1.7 Actions Plan
Before proceeding with description of plan of action, main targets need to be defined. While the major purpose of the organization is to raise sufficient funds to help victims of terrorist attacks recover, it can be split into several constituent parts, which in our case are: publicity, international cooperation, efficient use of finds raised, accountability and successful cooperation with governments. Then, actions for each of the target are also divided into several groups, starting with organization structure and ending with money allocation. The results are presented in the table below:
1.8 Strategy map
Strategy map shows graphical interpretation of interconnections between the strategic targets and actions that need to be undertaken to achieve those targets. Please see the map attached.
1.9 Paradoxical consequences
The map of consequences (see attached) allowed us to detect at least four possible paradoxical consequences of actions that need to be undertaken for successful achievement of our goals:
i) Emergency treatment vs rehabilitation. It is obvious that the federal budget is not unlimited, so money that would potentially go for our goals are the money that could have been spent on other goals otherwise. It is logical to assume that some related purposes would get less funding, i.e. emergency departments in hospitals. Therefore it is possible that funding rehabilitation would lead to more deaths right after the attacks. ii) Terrorism prevention vs rehabilitation. Once again, if to assume that there is a fixed budget devoted to the needs related to terrorism, one may predict that funding rehabilitation would leave less money for fighting terrorism in the first place, which might lead to more people that need treatment – something resembling vicious cycle.
iii) PR actions vs image of charitable organization. While the organization has to preserve its charitable image in order to be correctly perceived by the public, it also should be somewhat aggressive in expression of its needs and, prosaically as it is, in competing against other charitable organizations.
iv) Professionals’ remuneration vs image of charitable organization. It is obvious that better professional lead to better results. At the same time, better professionals tend to work for higher remuneration – and high-paid specialists, should their salaries and life-styles become public, may affect the image of a charitable organization negatively.
1.11 Email to the staff members
Dear Colleagues,
In pursuit of our noble mission of helping the victims of the terrorist attacks recover from the sustained injuries we face series of important challenges. As we all know, there are to expected sources of funds: government and international organizations. What we need to understand, is that when it comes to the government budget, most likely every dollar spent on our purposes means one dollar less spent on other charitable purposes, which effectively makes the other charitable organizations our competitors. Competitors, but not rivals. It is important to remember that we are not revenue maximizers, but wealth maximizers, which implies that effective use of the funds raised is as important objective, as raising fund itself. What we need to remember is that money that are spent ineffectively make our society worse off, that is why I believe that establishment of monitoring committee is a must.
We truly believe that what we do is a good thing. But it would be no longer true, if we do not strive for maximum efficiency at every aspect of our activity. What we strive for is efficiency, accountability and building a corresponding public image (yes, we cannot ignore some unromantically sounding concepts of the nowadays world), that is why we should strive for maximum efficiency at every aspect of operations and carefully observe how public perceives us. It means that not only should we carefully watch our expenses when it comes, for instance, to promotional activities, but also accept the fact that what we do in this organization is charity in the first place. Charity means giving up something to help others and assume that it is clear that we sacrifice some potential income we could earn elsewhere at commercial company in order to help others.
Given the amount of talent gathered in our organization, I believe that we are perfectly capable of reaching our objectives without turning into one of numerous hypocrite charities where people care about themselves pretending that they care about others.
Having considered our operation I have come up with a strategic map and plan of actions, which you can find attached.
Best regards
