KaBOOM is a non-profit organization that exists in the United States which helps the societies to built playgrounds for their children. The company was found in 1996 by Darell Hammond and Dawn Hutchison. Their inspiration to form the company emanated from their reading of the Washington Post where two children suffocated to death. The two were playing in an abandoned car because they did not have a playground to play on. The organization is a non-profit organization which means that it exists solely on help and aid from grants. KaBOOM has a number of missions and visions which it aspires to achieve within a long-term and short-term durations. KaBOOM is a non-profit organization devoted to give children the best childhood moment they deserve. The childhood that the children deserve is characterized by balanced and active play which paves way for them to thrive well. The organization mainly focuses on children who grow and thrive in poverty in the United States (Hammond 34). The Company does so by inspiring communities to promote and support play. The organization also drives the national discussion on the significance on play in fostering healthy and productive lives for children. To achieve the above vision, the company not only aspires to catalyze the community on the importance of creating a playground, it also creates great places to play. KaBOOM, in addition, empowers advocates who promote and protect the playgrounds from land-grabbers. The Enterprise has a mission of ensuring that school kids have a free time in school to play. According to research, children who have play as a routine of their school day do well in classes, become team players and develop into innovative and creative people. It is within the mission of the company to have many schools devote their students to play so that they may excel in their studies (Hammond 45).
There are a number of strategic issues that KaBOOM board of directors should focus on and ensure their prosperity as it will ensure the success of the company. The first strategic issue is to develop capacity building within the organization so that the company’s projects, processes, and programs may develop in an efficient manner. Secondly, the Board ought to augment volunteers are promoters of the enterprise’s growth and operational independence. The Board should ensure an adoption of the implementation of accountability and transparency measures which respond well with clients, donors, community, and governmental agencies. The board should also support and endorse the improvement of performance measures transparent and accountability measure. The Board can also foster research within the organization which will contributes new knowledge, ideas, best practice, and other innovative policies which promotes the NGO’s image and operations (Hammond 57). Further, the Board should adapt a strategy that promotes integration and evaluation as a sector if the institutional control system. The integration also acts as a requisite for the assignment of the funds. Finally, the Board ought to facilitate the adoption of norms, standards, and procedures as a way of fostering and supporting the effectiveness and responsibility within the NGO.
There are a number of measures that I would like to see implemented and acted upon as a Board member. First, I would encourage partnership between the KaBOOM and the community so that the strategies of the company may succeed. I will also ensure that the company takes into account the findings and research on the company. I will not stop there; I will ensure that the findings are acted upon for the benefit of the company. The above will be done on every quarter period of the year. The research department should be the one to present the findings to the Board of Directors.
In order for KaBOOM to reach the vision of the company of having a play ground within reach of every child, it has to conduct three unique strategic programs. The first is the LEAD program whereby the organization works with over 200 communities every year in order to create a new play space. Its mandate is to ensure that each year it establishes a number of playgrounds in the United States. It achieves this through signature community-build process and a good partnership between the organization and the public and private sector. On the other hand, the SEED program ensures that the communities get the play grounds by themselves because it would speed up the pace of acquiring the grounds. The SEED initiative enables the company to share the community space expertise to the outside world while offering all the communities access to the services offered by KaBOOM. The RALLY program rallies the national network of people who are concerned about the welfare of the community (Lee 269). Through RALLIES, KaBOOM shares a vision and a unified voice on the importance of play to increase the awareness to the public. I would recommend that these programs be reformed to pave way for the realization of the visions and missions of the enterprise. I would recommend that the program of LEAD should not continue to grow because the program does not increase the pace of acquiring play grounds. The SEED program is the one that should be strengthened because the program is effective and increases the number of playgrounds. Through the process, the company would offer trainings, online tools. The online tools platform would create a marketplace of ideas and innovations where professionals would exchange ideas on how to improve the services offered by KaBOOM. The future of the KaBOOM can be enhanced through the RALLY program. This is because the program will create much public awareness on the company and thus generate funding (Lee 289).
Works Cited
Hammond, Darell. KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. Rodale, 2011.
Lee, In. "A social enterprise business model for social entrepreneurs: theoretical foundations and model development." International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation 3.4 (2015): 269-301.
