Newsletter December 2014
CGO Transitions is a very small social enterprise with big aspirations! Over the course of the year, we’ve met lots of people, heard lots of stories of amazing work, and stood alongside people as they grapple with transitions – personal and organisational. These occasional newsletters are our way of staying in touch. We like your feedback on progress you are making, and welcome comment and critique on the book.
Our goal this year was to make our book Stepping Through Transitions and the associated workshops on Managing Transitions in Community Organisations as widely known and accessible as possible.
Workshops
In partnership with community groups Judith and Hazel offered open workshops in Hamilton (Community Waikato) Taranaki (Bishop's Action Foundation and Wheelhouse); Christchurch (Hope Presbyterian Church), South Auckland (Friendship House); Masterton (Connecting Communities Wairarapa) Dunedin (COSSD), and West Auckland (Community Waitakere). We also ran two open workshops in Auckland under our own auspices and two organisation development workshops at the request of Cambridge Community House, and SILC Tauranga. This is building a growing network of organisations using the CGO Development Model to strengthen their effectiveness for the common good.
We tailor each workshop to specific community contexts – when the case studies we devise exactly mirror real situations (as happened recently) we know that many of the issues of transition are widely shared One workshop participant had to leave in the middle of discussing a particular scenario in order to attend to the very crisis under discussion!
After the Masterton workshop, Helen Dew, of Living Economies, commented: “The workshop provided a timely toolkit as our Trust transitions from small scale to much greater demand for our speakers and workshops on Timebanking, Savings Pools and Local Currency systems.” Living Economics is an Educational Trust that investigates and promotes co-operative, sustainable and fair economic systems that help communities and organisations prepare for the challenges ahead. Helen can be contacted at Website & bookstore: www.le.org.nz. Email: info@le.org.nz. The photo below shows Helen checking her organisation against the CGO Development model. Remember, you can download a pdf of this Model from our website: http://www.cgotransitions.co.nz/cgo-development-model
Planning for 2015
We are now planning next year’s workshops with community partners. So far these are under discussion.
Timaru, Presbyterian churches 14 February 2015
Tauranga Switched On, SILC 14 April 2015
Porirua Volunteer Wellington 22 April 2015
Tokoroa TCOSS 29 April 2015
If you would like us to bring a workshop to your district, or want us to work on your full organisation, please be in touch as soon as possible: workshops@cgotransitions.co.nz.
Book Sales
Sales of the book continue at a steady pace but reaching new readers isn’t easy. UNITEC is our stalwart partner in this, encouraging all students on the Graduate Diploma or Certificate in NFP Management to buy a copy. Several consultants and organisations have bought multiple copies, either as prizes and gifts for clients, or as ‘required reading’ for staff and board members. A discount is available if you want to purchase five or more at any one time.
Judith had a very interesting discussion with Murray Edridge, Deputy Director, Community Investment, MSD, on how Stepping Through Transitions might be useful for MSD’s Capacity and Capability initiatives. Several organisations who have done workshops in both forums find the different approaches complimentary and useful.
Another way we have tried to reach organisations is by attending conferences for the NFP Sector. We are very grateful to conference organizers for giving us this opportunity to make the book known.
Research developments
Congratulations to Ljiljana on her promotion to Associate Professor, in the Department of Management and International Business, in recognition of her research and teaching in governance and strategy, including the NFP/CGO sector.
1. Publications and conference presentations
Ljiljana presented a conference paper and poster, at the 11th International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research in Muenster, Germany, 22-25 July 2014. Her discussions generated considerable overseas interest.
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Erakovic, L., & McMorland, J. (2014). Charting new waters: Building more effective nonprofit organizations.
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McMorland, J. & Erakovic, L. (2014). Common Good Organization Development Model: A new perspective on organizational growth.
(For poster, see our website www.cgotransitions/resources)
Judith attended the ANZTSR Third Sector Research Conference in Christchurch. It was great to catch up with Kiwi friends in the sector and renew friendships with Australian academics who are equally passionate about this field. Especially exciting to hear more and more people talking about common good organisations (rather than NFPs).
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McMorland, J. and Erakovic, L (2014) “In celebration of actionable theory” is posted on Community Research website http://www.communityresearch.org.nz/browse/all/
2. Book chapter:
Ferkins, L., Erakovic, L., McMorland, J. ‘Leading Organisational Change’. Will be published in D. Murray, I. O’Boyle, and P. Cummins (eds.). Leadership in Sport by Routledge (UK) in 2015. This chapter focuses on the link between leadership and change within sport organisations. The CGO Development Model is an underpinning framework of this chapter.
3. New research
Liliana’s new project ‘Governance in NFP organisations: Contributing to the common good’. This project explores the links between NFP governance and the broader public environment. Liliana places particular emphasis on examining how the issues of sustaining service delivery, financial viability, advocacy, civic engagement and changing governmental policies influence and are influenced by organisational governance. During October and November 2014 she conducted 35 interviews with a diverse group of participants from the sector. The project report is expected to be published by mid-2015.
Charitable status application
Judith gave a short presentation on the CGO Development Model to staff of Charities Services in November, organised by Scott Miller who also posted a very encouraging book review on the Charities Newsletter. See this on
In view of the educational, development, research and training work we do, CGO Transitions Ltd. has now applied to Charities Services for recognition as a charitable company. We expect to hear in the first quarter of next year.
