact on running the activity of the organizations. Before the children get into the hands of their adopters, for instance, they live under the care of the agency. This means that the agency has to solicit funds that can sustain the program. Moreover, the agency does know when the adopters would knock at the agency’s door. I think this explains the reasons for allocating funds for nearly every person under the umbrella of the organization.

Although third sector has been in place for a number of years, lack of understanding between funders and state based purchasers makes the running of the agency quite hard. I believe that this misconception is worrying because it shifts the attention of either group, an aspect that might dent the functions of the organization. Arguably, lack of awareness among the main players contributes to this situation (Tilly, 2011 p12). Further, the recognition of the brands used by the third sector is an important step that would help in changing the situation.

I think formalization of the activities of the firm would not only influence the future state of the firm, but also change the present trends in handling issues within the agency. I think distinction between the beneficiaries and the other persons is gnawing at the agency. In turn, the reverberation of this challenge affects normal activities of the firm. This means that the management of the firm must design new tact of approaching this problem. If the agency does not devise a comprehensive approach to the challenges, for instance, service delivery would be below the standards.

Finally, investing on the volunteers is a challenge that the third sector has been tackling. In my opinion, planning the activities of the volunteers seems to be epicenter of the whole issue (Tilly, 2011 p11). However, I believe the organization may look for amicable approaches that would utilize the contribution of the volunteers. Notably, their services are not any different from the services offered by the funders. In this sense, tapping their contribution would solve some of shortcomings within the agency.

Heather, B. (2012). Third Sector Futures Dialogues. Tilly, B. (2011). “Pact Domestic Adoption and Fostering SROI Evaluation”. London: City University London.Tilly, B. (2011). “Summary and extracts from PACT Domestic Adoption and Fostering SROI Evaluation”. London: City University London.