Organization models
5 examples to get ideas
five examples of organization structures of Dutch environmental NGOs
with some basic theory on organization structures and NGO management
East - West Organization and Management Project
Project coordinator: Jan Haverkamp
This update was brought to you by the ZHABA facilitators collective
http://www.zhaba.cz
at the picture on the front: "top-down versus horizontal structures; two NGOs from Romania" (Mattias Baerens, 1993)
Organization Models; 5 examples to get ideas
Jan Haverkamp
Amsterdam, March 1993
The Organization and Management Project is financially supported by
The European Community, DG XI
The Dutch Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment (VROM)
The PHARE Democracy Programme of the European Community
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa's private donors
Additional copies can be ordered from:
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa
P.O. Box 18185
NL - 1001 ZB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
tel.: +31.20.6392716
fax: +31.20.6391379
e-mail: mkontakt@gn.apc.org
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 1
Acknowledgements
The idea for this brochure started during the preparations for a workshop with hnutí Brontosaurus, one ofthe oldest Czech environmental
groups, in October 1992 in Brno. Brontosaurus was in a severe crisis and we wanted to analyze its organizational structure. I want to
thank the participants of this workshop and especially the facilitators Milan "Danny" Macha_, Jirka "Jurín" Šipr and Jan "Honzas" Smolik for
their first push and comments. Especially I want to thank Helena Izbická, who helped me as interpreter, and gave the original idea for the
brochure.
During the year after, a lot of different people helped me with comments, ideas and inspiration. People from the Netherlands, the Czech and
Slovak Republics, East Germany, West Germany, Romania and Croatia. Nick Allen from the Organizing Project in Praha has inspired me a
lot. Also a lot of ideas were generated during the Ecotopia festivals in Bugac, Hungary (1990), Estonia (1991) and Pyrenees (1993).
Before this time, the basis of knowledge for this brochure was laid during my contacts with the described organizations. Therefore I want to
give a very large THANK YOU to the people from Milieuzorg Wageningen, the NJN and ACJN/NJMA, Milieukontakt Oost-Europa,
Milieudefensie, Greenpeace Netherlands, but also to the numerous other Dutch environmental NGOs, which taught me about organizing
environmental activism. Especially I want to thank the people of the National Society for the Preservation of the Waddensea, who have
been my early teachers. Also a word of gratitude to the people of the department of Extension and Communication Sciences, the former
department of Psychology and the department of Business Science of the University of Wageningen. The fact that Wageningen University
offers its students a broad spectrum of possibilities (my study profile ranged from fundamental biochemistry to communication psychology)
is extremely important for the cooperation work in which this brochure might play a role.
A special thank you for my colleagues at Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, among whom most of all Sybe Visser, Marga Verheije, Marjolijn
Sondorp and Jan Veuger and the board members Ralph Hallo from the Stichting Natuur en Milieu and Wim Kombrink of Milieudefensie,
which gave me critical support in the generation of this brochure.
Jan Haverkamp
Amsterdam, 16 November 1993
2 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 3
Table of contents
1 Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 5
Example 1: after: Vereniging Milieuzorg Wageningen ................................................................. 8
Example 2: after: NJN..................................................................................................................... 10
Example 3: after: Milieukontakt Oost-Europa.............................................................................. 12
Example 4: after: Vereniging Milieudefensie................................................................................ 14
Example 5: after: Greenpeace Netherlands ................................................................................... 16
2 Organization structures..................................................................................................................... 19
2.1 Legal structure .......................................................................................................................... 19
2.2 Informal structure...................................................................................................................... 20
3 Special positions in the organization model..................................................................................... 21
3.1 The "leader".............................................................................................................................. 21
3.2 The board.................................................................................................................................. 21
3.3 The staff.................................................................................................................................... 23
3.4 Volunteers................................................................................................................................. 27
4 Division of responsibilities ............................................................................................................. 29
5 Continuity......................................................................................................................................... 31
6 Finances........................................................................................................................................... 33
7 Social structure................................................................................................................................ 35
7.1 Communication structure........................................................................................................... 35
7.2 Human orientation and task orientation..................................................................................... 36
literature ............................................................................................................................................... 37
index..................................................................................................................................................... 39
addresses .............................................................................................................................................. 40
4 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 5
1 Introduction
This Milieukontakt Organization and Management Project brochure is written for members and employees of environmental NGOs in
Central and Eastern Europe, who want to have a better understanding of their own organization structure, or want to develop ideas to
improve their organization structure. The brochure focuses mainly on organizations with a scope on national level. The Milieukontakt
Organization & Management Project also plans to make a comparable brochure for local structures.
We use here the term NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) for non-profit citizens organizations. There is a widely spread
dissatisfaction with the term, and therefore in our daily work we often prefer the term "citizens initiatives". The term NGO is also very
current however, so that we took this decision for reasons of recognition.
The brochure is written as a support for understanding. It is not written to give you standard ideas of how an organization should look.
Every organization functions in a unique setting. Every organization model has its advantages and disadvantages. This can also be seen in
the described models. To find the optimal organization structure is an organic process, which never ends. No structure is valid for always
(that dogmatic leninist idea is hopefully fully disabandoned by now), but organization structures change as times and circumstances change.
They are formed in complicated social growing processes with influences from a large amount of different actors and conditions: members,
employees, boards, important external experts, social pressure, organization legislation, tax legislation, financial conditions, cultural traditions,
etcetera.
This brochure only wants to help you to develop ideas. Old and new ideas on how you could improve your own organization. These ideas
will have to be discussed again with a lot of people, and what finally comes out might look very different.
The brochure is developed on the basis of materials prepared for a workshop for hnutí Brontosaurus in Brno, October 1992. To discuss
possible structures for their own organization, we made a small overview of 4 structures of Dutch organizations. This overview proved
useful in other situations, and in March 1993 we decided on the suggestion of the Czech environmental NGO OIKOS from Prerov to make
a small brochure. For this purpose I added one more model, describing the structure of a small local NGO. Furthermore we worked out a
description of important terms and features of NGO organization structures.
After using the basic framework of this brochure in the workshop for Brontosaurus, there was a long discussion within this movement
about its future structure. A new structure was found, but against the expectations of many people it was not a structure of one
organization. Two organizations came out. And.... the structure discussion did not end on this point, but will continue as long as
Brontosaurus will exist.
The organizations described in this brochure are also changing all the time. The structure described is therefore only a snapshot, and some
(like Milieukontakt and Greenpeace Netherlands) have already changed considerably. Furthermore I simplified the structures to a certain
extent to make them understandable. That means, that they don't depict the exact situation of these organizations. Finally it has to be
remarked, that no two people will depict one organisation in the same way. Every actor always has a different point of view. These pictures
are drawn by me, sometimes from the point of view of an active member, sometimes as a passive member, as employee or as external
observer. Furthermore, these pictures have not extensively been discussed with the organizations involved. This brochure does not want to
give a scientific description, but wants to offer you a framework to compare certain experiences in the Netherlands with your own ones.
The situation in Central and East Europe is very different to the one in Western Europe and the Netherlands. Why choose Dutch examples
then? The reason is that advantages and disadvantages of certain models only appear after a considerable time, compared with at most four
years for Central and Eastern European NGOs. In the Netherlands there is around 25 years of experience with environmental NGOs in this
form. This long-term experience can give ideas for really long term planning. Planning an organization structure for a period of 5 to 10 years
is not unusual. And the environmental movements in the Central and East European countries are all coming to the point, where such long
term planning is getting important.
6 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
To "read" the 5 descriptions, note the following legend:
* indicates background information on the organization.
. indicates general remarks on the organization structure.
+ indicates positive points of this organization structure.
- indicates negative points of this organization structure.
When several structures or functions are mentioned in one line, they are mentioned
from high to low priority. An example:
In the model of Milieudefensie it says:
. finances: membership fees, donations, foundations, ministries, EC,
own publishing company, selling promotion material
This means that most funds come from membership fees, than from donations and
that selling promotion material is the least important source of income.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 7
The best way to use this brochure is to first take a look to the organization-examples and the one-line explanations. Later you can read the
further explanations about the individual terms used in the models. In this way, you will have the picture of the different organization models
in your head when you're reading the explanation. And the explanation will not be too abstract.
We would like to hear from you, when you have questions or comments on the contents or the usefulness of this brochure. Especially
suggestions for improvement are always welcome. This brochure is produced in relatively small quantities, so we can take up your ideas
soon in a next issue. Ideas can be forwarded to the ZHABA facilitators collective, which took over the legacy of the Milieukontakt
Organisation and Management Project: zhaba@ecn.cz
8 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 9
ACTIVE MEMBERS (10)
Example 1: after: Vereniging Milieuzorg Wageningen (society for environmental care
Wageningen)
Background information
* a local association with around 80 members in a 35.000 inhabitants town
* all people involved are volunteers
* critically following local environmental policy
* education and information to the local population
* monitoring local governmental permits to local polluters and filing legal complaints on new permits (when necessary)
General information
. simple horizontal structure
. juridical form: registered association with membership
. boards exists of (legally required) 3 members, who are invited to serve in the board with informal authorization of the active
members, when a place comes free
. responsibility for long term policy: active members
. responsibility for middle long term policy: active members
. responsibility for detail decisions: active members
. external relations: active members, board
. internal relations: active members, board
. continuity: (board)members are active on average 3 - 5 years; active members on average 3 years
. very low financial budget
. finances: subsidy from local government, membership fees
. board part of the active members
. active members meet every two weeks
BOARD (3)
inactive members / supporters
LOCAL POPULATION
10 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Positive points and advantages
+ motivating to members to become actively involved because the organization deals with local problems
+ easy communication structure
+ strong social structure
+ active members have a strong feeling of being part of the organization
+ human orientation: high
+ motivation active members: middle to high
+ needs relatively little time
+ fast decision processes
Negative points and disadvantages
- task orientation: moderate to high
- only suitable for simple task-fields. Unsuitable for complicated tasks
- only suitable for volunteer organizations
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 11
Example 2: after: NJN (the Dutch Youth Association for Nature Studies)
Background information
* a youth organization with around 1000 members
* around 50 local groups in 14 districts with district-boards
* working with volunteers
* 1 person staff, working 50% (= 20 hours a week) in the secretariat
* nature studies
* camps (weekends, summer camps)
General information
. simple bottom-up structure
. juridical form: association with membership
. boards exist of members, respectively chosen at the annual members meeting or the district meeting
. responsibility for long term policy: members meeting
. responsibility for middle long term policy: main board
. responsibility for personnel management: main board
. responsibility for detail decisions: district boards, main board, staff
. external relations: staff, boards
. internal relations: boards, staff
. international relations: members, main board, staff
. continuity: (board)members are in average 3 - 5 years active; staff stays in average 2 - 3 years
. low financial budget
. finances: membership fees, a subsidy for staff
. short distance between members meeting, boards, staff and members
MAIN BOARD (5)
secretariat
(0,5)
14 districts
with district boards
local groups and individual members
YEE
Annual Members Meeting
12 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Positive points and advantages
+ motivating towards members to become actively involved (either in the local group, on a district or national level in the
board or internationally over YEE (Youth and Environment Europe))
+ relatively easy communication structure
+ strong social structure
+ members have a strong feeling, they are part of the organization
+ human orientation: high
+ motivation staff: high
Negative points and disadvantages
- task orientation: low to moderate
- only suitable for simple task-fields. Unsuitable for complicated tasks
- only suitable for small professional staff
- needs a lot of voluntary time
- relatively slow decision processes
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 13
Example 3: after: Milieukontakt Oost-Europa (foundation for environmental contacts between
Central and East Europe and the Netherlands) (as of: October 1992)
Background information
* service organization for the Dutch and Central and East European (CEE) environmental movement
* 12 staff (varying from 20 to 32 hours per week each)
* irregular volunteers (around 60)
* 600 donors
* cooperation between Dutch and CEE environmental movement
* financial, material and advisory support, networking, support in campaigning, information exchange, intermediating in
funding CEE environmental NGOs, information supply to press and government
General information
. complex horizontal structure
. juridical form: foundation
. board exists of people from the founding organizations (Dutch environmental movement), experts; chosen by the board on
the basis of their expertise and external contacts
. executive board: president, secretary, treasurer
. responsibility long term policy: board, general coordinator and staff
. responsibility middle long term policy: executive board, general coordinator, board, staff
. responsibility personnel management: executive board, general coordinator
. responsibility detail decisions: staff, general coordinator
. external relations: general coordinator, staff, executive board, board
. internal relations: general coordinator, staff, executive board
. international relations: staff, general coordinator, president, board
. continuity: staff stays in average over 5 years; free-lance staff stays in average 8 months; volunteers work 1 day to 4
months; board members stay in average 5 years
. moderately high financial budget
. finances: ministries, EC, foundations, donors (gifts)
. board on distance; main activity by staff
Dutch environmental
movement
board (8)
executive
board
(3)
7 projects with
project co-ordinator
3 free-lance staff
general co-ordinator
administration (1)
14 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Positive points or advantages
+ relatively much responsibility over own projects for coordinators
+ relatively much freedom for staff
+ relatively fast decisions
+ relatively flexible
+ strong social contact within staff
+ motivation by work, not by salary (same salary for every staff member)
+ relatively simple communication structure within staff
+ structure suitable for complicated tasks
+ task orientation: high
+ human orientation: moderate to high (horizontal structure)
+ motivation staff: high
Negative points and disadvantages
- little involvement volunteers
- (too) heavy workload staff (much extra hours)
- complex financial structure
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 15
Example 4: after: Vereniging Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth NL) (as of: end 1992)
Background information
* action and campaigning organization
* member of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI)
* around 1500 active volunteers
* campaigning on most of the important environmental issues on local, regional, national and international level
General information
. organization: complex bottom-up structure
. main office: horizontal matrix structure
. juridical form: association with membership
. board existing of experts, people with important positions in other social organizations, active members; chosen at the
annual general members meeting (AGMM)
. executive board: president, secretary, treasurer, general coordinator
. responsibility long term policy: board, general coordination, staff, AGMM
. responsibility middle long term policy: general coordination, board, staff, basic groups, AGMM
. responsibility personnel management: executive board, general coordination, personnel manager, project coordinators
. responsibility detail decisions: staff, coordinators, basic groups
. external relations: coordinators, staff, executive board, board, basic groups
. internal relations: general coordination, coordinators, executive board, basic groups
. international relations: coordinator international affairs, coordinators, staff, board, basic groups
. continuity: staff stays in average over 5 years; free-lance staff stays in average 12 months; volunteers work 1 day to 12
months; board members stay in average 3 years, members of basic groups are in average over 3 years active
. high financial budget
. finances: membership fees, donations, foundations, ministries, EC, own publishing company, selling promotion material
. main activities by staff and basic groups, board on distance
ANNUAL GENERAL MEMBERS MEETING
Board (10)
Executive Board (4)
General Coordinators (4)
Administrative Staff
project staff
freelance staff
conscientious objectors
job creation places
volunteers
total around 80
120
local
groups
FoE International
Council
of
Employee
s
ProjectCoordinators(10)
30.000payingmembers
16 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Positive points and advantages
+ open communication structure
+ capable of large campaigns also on complicated issues
+ high activity grade amongst members
+ horizontal structures in project groups
+ motivation by work, not by salary (same salary for every staff member)
+ very good working atmosphere
+ career-support for personnel and active volunteers
+ large impact on environmental policy on local, regional, national and international level
+ task orientation: high
+ human orientation: high
+ motivation staff: high
+ motivation office volunteers: high
+ motivation local volunteers: (depending on social structure local group) moderate to high
Negative points and disadvantages
- relatively weak lobbying power on regional level
- sometimes "growing pains"
- relatively large staff in relation to amount of members
- relative long decision procedures
- heavy workload staff
- complex financial structure
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 17
Example 5: after: Greenpeace Netherlands (as of: march 1992)
Background information
* international action and campaigning organization
* member of GREENPEACE International
* around 40 staff
* around 200 volunteers
* campaigning on much important issues on national and international level
General information
. Top-down structure
. juridical structure: foundation
. board: exists of experts; the board chooses its own new members
. responsibility long term policy: board, director
. responsibility middle long term policy: director, board, campaign coordinators
. responsibility personnel management: director, board
. responsibility detail decisions: campaign coordinators, heads, staff
. external relations: campaign coordinators, heads
. internal relations: director, heads
. international relations: campaign coordinators, director
. continuity: staff stays in average around 4 years; free-lance staff stays in average 12 months; volunteers work 1 day to 12
years; board members stay in average 8 years
. very high financial budget
. finances: donors, gifts, legacies, giving licence for use of logo, sales of promotion materials
. main activities by staff
. basic groups under direct responsibility of the education department
BOARD (5)
DIRECTORS (2)
Greenpeace International
Marine Division NLCouncil of
Employees
Head Administration Department Head Campaign Department
20 local groups of
volunteers
830.000 individual donors
Campaign co-ordinators
CAMPAIGN DEPARTMENTS
campaign assistants
free-lance researchers
PressDepartment
Administrative
Department
EducationDepartment
SalesDepartment
18 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
. staff has (legal) influence on the director and board on issues of personnel management and general policy (firm council)
Positive points and advantages
+ very flexible
+ very fast decisions possible
+ possibilities to tackle extreme complex issues
+ possibilities to oppose very large companies and state-structures
+ completely financial independence of external sources
+ possibilities to hire (expensive) external experts
+ possibilities to own expensive materials (like ships, busses, hot air balloons, helicopters etc.)
+ high credibility in industry and government
+ motivation staff: moderate to high
+ motivation office volunteers: moderate to high
+ motivation local volunteers: (depending on social structure and informal links with the office) low to high
+ task orientation: very high
Negative points and disadvantages
- human orientation: low to moderate
- little internal democracy (was already changing, though)
- regular tensions inside the staff
- highly complicated financial and legal structure
- very little influence of volunteers and donors
During 1992 the organization structure of GREENPEACE NL was substantially changed. The organization now has a complex
horizontal structure with some top-down characteristics.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 19
20 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
2 Organization structures
Organization structures develop in time. Sometimes they are formalized to clarify certain positions at a certain moment. Why is it important
to look at them? Organization structures are developed to make things happen. Not everyone looks at organization structures in this
way. A lot of people see organization structures as a description of power lines. If you also think about organization structures like that, it
might be good to stop reading further. Environmental NGOs are dealing with very existential problems, and they are not a place to pursue
personal careers. The environment on all of the Earth's surface is threatened by numerous human interventions. To improve this situation a
lot of work has to be done. Especially by environmental NGOs. Organization structures are there to help us reach that goal.
Organization models depict the communication lines, the responsibility lines, task divisions in a comprehensible way. They can give us clues
on where problems in communication or logistic organization can be found and how they can be cured. They are based on a functional
simplification of reality. Tools to help us analyse and see.
In this chapter we will describe some of the terms used in the remarks on the 5 examples of organization structures.
2.1 Legal structure
Every organization has a certain legal structure. "Legal structure" means the way in which the organization is defined for the law. This does
not always mean, that the organization has to be registered. Also non-registered organizations have a legal structure. When something
happens (a loss of money, a complaint about the organization) the law defines who is responsible. Roughly we can recognize three
principles for this legal structure, from which two appear in the examples. The differences between these principles have to do with:
- legal responsibility
- tax regulations
- internal communication structures
The three principles are:
1. An association with members
In an association the main responsibility lays with the members of the association. They can delegate certain tasks to a board. The law very
often requires a board of minimally three people (often: president, treasurer and secretary), in some countries only two (president and
secretary). The board is elected by the members and has to account their responsibility to the members in an annual members meeting. The
members decide whether the board has done a good job or not. They are controlling the board afterward. The board is responsible for
finances and possible employees. Who is responsible for the law, when financial losses appear, differs from country to country. Sometimes
the board members are personally responsible, sometimes the members. Mostly there are real persons responsible. Association-type
organizations are mostly called "association" or "society".
2. A foundation
In a foundation the board is the central body. The board is responsible for the decisions and also elects new board members. This is done to
create a flexible structure with a high degree of continuity. In some countries, not the board members personally, but the foundation as a
legal person is responsible for financiallosses. That means, that board members are protected against bad decisions. A foundation does not
have members with influence on the policy. Also here a board mostly must have minimally three members (a president, a treasurer and a
secretary), in some countries two (a president and a secretary). Beware: in many countries, this organisational model is only allowed for
organisations that spread money. But not all foundations have to do so in reality.
3. Profit organizations
There are a lot of different forms of profit organizations. The difference with the first two is, that non-profit organizations have an
organization aim, which is not directed towards making profit. Profit means here, earning money to be able to pay for risk carrying capital.
This does not mean, that a non-profit organization is not allowed to earn money. It means, that earned money is used for the aim of the
organization (and within a reasonable short time). This money cannot be used to pay dividend to people who invested money in the
organization (dividend is a payment for the investment of risk-carrying capital; capital which can be lost, when everything goes wrong). In a
profit organization, the investors (owners or share-holders) are in the end responsible for what is happening within the organization.
statutes and regulations
All the 5 models above are registered organizations. The aims and form of the organization are fixed in a statute. A registered organization
is obliged to have a statute in every country. This statute is fixed with the registration, and after every change, it also has to be changed in
the registration. The statute contains the aim of the organization and important rules like how formal responsibilities are divided, how formal
decisions are taken, how the existence of the organization can be ended, what should happen with the property and finances of the
organization in that case, etcetera. In every national legislation there are rules for what provisions a statute should contain. Therefore most
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 21
organizations consult a lawyer about its contents before registration or changing the statute.
Changing a statute can be an expensive thing to do: consultancy of a lawyer and also changes in registration mostly have to be paid. It most
certainly always is a lot of work. Therefore the statute contains only those rules, which will not be changed soon. Decisions about changes
in the statute also often have to be taken with support of a very large majority of the membership (2/3 or 3/4 of the votes). The statute is
the skeleton of the organization.
Other rules are fixed in certain regulations, sometimes also called "by-laws". These can be formal regulations, decided upon by the
membership of the association or the board of the foundation (mostly wih a normal majority of votes), but also working regulations, decided
upon by someone in a leading position. Regulations are easier to be changed and give flexibility to the organization.
2.2 Informal structure
In the examples you will also find a description of the informal structure of the organization. Three categories are mentioned:
1. top-down
In an informal top-down structure some "leader" or leading body (for instance a board) takes the decisions and tells the people under him or
her, what to do. The responsibility lies at the top. This means, that the top has real power. In an office, there will be an office-leader or
director, which takes the decisions and is responsible for everything that happens. In most cases an informal top-down organization culture
has the formal form of a foundation. But there are also associations with a top-down structure.
2. bottom-up
In a bottom-up structure, the decisions are taken by the basis of the organization: the members. The top is there to help the communication.
The top does not have real power. In an office, there will be a coordinator to improve the communication between the people on the basis.
This kind of informal organization structure mostly fits in the framework of a formal association-type organization. But also foundations
sometimes have a bottom-up informal structure.
3. horizontal
A horizontal structure means, that decisions are shared between actors involved. Keywords in these organizations are division of
responsibilities and consensus. That does not mean, that there is always a meeting for every detail decision that has to be taken. It means,
that no one has the power to force decisions against the will of others. No one from the top and no one from the bottom. If someone takes
a good decision, there is no need for further discussion. To save time, these points will then also not be discussed. If someone doesn't agree
with a certain decision, or when someone has doubts about what to decide, there are formal and informal structures available to talk about
it. If the board in such an organization has something to discuss, they will not give orders to the staff, but also discuss it with the staff. And
the same with members. In horizontal structures you will also find coordinators to improve the communication between different parts and
people in the organization. For emergency situations (like heavy conflicts or financial malversations) horizontally organized organizations of
course also have formal decision-lines, like top-down and bottom-up ones. You can find horizontal informal structures both in formal
foundation-type organizations and in association-type organizations.
mixed types
When an organization becomes larger, sometimes more complicated structures develop, which are a mix of the three mentioned above. For
instance in Milieudefensie inside the office there is a clear horizontal structure. In the relation with the members there are strong bottomup
elements.
matrix structure
In some organizations there is the problem, that different types of working, different methods, different themes make very good communication
structures necessary. Take as an example an organization working on different themes. There are people working on these themes,
like waste, energy, traffic, nature-protection, etc.. On the other hand there are experts on media-work, on administration, finances,
education, etc. You would really like to have such experts in every thematic group. But to prevent, for example, two thematic groups
organizing an action on one day, or having two types of financial bookkeeping, these experts also should have contact with one another. To
solve that problem, some organizations have a matrix structure. This means that the organization is more or less divided in cells. Every
person in these cells has two bosses or coordinators. One on the thematic level (example: the coordinator for traffic) and one on the (for
instance) organizational level (example: the coordinator for media and press work, or the financial coordinator). In this way the
communication between the different cells is secured. Matrix structures can be found in offices with more than 10 employees, but also in
volunteer NGOs with different working-groups.
22 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
3 Special positions in the organization model
Even in the most simple organization model some people have another position than others. This could mean a formal power position, but
that is not always necessary. It can also be a special position because of a certain expertise. In this chapter I will discuss a few of these
special positions, which you also will find in the examples of dutch organization models.
3.1 The "leader"
A lot of people will say, "you need a leader. Otherwise there will be anarchy". This mostly shows, that these people have a very strict
definition of a leader. A leader is for them someone, who leads, who has power, who takes the decisions. This kind of leader is a typical
top-down phenomenon. You only need leaders in a situation, where top-down lines of control are thought to be important. For instance
when you don't trust the staff of your office, or when the staff is incapable of carrying responsibility. Another (more positive) example:
situations in which very fast and far-reaching decisions have to be taken: In the case of direct actions of the organization Greenpeace, a
strict discipline is required. During their actions human life might be endangered. The strong leadership in such situations is a form of a very
strong coordination-structure.
In the more modern management approach of horizontal oriented organization structures or in bottom-up organizations, the question of
control is not the central question. There are no leaders, but there is also no chaos. The centralquestion is "what has to happen, and who is
going to do it?". That means, that special positions have a functional background. I therefore don't want to refer to them as "leaders",
because these people don't lead in the literal sense of the word. You could better call them "responsibles" (people being responsible for a
certain task or field of decisions) or "coordinators". Coordinators bring information together and take care, that decisions are taken. They
distribute information to the ones who can use it and they take decisions to improve the working conditions of the others. In "power"-lines
they stand on the same level as the other people, though. They are not more important (a coordinator cannot function without someone
responsible for the mail and the other way around), but they certainly are also not less important.
I also want to refer shortly here to another functional principle considering leaders and coordinators. In these special positions people very
often have to carry a lot of responsibilities. Especially when there is a social tradition of top-down organization structures as in the former
socialist countries, people in such central positions get most of the work on their desk. Still we have to keep them alive. They shouldn't
collapse under the load of work. There are two principles to avoid this, both having to do with decentralization:
- spread responsibility. An example: In a lot of organizations, the office-leader or director is personally responsible for hiring people or
firing them. That is a heavy responsibility. Especially in times, when there are tensions within the organization. When the leader has to
fire someone under these circumstances, she will maybe feel very bad ruining someone's life. If she can share this responsibility with
others (preferably with people in a similar power-position), for instance with people from the board, the decision will not be such a
psychological burden.
To spread responsibility on important decisions over more people improves the working conditions of central people.
- spread decision-power. It is not necessary, that the leader or coordinator is informed about all detail decisions of other members of
the organization. To a certain extent, people can easily take their own decisions. That will save time and energy of the leader or
coordinator. Centralizing decisions can be very functional however, when the decision also has its consequences for other people. That
does not mean, that a more central person consequently should have to take the decision in stead; it means, that the more central person
should make the communication possible, to see that the interests of the other people are taken into account. This will cost less time
than taking a decision and having to defend it to all others (that is invest time in this communication process anyway).
3.2 The board
All 5 examples of Dutch organizations have a board. The reason for this is not purely formal. It is true, that you have to have a board, when
you are a registered organization. But also if that would not be the case, a board could have a very valuable function in your organization.
A board is a group of (voluntary) people, who are responsible for seeing to it, that the organization is working towards it aims.
Legally the board in many cases is the last responsible for everything the organization does. This mostly includes also financial
responsibilities.
Other functions appear out of these:
- responsibility for the continuity of the organization
- responsibility for the long term development of the organization
The function of the board is of course depending on the formal structure of the organization. In the law, for every formal organization
structure, certain responsibilities for the board are fixed.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 23
Because of the fact, that the board is (mostly formally) responsible for letting the organization work towards its aims, board members
always have a kind of authority. They have to keep control of the organization. In top-down structures this "control" can easily be called
"power". An example of such "power" is the power to hire or fire staff. As such the story about this "power" of the board goes parallel with
the one about the leader: it depends strongly on the traditions and informal structure of the organization, whether the board is seen as a body
of power ("we want to control what is happening") or as a functional body.
Looking at the board in a functional way, next to the formal tasks, also several informaltasks play a role:
- Board members may represent others. This even could be (formally) fixed in the statute of an organization. They could for instance
represent member-organizations, the members in certain regions, etc.. They are the guarantee, that the voice of these others (be it
organizations or be it members) is heard in important decisions.
- Board members may be chosen on their expertise. Asking someone who can bring in expertise to be a member of the board, can
improve the quality of an organization considerably. As examples you could think of expertise in:
. juridical questions
. financial questions
. personnel management
. nature conservation management
. communication, advertisement and public relations
. toxicology
- Board members may be chosen on their contacts. If someone with an important position in other organizations, institutes, state
structures or industry is part of the board, she or he will also feel responsible for your organization and use her or his contacts for the
benefit of the organization.
the executive board
Board members are volunteers, and in a larger organization not everyone of them will be able to spend time on all the detail decisions, that
fall under the task-field of a board. Therefore some board members could get the special task of being responsible for the daily decisions in
the organization. In their detail decisions, they carry out the large lines, fixed by the entire board. This smaller group is called the executive
board. Which task-fields are delegated to the executive board depends on the specific situation of the organization. The last three example
models can give ideas about this.
The basis of the executive board is mostly formed by the legal core of the board: the president, treasurer and secretary. The president also
very often is called "chairperson" (meaning chairman or chairwoman). Sometimes more people join this executive board, but the total
amount hardly ever exceeds 5 people. This keeps this body flexible and fast. Where the entire board might meet every one or two months,
the executive board mostly meets twice as often.
relation with members
In association-type organizations, the board is responsible for its activities and decisions towards the members of the association. This
responsibility does not mean, that board members have to consult the members for every decision. Depending on the informal structure of
the organization, the board can inform the members regularly (for instance via the newsletter of the organization) and offer the members to
come with advice, comments and criticism. An intensive network of informal contacts has to take care for the internal democracy in this
case. At the other side of the spectrum, in more top-down oriented organizations of the association-type, the board only gives account
during the Annual General Members Meeting. Here the members can influence the policy by re-electing old or electing new board
members and they have the opportunity to discuss directly with the board and other members.
Which model is chosen depends strongly on what the organization expects from its members and what the members expect from the
organization. In the examples of Milieuzorg Wageningen and the NJN (examples 1 and 2) there is a strong contact between board and
members and members are also expected to carry out a lot of tasks. In an organization like Natuurmonumenten (a dutch nature protection
organization of the association-type with 650.000 members) there is relatively little contact between board and members, except during the
Annual General Members Meeting. To secure at least a regular information flow from members to the board, the Public Relation
department informs the board regularly about letters from members, and also does regular sociological research to the wishes of members.
relation with staff
In all cases, the board is the final responsible for the deeds of paid people within the organization. Also when a general coordinator or
director has the formal possibility of hiring and firing personnel, the board keeps having the formal responsibility for this. In practice this
means for most organizations, that someone within the board or executive board is given the special responsibility for personnel
management.
Important is also to remember, that staff-members are working full-time on the projects of the organization. Therefore they most of the time
also will be better informed about the contents and backgrounds of the projects than board members. This means a regular information flow
from staff to board and back (with suggestions, questions, criticism, etc.) is of vital importance. For their task (long term planning,
accountability, etc.) the members of the board and even the members of an executive board do not have to know everything, but they need
to be informed about the most important developments within the organization regularly.
24 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
For all these reasons several organizations found different models for establishing this information-flow. In some smaller organizations all
staff-members take part in the board meetings with an advisory voice (so they don't have the right to vote). In other organizations, the
general coordinator or the internal coordinator has such an advisory participation. In really large organizations an official representative of
the staff is member of the board, with the right to vote. In some cases (in the Netherlands for organizations with more than 35 employees)
the law prescribes a council of employees with a strong advisory voice in decisions on the directorate's level and in the board.
Yet another important relation between board and staff is the one of participation in the evaluation of the functioning of staff-members. This
happens in mostly two separated forms:
- evaluation of the functioning as a preparation for a decision to continue or stop a working contract or as a preparation for (financial)
promotion. These promotion- or contract-evaluations can have heavy consequences for the staff-member involved.
- evaluation of the functioning in order to improve this functioning within the organization. These kind of evaluations take place on a
regular (mostly yearly) basis. There are no consequences for the position of the employee attached to this evaluation. Because of that
these functioning-evaluations can go deeper and take place in a more open atmosphere.
"board on distance"
Where in many Central- and Eastern European NGO's the board is seen as an instrument of power, many boards in the Netherlands want
to be a "board on distance". This means, that the board does not see itself as a body, which has to take a lot of decisions. It leaves the
decisions in principle to the staff and only wants to be involved in cases of severe problems or in a more or less advisory role for the general
policy planning. Of course the board remains responsible for what the staff is doing. But on the basis of trust in the staff, it wants to prevent
to spend too much time in overhead communication. This trust in its turn can improve the motivation of staff-members to do a good job.
3.3 The staff
Within four of the five examples given, people are paid to do certain tasks. Especially local oriented NGOs work mostly with only
volunteers. In the more regional or national oriented organizations this often is different.
Certain tasks, like contacts with regional or national authorities, need to be done during office hours, or others require so much time and
expertise, that you can't expect people to do them on a voluntary basis. These are reasons why for instance the environmental youth
organization NJN pays a half-time person in its secretariat.
There also has been a tendency of professionalization within the Dutch environmental movement however. Especially in the seventies and
early eighties, the work of NGOs in the Netherlands required more and more specialization. National oriented organizations as
Milieudefensie and Greenpeace Netherlands started to hire specialists or to pay long time volunteers, who had built up valuable expertise
by their experience. The Dutch environmental movement also established foundations for specialized work. These institutions (also full
NGOs), for example Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, rely almost totally on paid staff. Research institutes were established, which nowadays
only in small details differ from consultancy firms. Examples are the famous Öko Institute in Germany (Freiburg and Darmstadt) and the
Centre for Energy Saving and Clean Technology in Delft, Netherlands. These institutes work with a totally paid staff.
With the word "staff" I want to indicate those people that are paid by an organization to fulfil certain tasks. This is slightly different to the
term "staff" as used in literature concerning large company management: there only people in coordinating functions are indicated with
staff. In this brochure also the people sorting and handing out the mail belong to the staff. I prefer this word over terms like "personnel" or
"employees", as these terms directly implicate a certain hierarchy. Within the environmental movement most of the staff-people also have
some to quite a considerable influence on the policy, the long-term strategy of the organization, as well as a quite independent position in
planning their own work. It will be very difficult, though, to translate this word "staff" in any of the Central and East European languages, as
the top-down structures of central planning did not leave room for the amount of independence we find (necessarily) in environmental
organizations.
principles of organization: traditional or functional
During the last centuries certain traditions have grown on how to set up an organization, especially there, where paid positions are
concerned. A traditional organization in Central and Eastern Europe had a director, one or a few vice-directors, experts, an administrator
and one or more secretaries. When I ask people to make a drawing of the positions their organization should have, when it should open an
office, this is almost always the standard answer. All these functions have already their traditional tasks, and moreover they have their
traditional power positions: the director is the boss, he (mostly male) decides about what happens in the office. The vice-directors control
the specialists, to see that they stick to the tasks, which they have been assigned to, and they take over the power from the director, when
he is gone. The secretary (mostly female) gets her work from the specialists, or sometimes even only from the director.
The great advantage of such a model is, that people are used to it. They feel comfortable in it, because tasks and responsibilities are divided
clearly. The large disadvantage of the traditional model is, that it is highly inflexible. It was developed during the first decades of this century
as an answer on the increased possibilities, caused by the industrialization. Production processes and also administrational processes were
build up according to a central planning model, every task was described in detail, and so were the functions and power-lines. The highest
form of this kind of planning was Taylorism, for instance worked out in the thirties in the Ford-factories in the United States.
Environmental work however is very badly plannable. Tasks and themes change rapidly. Organization practices within the environmental
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 25
movement therefore mostly make use of organization principles, which have been developed during the last decades: functional
organizational models. There are a few important differences between these models and the traditional ones:
- task descriptions are not fixed to certain positions, but are made according to the work that has to be done; positions are adapted to the
work to be accomplished;
- there are only weak, formal power lines; the actual decisions and responsibilities are carried by more people, and each level in the
organization takes its own decisions, of course in constant communication with other levels;
- the most important issue is the communication structure and the coordination between different tasks and people, not the positions of
power.
These more modern functional principles can be found as well in bottom-up and horizontal as in modern top-down structures.
Important is, that there is some overview on what the different tasks are. Mostly environmental organizations are built up around certain
project units working on a certain theme (for example: traffic or education), a group of themes (for example: everything around wastes) or
a specific assignment or project (for example: the Organization and Management Project). Between or over these project units there is a
coordination structure and to improve the functioning of these project units there are supporting structures, which offer services that can be
used by all units. A relatively simple example can be found in the organization structure of Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, a very advanced
example is Milieudefensie.
staff functions
As described above, there are roughly three groups of staff functions in a organizational model:
- coordination / management functions;
- functions concentrating on the contents of the work;
- supporting functions.
People in a coordination function do not necessarily take decisions for others. In top-down models, which are mostly based on more
traditional approaches of staff management, the director and vice-director are the people with a management function, and they do take the
decisions for the people under them. In the other approaches people in coordinating functions have an important communication task. They
have to take care, that the people working on the contents can work under optimal conditions, are well informed, that their work is
evaluated regularly, they have to ensure good communication with the bodies, that think about the long term development of the organization
(board, executive board, members), etcetera. In functional models good managers/coordinators don't take decisions on their own, they let
others take their decisions in a way, which suits best all interests (of the organization and of the people involved). Keywords in these tasks
are: communication, motivation, evaluation, (process) facilitation.
People in functions working on the contents are the ones that gather and disseminate information, organize campaigns, do lobby work,
etcetera. These can be people with an academic background (chemists, biologists, economists, lawyers, etc.). But also press people,
educators and people that have gained their skills to do campaigning and action tasks in another way (by experience for instance). These
people's skills can be comparable or sometimes even better than those of academic people. The contents people are the ones that run the
projects of the NGO. They have the main contact with the volunteers, members and with the target groups of the organization (industry,
authorities, population, educational institutes). General (so: not-project-bound) external contacts however, like the general contacts with the
main financier(s) of the NGO, with ministries, etcetera, are not done by these contents-people. These are done on the coordination /
management level or by specialists in supporting functions.
The ones in supporting functions are specialists, who help the others carrying out their tasks. You can think in this case of the PR- and
media specialist, the financial administrator / bookkeeper, etcetera. But also a secretary is a specialist in passing information, planning of
general communication (meetings, agenda's, minutes of meetings), technicalities (computer work, copying and printing) and other tasks
which are supporting functions. And of course the cleaning man or woman belongs to this group: the supporting expert in working
conditions.
I describe all these functions deliberately on an equal level. I want to stress with that, that in functional management models the expertise of
each individual in the organization is seen as valuable and necessary.
It has to be noted, that not every organization built on functional principles will have staff in all three functional groups. If you have a small
organization, the management tasks can be done by someone, who is also leading a project (a contents task). Or the main coordinator might
also be the one washing the dishes. In the late eighties in the Swiss Air company the general director even worked one day a week on the
counter helping clients...
steady staff and free lance staff
A certain core of the staff of an NGO will consist of people with an open contract: they are employed by the NGO for an indefinite period
of time. Sometimes there are special tasks, which cannot be covered any more by the existing staff. In that case the NGO can decide to
hire someone for a limited amount of time. These people can be people wanting to built experience, maybe just coming from university or
school, but this can also be specialists with a lot of experience. Some experienced people specialize in working for limited times for different
organizations. They work for their own and sell themselves there, where they are needed. These people are called "free-lancers". Freelance
staff has mostly a special position within an organization. They are hired for a certain task and very often have fewer possibilities to
be involved in the decision-taking processes outside their task-field. Another difference you can often see is in payment: because they have
to finance themselves in the periods of time they don't have an assignment (these are also the periods of time that they have to look for new
26 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
assignments!) they get a higher payment per hour, day or month than the steady staff. This payment is mostly called honorarium or fee
instead of salary.
Milieudefensie and Greenpeace regularly use free-lance people for research or things like writing brochures and giving training to staff and
volunteers, in Milieukontakt free-lancers also sometimes carry out full projects with a limited time.
conscientious objectors
In a lot of countries, men who refuse to go into army-service have the chance to work for organizations for the common well-being.
Environmental NGOs in the Netherlands, but also in East Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and other countries use this possibility to
get people inside their organization for a limited time and to low costs. These people are called conscientious objectors (c.o.'s). In some
countries they are known as civil servants, but because in English employees of the state are also called civil servants, this term is a bit
confusing. C.o.'s have often a position similar with free-lance staff: they cannot take part in all the decision levels of the organization. The
large difference is the payment: c.o.'s mostly are paid less than other staff.
If you find very motivated c.o.'s they might be able to tackle highly professional tasks. On the other hand, when you have bad luck, you get
c.o.'s which need a lot of coaching from the staff. For this reason most Dutch NGOs have formal application procedures for hiring c.o.'s,
which are comparable with the application procedures for regular staff.
Milieudefensie uses c.o.'s for instance in the reception. They are responsible for dividing mail, handling incoming telephone calls and
receiving guests. In other organizations, like for instance the already mentioned nature protection organization Natuurmonumenten and the
dutch umbrella-organization for lobbying and research Stichting Natuur en Milieu, c.o.'s work as computer experts and research experts.
Some countries allow their c.o.'s only to do so called practical hand work (cleaning streams, planting trees, etcetera), but NGOs there often
found creative ways to give these people also more responsible and more motivating tasks. They reason that these people should also be
motivated to carry on with environmental work after their service-time; so: employing c.o.'s as environmental education! Only practical
handwork will not give them that motivation.
employment support jobs
In more and more countries the authorities make schemes to help longer time unemployed people to get work-experience. Also some tasks
in NGOs can be designed as an employment support job. Because the authorities pay the salary and in some countries even give a subsidy
on working possibilities like office rooms and equipment, travel costs and training costs, this can be a very cheap way for an NGO to get
professionals. In this way long time volunteers can be employed to carry out tasks for which there normally spoken would be no money
available. A small warning though: getting people in this cheap way carries a risk of hiring people with a low motivation, not the right skills
for the tasks to be covered and needing a large bit of coaching. For that reason also here most NGOs apply regular application procedures.
How these employment support measurements caused large problems for NGOs in East Germany is described in a small brochure of the
Organization and Management Project called "Experiences with Employment Support Measurements (ABM) in the East-German
Environmental Movement".
In Milieukontakt Oost-Europa someone in an employment support job helps with the financial administration, answers the telephone and
has supporting administrative functions.
trainees
Another possibility for employing people in an NGO is letting students get a practical training. These trainees might come from universities,
high schools or even technical education. They could be asked to help on projects or do certain research. For example students from the
law faculty could find out the legal possibilities in a certain campaign, psychology, education or communication/PR students could help with
making an exhibition or working out a campaign plan. You could even think of inviting foreign students to help on certain tasks and bring in
experience from outside. Milieukontakt Oost-Europa is willing to help you find Dutch trainees. There are furthermore several
international organizations facilitating traineeships for young people.
It must be clear, that these people want to work for a certain period in your organization to learn. That means that their level of experience
mostly is rather low and that they need coaching. Someone in the organization must not only be responsible for the task they have to
complete, but also for their social well-being. For most trainees this will be the first experience outside the safe surroundings of university or
school, the first time that they must bear full responsibility, etcetera. This coaching can cost a lot of time and energy and with some trainees,
the risk of not completing the task is always there. Because NGOs are mostly not large enough to handle such risks, also possible trainees
are first invited for an interview, to see whether they fit in the organization or not.
Trainees mostly join an organization for a period between three weeks and a year. Sometimes they get pocket money from the organization,
sometimes only travel-costs and lodging, sometimes only the costs they make for their work. Because Dutch students receive a scholarship,
Dutch NGOs mostly only reimburse travel-costs and help the trainee with finding a space to live. Often the rights and duties of both the
NGO and the trainee are fixed in a trainee-contract, comparable with a working contract.
In Milieukontakt a trainee carried out a survey study to which authorities had cooperation projects in Central and Eastern Europe. Seven
years ago I myself coordinated a publicity campaign of three months against the building of a new harbour as a trainee in a coastal
environmental NGO.
career support
Working as a professional (that means on a paid basis) for an NGO is no other job than any paid position anywhere else. On the very
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 27
moment people receive a payment for work from an NGO, the NGO is employer. This means, that the NGO also carries responsibility for
the social well-being of the persons of the staff. This includes working conditions, but also things like future perspectives. Milieudefensie
therefore even has a staff member solely responsible for personnel management. This supportive function means that she or he helps the
staff-members of Milieudefensie when there are problems in the work, takes care that regular talks take place with each employee to
evaluate the working conditions and.... helps staff members planning their career. This last point means, that when a staff member would
like to do something different after a few years of work on a certain project or department, the personnel manager gives her or him the
information about possibilities within the organization and outside. Of course smaller organizations than Milieudefensie will not need
directly a special personnel manager. Mostly this is part of the task of the general coordination level or of certain board members. It is
important however to let someone have this function, who is not directly deciding about possible ending of a working-contract. In that case,
the basis for trust, which this responsible person should have with the staff is heavily undermined. No-one will ever say that the board is
functioning bad to a president of the board, who could decide to fire him or her.
motivation by payment versus motivation by working conditions
An important issue within an NGO with paid staff members is of course the salary. Basically there are two principles on which the height
of salaries within NGOs is based:
following society. In a market economy payment, salary is used as a tool to motivate people. Someone who works harder or carries larger
responsibilities gets a higher salary. Also things like the amount of experience, the level of education, etcetera are expressed in the height of
the salary. Important is the "market value" of the employee. The philosophy behind this is, that work within NGOs is comparable with other
work, and in order to get the best people, you need to pay them on a comparable level as competing job-possibilities. In practice this means
that a lot of NGOs follow the salaries of state structures: this means that people working in the administration get the salary of a
comparable job within a ministry or town hall. A general coordinator or director will (depending on how large the NGO is) earn almost as
much as a director in a town-department or ministry. Some NGOs even follow market-salaries, mostly resulting in lower payments for the
"lower" functions and higher for higher functions in comparison with the state-salary-principle. When staff members have been
extraordinary successful, sometimes extra's are paid. An example of an organization, that pays according to these principles is Greenpeace
Netherlands.
an alternative model. Milieudefensie and Milieukontakt Oost-Europa together with a few other Dutch NGOs work according to
another principle. They argue, that at least in this type of work money is a bad motivator to people. The people working for these
organizations work out of motivation. They feel that what they do is important and therefore they want to do it; not because they earn a
large salary. Traditional salary structures even might motivate staff-members to wrong priorities. Milieudefensie worked out a salary
structure based on equality, which fits in their horizontal organization structure: they assumed that in a one family unit with two children and
two adults, the two adults would work 120% of a normal job (i.e. in the Dutch environmental movement 120% of 32 hours per week =
around 40 hours a week). It is very usual in the Netherlands, that people do not work for a full working week, but for only 20, 30, 50 or 80%
of a full week. In that way both parents of children can divide the time to take care for them or the time spend on running a household can
be divided equally throughout the family. In the model of Milieudefensie the people can decide themselves, whether they work both 60%,
or one works 100% and the other 20% or any other way. This is seen as a desirable situation for the own employees. On the income of this
120%, a family should have a reasonable living to Dutch standards. For that, it was calculated, that one person working 100% should earn
around 3.200 Dutch Guilders bruto (before taxes) a month. Everybody within Milieudefensie gets this salary. From the administration
person to the general coordinator. Motivation in this case comes from other sources: from the importance of the work, the freedom to
decide about the way to work, the working atmosphere, social contacts, secondary working conditions (possibilities to study, career support,
etcetera). The combination of a horizontal structure and this alternative salary policy has lead to a situation of highly motivated staff, which
often works much more than the amount of hours they are paid for. Because of this the relation between salary expenses and work-output
is high in comparison with organizations with a traditional structure and salary policy.
It is important, that there is a clear view on why certain salaries are paid within an organization. Besides being a possible motivator, salaries
can also be a source of envy, causing social tensions inside the organization. When staff-members agree fully with the used policy in this,
such envy can be prevented.
3.4 Volunteers
In all of the five models here presented volunteers play a role. In the Vereniging Milieuzorg Wageningen, the local environmental group,
the organization is run completely by volunteers; in Greenpeace Netherlands volunteers only play a minor, but still very much appreciated
role.
Volunteers can play different roles in environmental organizations, ranging from support tasks to unpaid professionals:
main activists
In the Vereniging Milieuzorg Wageningen, the NJN and Milieudefensie volunteers are the main activists. In the two smaller ones even
the coordinating / management tasks are carried out by volunteers (board, active members). In Milieudefensie the coordination is done by
professionals, but the actions and the local activities, that are the basis for all the campaigns, are carried out by volunteers. These three
organizations can only exist because of the activity of voluntary people, and when there is no support from the voluntary basis, campaigns
28 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
have no chance of surviving. In this way hundreds of people help cleaning nature areas during summer camps, lawsuits are passed against
the local authorities of Wageningen, shop actions against too much packaging are organized, etcetera.
supporting activists
Some activities cost a lot of time and energy, which cannot be covered on a short term by the professional staff, nor is there time enough to
set up a special volunteer task-force for that. For such cases some organizations have a list of people (mostly students, unemployed,
housewives, old-age pensioners, handicapped people still capable of doing certain tasks) that they can call upon for such sudden jobs for
which you do not need special schooling. So are Greenpeace ships mostly painted by 20 to 60 volunteers, help housewives in Milieuzorg
Wageningen with sending out leaflets to the population informing them about waste-separation, were 20 volunteers of the Milieudefensie
basic group in The Hague present as demonstrators, when Milieukontakt offered a petition to the Hungarian and Czecho-Slovak
ambassador against the Gabcikovo dam in Slovakia.
supporting professionals
Certain projects or campaigns need the input of experts. Some NGOs buy this input from professional bureaus, but mostly this will be far to
costly and it is furthermore mostly unnecessary. Working for a good cause is not only important to environmental activists, but also to a lot
of people who are confronted with environmental problems in their daily work. And certainly when this expertise knowledge is not needed
around the clock, a lot of experts are prepared to help an organization they sympathize with. The National Society for the Preservation of
the Waddensea (short: Wadden-society), a national Dutch association with around 60.000 members and 30 people staff has a very effective
scheme for binding this kind of expertise: they have specialized working-groups and consultancy-groups of voluntary experts on certain
fields of environmental policy in the Wadden-region, the region they are active in. They have a working-group "military activities" with
experts in local planning, military policy, noise-problems, a few lawyers and biologists; a consultancy-group "geese" with biologists, people
from the agricultural sector, economists; a consultancy-group "public relations and publicity" with people from the advertisement branch,
psychologists, communication specialists and graphic editors. These working-groups and consultancy-groups meet only once every month
with the professional coordinators in the specific fields (members of the staff) discuss their plans and work with them. Consultancy groups
do this on an advisement basis: its members don't have the time to carry out many tasks themselves. Working-groups are deeper involved in
campaigns and sometimes even take up campaigns themselves. And what is more: because these volunteers are deeply involved in the
policy work of the organization, they are also important lobbyists in the jobs they work in! Be it as lawyer in a government department, as
biologist for the Ministry of Agriculture and Nature Protection or as PR-officer of a large printing company..
The Wadden-society set up these working- and consultancy-groups by putting a call for help in their magazine, urging passive members to
send in a postcard, telling what kind of expertise they had to offer to the society. Respondents then got a personal letter with the question
whether they wanted to join one of the working-groups, consultancy-groups or wanted to be "stand-by" in case their expertise might be
needed. Greenpeace Netherlands did the same thing with their active local volunteers.
Also Milieudefensie and Milieukontakt Oost-Europa use professionals as helping-forces, but more on an ad-hoc basis. That means, that
Milieudefensie has a certain overview on (passive) members and local volunteers and Milieukontakt on donors and active volunteers,
which have a certain expertise. When they are in need of such expertise these people are called upon.
unpaid professionals
Sometimes people who don't have a paid job carry out tasks for an NGO on a full-time basis. There can be various reasons for them not to
be employed. Greenpeace Netherlands at the moment has someone doing part of the bookkeeping on a voluntary basis, who used to be
employed for the organization, but retired because he became 65 years old. In Milieudefensie some 40 volunteers work full- or half-time
on the environmental telephone (receiving some 80.000 calls a year). These people are students, ex-students looking for a job, housewives,
but also people who decided very consciously to be out of a job and on social security payment to be able to do this kind of work. In some
cases someone offers to work on a certain issue in the hope to make a good project out of it and in that way get a paid job within the
organization after some time. For volunteers with these kind of ambitions the Milieudefensie personnel management even offers careersupport;
an important way of motivation! A working-group in which Milieukontakt participates follows exports of hazardous wastes from
the Netherlands to East Germany. This group consists totally of students and professionals in environmental policy, with only a coordinating
input from someone of the Milieukontakt staff.
All these volunteers do work to highly professional standards, but for different reasons are not paid, or even don't want to be paid for doing
this. They are in practice an important expansion of the capacity of the paid staff. Without any exaggeration it can be said, that the dutch
environmental movement would not have been so successful without this category of volunteers.
influence
The influence of volunteers on the policy of the organization differs greatly, depending on the formal and informal structure of the
organization. As can be seen in the organization models, in Milieuzorg Wageningen, and NJN volunteers are to a large extend responsible
for what the organization does. Even in Milieudefensie with around 90 paid (partly part-time) staff members. Within Greenpeace
Netherlands and Milieukontakt volunteers, except for the board members (which are in all organizations volunteers!), hardly have any
influence on the organization's policy.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 29
time investment
How much time volunteers invest depends on two factors:
1) How much time has the volunteer available
This can be as little as only two hours in two months (for instance housewives that help sending leaflets in Wageningen or
professionally very occupied members of a consultancy-group of the Waddensociety) to 40 hours in the week or more (as some
volunteers (ex-students) of the environmental telephone of Milieudefensie do).
2) How much work there is for them
Within Milieukontakt volunteers are warned, that they only can do something, when there is something to be done. This is a
conscious policy choice. Milieukontakt could also have chosen to think out new tasks, when there is nothing else to be done, like
happens in basic groups of Milieudefensie and NJN to keep people motivated and/or take full advantage of this capacity. In the case
of Milieukontakt the priority was put on the work of the professionals, which left little space for coaching volunteers. On the other
hand, the volunteers are allowed to suggest new tasks for themselves.
what can you expect from volunteers?
Sometimes volunteers are not treated well. They feel like slaves for the dirty work. In that case it is clear, that too little attention was paid
to the question "what can you really expect from volunteers?". Because volunteers are mostly highly motivated to work for the organization
(otherwise they would stop their activity) there have to be clear agreements on that with volunteers. There is no general recipe for this and
in the five described organizations we mostly see, that this is agreed upon with every volunteer personally, depending on the personal
circumstances. An important question in this respect is also "what can a volunteer expect from the organization?". For instance in
Greenpeace Netherlands local volunteers during a long time were no issue for the general management of the organization. Because of that
a lot of tensions arose, which even reached the national press. The position of volunteers is now a part of the management policy of
Greenpeace Netherlands. In general volunteers should be entitled to clarity about their position, tasks, rights within the organization and
practical things like insurances during activities, finances (what have they to pay themselves, what can the organization pay for them)
etcetera. Milieudefensie and Greenpeace Netherlands even make a contract with those volunteers, which carry larger responsibilities.
More information about the question "how to keep volunteers motivated" can be found in the FoEI/GreenWay New Items brochure
"Making it Work" (see literature list).
30 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
4 Division of responsibilities
There are a lot of different responsibilities within an organization. Depending on its formal and informal structure some parts of the
organization have specialized in their responsibilities. As such (in the legal framework) mostly the board of the organization is last
responsible for everything; in some legal structures the individual is responsible for everything he or she does.
But in reality responsibilities are divided. The board will not want to make all kind of detail decisions and leaves that to the individual
volunteer or staff-member. Staff might not want to be bothered with the long-term strategy of the development of the organization, because
they feel that would be too much responsibility for them.
In the examples this last point is called responsibility for the long
term policy. "Policy" means the ideas and strategies for the
longer term development of the organization. It has nothing to
do with (party or parliamentary) politics! It only has to do with
the developments and goals of this organization and the
strategies it sets out to achieve these developments and goals.
All policies deal with goals, target-groups, means, organizational
questions and the contents (message) of your work. But there
are different time-scales, with each their own level of
abstrahism or concreteness of the questions and answers
involved. Some responsibilities are divided on the basis of their
timescale.
Responsibilities can also be divided to working-field: who is
responsible for international contacts, who for media-work, who
for the internal functioning of the organization?
As you can see in the five models, each organization structure
has its own divisions of responsibilities. Sometimes the members
are responsible for certain things, sometimes the staff,
sometimes the board. Sometimes there are more parts of the
organization responsible for a certain area. But there is always
a certain hierarchy, or (in horizontal structures) task division in
this. In the examples the most responsible (the people who put
most of the time in the particular subject) are mentioned first,
than the part, which also has some, but less responsibility for it,
etcetera.
Responsibilities and time scales
responsibility for long term policy
The long-term policy reflects the organization's ideas on questions like:
- What kind of long-term goals do we set? (Examples: A clean world for our children? No nuclear power in the world any more? 1600
ha. of nature reserve area in our region, half of it owned by our organization? The survival of all the now existing species of dolphins for
our coast?)
- On what kind of thematic fields will our organization work? (Examples: energy, nature protection, education, scientific work)
- How will we look within 5 to 10 years? (Examples: Larger or smaller? With staff or as volunteer organization? The organization
structure of this moment or another one?)
- How are we going to finance ourselves on the long run? (Examples: Are we going to increase our membership? Or are we going to
depend more on sponsors or on the state?)
- How are we going to develop our basis and our support? (Examples: Are we going to increase our membership? Are we going to do
more media-work?)
"Long term" means in this case the period of 4 or 5 years from now and afterward. Although it is of course impossible to foresee, what
exactly will happen in 5 or 10 years, formulating a long term policy defines choices for today: When an organization has the long term policy
to ban nuclear power and introduce renewable power instead, that means for the middle long term policy that expert knowledge on
renewable energy sources has to be gained. When the members of an organization feel they have to rescue the forests in the area from
clear-cutting, that might mean for the longer term, that an office should be installed to influence the national politics on forest management.
It might mean, that your goals are much to high for now, so that you need to do more concrete steps in between. The long term policy is a
tool for finding out these more concrete steps for the middle long term.
In most cases people with a longer engagement in an organization will feel responsible for the longer term policy. Sometimes forces from
outside will try to influence the long term policy to meet their own objectives (think for instance of political parties, that might want to win
Box 1 Responsibility and speed of decision
Different divisions of responsibilities lead to different speeds in
which necessary decisions are taken. Some decisions need to
be taken fast.
As a rule of the thumb: clearly divided responsibilities
increase the speed of decisions .
In a top-down model that means that the top will take the
decision. In this way as little as possible communication is
necessary to make the decision known to the people that need
to work with it.
In a horizontal model detail decisions will be taken by the
ones, who actually have to work with the decision. It is obvious
that this is even faster than in the top-down model.
The rest of the organization has to agree, that these people or
this person can take the full responsibility for the decision. This
means a fundamental trust in the people within the
organization!
It also means, that when there are more people depending on
the decision, in the horizontal model more people will have to
communicate about this. That will make the decision process
slower.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 31
the votes behind your nature protection organization, or bird protectors, that might want to be able to use your influence in the Ministry,
etcetera).
responsibility for middle long term policy
The middle long term policy contains all the questions also raised for the long term policy, but the answers will be more concrete. The
"middle long term" ranges from around 1 year from now to around 4 years from now. Examples of middle-long term issues are questions
like "do we need to attract a special staff person for press contacts?", or "what strategy are we going to follow to oppose against building of
the nuclear power plant nearby?" or "Will we try to raise funds to buy this nature reserve?".
responsibility for detail decisions
These are the concrete decisions of every moment: "Do we hire a new staff person now?", "Do we start an action to raise money this
week?", etcetera. Detail decisions are mostly concerned with the time-period between now and a few weeks.
The people which carry the responsibility for these decisions (that means in a functional approach: the people that actually take these
decisions!) are mostly people which spend a lot of time in the organization and which take part in the actions on which the decisions are
taken: so mostly that will be active volunteers, staff people or people in the executive board.
Responsibility and task-fields
responsibility for personnel management
When an organization has a paid staff, someone should be responsible for how the people in that staff function. This responsibility contains
tasks like hiring new people and how to do that, including taking care that you get the best person available. But also tasks like what to do
when a staff member complains, helping staff members making a career within or outside the organization, helping them to grow by getting
extra education, firing people when necessary. Personnel management is something different than work-planning. Work-planning is part of
coordination. But when a staff member doesn't feel well under a certain work-planning, the one responsible for personnel management
should notice this and do something about it.
external relations
Who is responsible for contacts with the funders, with the Ministry, with sponsors? Who is responsible for the image the organization has in
the country? For the logo of the organization? For its magazine? For with which other organizations you cooperate with or which
organizations you openly oppose? How cooperation with other organizations is organized? This person or group of people is responsible for
external relations.
internal relations
This part of the organization takes care for the working-atmosphere, the contacts with the members, the contacts between board and staff,
the way how staff-members should report on what they are doing and how often they should report, how the internal organization-lines
have to look like, etcetera.
international relations
All the five described models also have relations with organizations in foreign countries. Not every member, staff-person and boardmember
will be working on that. Also here there are different responsibilities.
32 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
5 Continuity
In the description of the 5 models, also something is said about the continuity of the organization. The continuity of an organization is
strongly depending on how long people stay active within the organization. When staff members tend to work for many years in an
organization, it will be able to develop with fewer shocks, than when the staff changes every year or so. Continuity in staff and membership
is also an indication for the "internal health" of an organization. When people feel happy in it and feel happy with what the organization
stands for, they will stay longer.
Another thing is the continuity for the long-term policy. An organization in which the board (or staff) changes every year will have more
problems in formulating a long term policy and its necessary decisions, than a board (or staff) in which there are people for a longer time.
These people can explain why certain long-term decisions have been taken. On the other hand, when the continuity within board and staff is
too large (and people hardly change places), the flexibility of the organization will decrease. When the organization grows fast, new active
members can take in new positions within the board or staff and take care there for the introduction of new ideas. But when the
organization hardly grows, a high continuity will strongly hinder the development of new activists.
On all levels a certain optimum in continuity must be found for each organization. A yearly fully changing board might look very democratic,
it is in fact very undemocratic. The discontinuity caused by these changes makes it more difficult for the organization to achieve the goals
the members want it to reach. Most of the described organizations therefore use a model in which the board is only partly changed during
the annual members meeting. The remaining people take care for the necessary continuity, the new ones for the new ideas.
There is an exception however: when it is the objective of the organization to let as much (young) people as possible get experience in
board-positions, like in environmental youth organizations like the NJN. Here a yearly change of board has a training function!
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 33
34 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
6 Finances
The finances of each of the model are listed in magnitude of importance. There are quite some differences, but important is to notice, that
the more complex the organization is, the more complex the financial structure. And also the more different sources the organization has to
draw finances from. For more information on fund-raising we point here to the brochure "Money for Earth" from Milieukontakt Oost-
Europa.
financial sources
Most environmental organizations in the Netherlands are not depending on one source of finances. The general policy is a spread of
dependency, so that the sources of finance cannot dictate the organization's policy. Main sources are:
. members: They pay a yearly or half-yearly membership fee; members are a part of the organization and can influence the organization
over the members meeting (minimally by a right to vote). Membership fees vary from Hfl 25,00 (the price of ten glasses of beer) to Hfl
50,00 per year.
. donors: They pay one time or (as in Milieudefensie and Greenpeace Netherlands) once a year a minimal amount of money; they are
no part of the organization structure and can not influence the organizational policy directly.
. subsidies: Sums of money, given by government structures (local, regional, national (ministries), international (EC)); these subsidies are
given for certain well described projects or as core funding (for the running of the organization); formally the subsidizing authorities
have no influence on the organization's policy.
. foundations: Private sources of money; mostly for well defined projects, in rare cases for core funding; formally foundations have no
influence on the organization's policy.
. legacies: People can take up a statement in their last will or testament, that (part of) their legacy has to be given to a non-profit charity.
. publishing and selling materials: These sources are not very important (maximally 10% of the overall budget).
. giving licence for the use of the logo: Of the described organizations only Greenpeace uses this source of income; companies wanting to
use the logo are bound to very strict conditions.
low and high budgets
With a low budget, I mean a budget of a few hundred to a few ten thousand DM or US-Dollar yearly (a total budget equalling around two
full-time yearly salaries or less). A moderately high budget is a budget of between 1 and 2 million DM (around 1 million US-Dollar), a high
budget runs around 10 million DM (5 million US-Dollar) yearly, a very high budget over 50 million DM (25 million US-Dollar) yearly.
financial structure
In a simple financial structure there is one person responsible for bookkeeping and watching the budget, and there is only one or a few
different budgets within the organization. In a complex financial structure there are more people responsible for bookkeeping and
accountability, there are different budgets and budgets have complicated relations amongst one another.
an example
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa has a total yearly budget of around DM 2.000.000. This budget consists of around ten different project
budgets, from which three are interrelated: Milieukontakt's legislation, Romania and Organization and Management Projects all are part of
the same funding budgets from the EC. On the other hand they have also separate incomes and the amounts of income from the common
EC-project is in percentages related to these other sources of income. There is one administrator at Milieukontakt full time working on
keeping track of the budgets, helped part time by an administrative support person. The general coordinator is constantly informed about the
financial situation and also is responsible for budget planning and payment. The reason for a division in responsibility for
accounting/bookkeeping and spending the money is to prevent a mixing of interest, which could give the impression of possible fraud. For
the overall view on the finances the treasurer, a volunteer board member, is responsible. He also works as general administrator in
Milieudefensie and was asked into the board because of his rich experience in financial affairs. Last but not least the bookkeeping
(including the whole further written archives, especially minutes (reports) from meetings) are checked yearly by an officially registered
register accountant or financial auditor. This accountant or auditor is an employee of an independent firm, which checks every March the
books of the last year and makes a report with recommendations for the financial administration and general management (the so called
"management letter"). He also writes an official declaration of consent (approval), which is required by large funders as the Environmental
Ministry and the EC.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 35
36 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
7 Social structure
Organizations are there to accomplish a certain task. Whether it be a multinational producing chemicals as the German Bayer Company or
a local citizens group trying to fight the environmental damage done by such a firm. Therefore organizational models first of all focus on
how the organization is tailored to fulfil these tasks. For the people involved however, the organization is more. They are there, when
everything is OK, to help to accomplish these tasks, but also for other reasons: because they earn money with it, because they have friends
in it, because they have a feeling of importance, because they feel they do something useful in their spare time, etcetera. These other
reasons for people to be active in an organization are very important for their motivation, and therefore for the effectivity of the
organization. When the members of Milieuzorg Wageningen have the feeling they are working with and for friends, they will put more
time in analysing the permits the local government has given to a local polluter.
So the social structure of the organization has a large influence on the motivation of the people involved in it, and the motivation again has
influence on the quality of the work. With low motivation of volunteers or staff, we mean that they have a lot of criticism on the
organization and that there is a lot of time going into solving conflicts or cutting communication barriers within the organization. For instance
some local volunteers within Greenpeace Netherlands feel dissatisfied with their task. Partly this is a question of unclarity about the tasks,
but mainly one of a weak social contact between the office and the group. The social structure within these local groups is very strong,
though. Therefore they feel strong enough to stand up against the office policy. On the other hand the strongly horizontal structure within
Milieukontakt and Milieudefensie leads to a very high staff motivation. Because the staff-members of Milieukontakt have to travel a lot,
the social structure is somewhat weaker. This leads sometimes to people being overworked with too late notice by colleagues, or people
having the feeling they have to work totally on their own, resulting in panic about future developments in their projects. Milieukontakt more
or less solved this problem by having an important general coordination function.
This also puts some light on the principle of workload. One of the basic problems of environmental organizations is, that there is so much to
do. A too high workload can start to work de-motivating. Notice: a too high workload. A high workload per se can be very motivating...
there is a lot to do; the work is obviously important and so is the person doing it. The high workload in organizations with staff-functions like
Greenpeace NL, Milieudefensie and Milieukontakt is sometimes reason for care, but not a problem in itself. In voluntary organizations
the story is different. Because people in these organizations do not have a choice in putting much more time in it (they also have their
"normal" job, studies or other social contacts) a high workload can lead to turning away from the organization ("They don't organize
themselves well").
One thing is clear from all experiences, though. There is nothing as demotivating as a too low workload. People must have the feeling that
they are needed. Staff and volunteers.
7.1 Communication structure
With a difficult communication structure we mean, that it is difficult for outsiders and insiders to get the right information on the right
place, or to pose the right questions to the right persons. In a small organization it is mostly clear, who is responsible for what and how such
a person can be reached. Communication flows easily throughout the organization. This is not always the case however. When there are
tensions inside an organization, communication can also become in a small organization very complicated. In large organizations,
communication needs to be organized. Milieudefensie with around 100 people working in its office has several channels through which
people from outside land at the right place: they have a reception, which functions as a switchboard for incoming telephone-calls, faxes and
visitors. There is permanently someone behind the desk to take care for this. Then there is the environmental telephone, which channels
informative questions (over 80.000 calls per year!) and which is run by a group of 15 people. Finally every department and employee has its
own direct contacts. To stimulate internal communication Milieudefensie uses managing tools like a matrix-structure (everybody belonging
to two different decision structures) and informal tools like a common lunch-hour with all of the staff. This is an example of a complicated
structure, which still leads rather fast to the right person.
Communication can go on formal and on informal ways. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and both are necessary in an
organization. The advantage of an informal communication structure is, that it is flexible. You don't have to pass a lot of people to get the
information on the right place; you can go directly to the person that needs to have the information. A disadvantage of the informal structure
can be, that it is not clear where what information is. It's more difficult to manage. And certainly, when information is seen as power, an
informal communication structure will give advantage to those wanting to use information as a tool of power (think of keeping back
information).
In a formal communication structure the information flows are fixed on the paper. The advantage is, that it is in theory clear, where which
information should be. Also in crisis situations it is easier to take fast and painful decisions. The disadvantage is that organizations with a
very formal communication structure suffer mostly of a large internal bureaucracy. This can cause two problems: long decision procedures
and opposition against changes. Flexible informal structures are easier to adapt to new circumstances than large formal structures.
Another point, important to mention here, is the point of motivation. In a more informal structure, people have more the feeling, that they
can influence decisions and actions. This is more motivating than in a formal structure, where you have to keep track of the rules. When the
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 37
president of the organization can be addressed by a member with her first name, there will be an easier access to her, than when members
should say "professor X".
It's important to find the right balance between formality and informality within each organization. Modern management theory suggests,
that the informality even in larger organizations should prevail and that formal structures should be existent for crisis situations.
Another (rather parallel) difference is made between an open and a closed communication system. Although open systems are mostly
more informal and closed ones more formal, this is not always synonymous. An open communication system means, that there is
accessibility to information for relatively much people. In a closed system, little information is available for people, which have no direct
connection to this information. There are themes on which the information is logically circulating in a more closed system. For instance
personal information on employees or members. To optimize the flexibility of the organization however, the system should be as open as
possible. This leads to more understanding for decisions, less internal and external opposition and clearer relations.
7.2 Human orientation and task orientation
We say that a manager or a green activist is task oriented, when she wants to accomplish her task as good and soon as possible. Human
orientedness means that there is a great deal of attention for the functioning of the people involved. Motivation is a key-word here. Taskorientation
and human-orientation do not have to exclude one-another, but it is for a lot of people and situations difficult to combine them. In
a task-oriented surroundings as Greenpeace NL, fast and high quality results are central. To be as fast and effective as possible, the
organization is built in such a way, that people can be corrected soon. This top-down model indeed leads to a high effectivity, but on the
other hand not many people stay long. In the last years the negative effects of this extreme task-oriented structure became so large, that
Greenpeace NL decided to reorganize and increase the human orientation.
The two described smaller organizations are more human oriented and less task-oriented. This is connected to the fact, that these
organizations have to work with mainly volunteers. For volunteers there are a lot of different reasons to be active and to stay active. The
social function of the organization in their life is very important. Only if there are other incentives (like payment for a job), an organization
can afford being a little less human oriented.
38 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
literature
- Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall and Steve Max, "Organizing for Social Change; a manual for activists in the 1990s". Washington (1991)
Midwest Academy / Seven Locks Press. (270 pages), $19.95
- Jan Haverkamp, "Experiences with Employment Support Measurements (ABM) in the Eastgerman Environmental Movement".
Amsterdam (1992) Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, East-West Organization and Management Project (17 pages).
- Jan Haverkamp and Marjolijn Sondorp, "Making it Work; organising local action". Brussels (1993) Friends of the Earth International
European Coordination. (45 pages)
- Jan Haverkamp, "Money for Earth!; fundraising for Central and East European environmental NGOs". Amsterdam (1993)
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, East-West Organization and Management Project (20 pages)
- Chris Moore (ed.), "SEAC Organization guide". Chapel Hill (1990) Student Environmental Action Coalition. (58 pages)
In 1994 the Milieukontakt Oost-Europa East-West Organization and Management Project will issue similar brochures on:
- "Small organization models; examples to get ideas": a description of a few local groups from the Netherlands.
- "Bookkeeping for small environmental NGOs"
- "Taking decisions": how to take decisions in environmental NGOs; new and old decision models.
- "A job for Earth!": basic information on personnel management in environmental NGOs.
- "Planning campaigns": theory of planning of activities and several campaign planning models from the daily practice
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 39
40 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
index
Association.....................................................................19, 22
Background information .........................................................6
Board......................................................... 5, 19, 21, 22, 29, 31
executive board........................................................22, 23
Board meeting.....................................................................23
Board on distance................................................................23
Bottom-up structure.............................................10, 14, 20, 21
Brontosaurus .........................................................................5
Budget................................................................................33
By-laws ..............................................................................20
C.o.'s..................................................................................25
Career support.....................................................................26
Chairperson.........................................................................22
Civil servants.......................................................................25
Closed communication system..............................................36
Communication......................................................... 19, 24, 35
closed system................................................................36
open system..................................................................36
Communication structure........................................... 19, 24, 35
Conscientious objectors........................................................25
Consultancy group ...............................................................27
Contacts..............................................................................22
Contents..............................................................................24
Continuity.......................................................................22, 31
Coordination........................................................................24
Coordinator ....................................................................20-22
Council of employees...........................................................23
Decentralization...................................................................21
Decision................................................................... 21, 22, 30
Detail decisions...............................................................22, 30
Director .........................................................................20, 22
Donors................................................................................33
Employees.............................................................................5
Employment support jobs......................................................25
Evaluation ......................................................................23, 24
Executive board..............................................................22, 23
Expert...................................................................................5
Expertise.............................................................................22
External relations .................................................................30
Facilitation...........................................................................24
Finances.....................................................................5, 21, 33
Financial sources .................................................................33
Financial structure................................................................33
Formal communication .........................................................35
Formal structure ..................................................................22
Foundation......................................................................19, 33
Free lance staff ...................................................................25
Friends of the Earth Netherlands...........................................14
Function
contents ........................................................................24
coordination...................................................................24
supporting......................................................................24
Functional organization principles...........................................23
Functionality ........................................................................22
Functioning evaluation ..........................................................23
General remarks ................................................................... 6
Greenpeace Netherlands ......................................................16
Horizontal structure.......................................... 8, 12, 14, 20, 21
Human orientation................................................................36
Informal communication .......................................................35
Informal structure ................................................................20
International relations ...........................................................30
Leader .......................................................................... 20, 21
Legacies..............................................................................33
Legal structure.....................................................................19
Legislation............................................................................ 5
Literature ............................................................................37
Logo
use of............................................................................33
Long term development........................................................22
Long term policy............................................................ 29, 31
Management........................................................................24
Matrix structure............................................................. 14, 20
Meeting......................................................................... 22, 23
Member ................................................................5, 19, 20, 33
Middle long term policy.........................................................30
Milieudefensie......................................................................14
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa ...................................................12
Motivation ................................................................ 24, 35, 36
Negative points..................................................................... 6
NJN....................................................................................10
Open communication system.................................................36
Organization
functional model.............................................................24
model...................................................................5, 19, 24
principles.......................................................................23
structure....................................................................5, 19
Personnel management................................................... 22, 30
Personnel manager...............................................................26
Policy............................................................................ 23, 29
long term................................................................. 29, 31
middle long term.............................................................30
Positive points....................................................................... 6
Power........................................................................... 19, 22
President....................................................................... 19, 22
Priority................................................................................. 6
Professionalization................................................................23
Profit organization................................................................19
Publishing............................................................................33
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 41
Registration....................................................................19, 21
Regulations..........................................................................19
Relations
external.........................................................................30
internal..........................................................................30
international...................................................................30
Representation.....................................................................22
Research institutes...............................................................23
Responsibility............................................................ 21, 22, 29
continuity.......................................................................22
financial........................................................................21
long term development ...................................................22
Salary.................................................................................26
Secretary.......................................................................19, 22
Sell materials .......................................................................33
Social pressure ......................................................................5
Social structure....................................................................35
Society................................................................................19
Specialization.......................................................................23
Staff .........................................................................22-24, 29
Statutes...............................................................................19
Structure
bottom-up......................................................10, 14, 20, 21
communication.................................................... 19, 24, 35
coordination...................................................................24
financial........................................................................33
formal...........................................................................22
horizontal....................................................8, 12, 14, 20, 21
informal.........................................................................20
legal..............................................................................19
matrix ......................................................................14, 20
social............................................................................35
supporting......................................................................24
top-down.............................................................16, 20-22
Students..............................................................................25
Subsidies.............................................................................33
Supporting functions.............................................................24
Supporting structure.............................................................24
Task description...................................................................24
Task orientation...................................................................36
Tax................................................................................. 5, 19
Top-down structure....................................................16, 20-22
Traditional organization principles..........................................23
Trainees..............................................................................25
Treasurer.......................................................................19, 22
Trust...................................................................................23
Vereniging Milieuzorg Wageningen.........................................8
Volunteer.............................................................21, 22, 27-29
Working-group.....................................................................27
Workload............................................................................35
42 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
addresses
Friends of the Earth International, European
Coordination (CEAT)
29 Rue Blanche P.O. Box
163
B - 1050 Brussels
814 99 Bratislava
tel.: +32.2.5377228
Slovakia
fax: +32.2.5375596
tel./fax: +42.7.827213
e-mail: ceat@gn.apc.org e-mail:
foeeast@gn.apc.org
Milieukontakt Oost Europa
East-West Organization and Management Project
P.O. Box 18185
NL - 1001 ZB Amsterdam
tel.: +31.20.6392716
fax: +31.20.6391379
e-mail: mkontakt@gn.apc.org
SEAC
Student Environmental Action Coalition
National Office
P.O. Box 1168
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27541
USA
tel.: +1.919.9674600/9674647
Seven Lock Press
P.O. Box 68
Arlington, Virginia 22210
USA
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 43
About Milieukontakt Oost-Europa
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa was officially established in 1988 by the Dutch environmental movement with support
from the Dutch Ministry for the Environment. Its task was to facilitate and develop contacts and cooperation
between environmental organizations in the Netherlands and the independent environmental movement in Central
and Eastern Europe. Since then the organization has grown to the largest West European organization
specialized in cooperation between the environmental movements in East and West. It has bilateral programmes
with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania and Albania. Until 1992
Milieukontakt Oost-Europa also maintained a bilateral programme on East Germany. Furthermore, it has an
East-West project in which more thematic and methodological specialized issues are covered. Milieukontakt
Oost-Europa in 1993 had 14 staff in Amsterdam and 7 consultants in Central and Eastern Europe. More updated
information can be found on http://www.milieukontakt.nl
About the author:
After studying Chemistry at Leiden University, Jan Haverkamp graduated from Wageningen Agricultural
University (both in the Netherlands) in environmental communication sciences. He has worked as a voluntary
information officer for Greenpeace Netherlands since 1981. After his studies he was campaign coordinator at
the National Society for the Preservation of the Waddensea. From 1987 to 1992 he coordinated the East
Germany Project of Milieukontakt Oost-Europa. In 1992 he started as project coordinator for Milieukontakt's
East-West Organization and Management Project. For this project he worked in 1992 in Czecho-Slovakia and in
1993 in Romania and Croatia. He was born in 1959 and lives in Wageningen, Netherlands.
2004: Jan Haverkamp co-founded the ZHABA facilitator collective that supports NGOs in their development.
Since 1997 he lives in Prague, Czech Republic. More recent information can be found on http://www.zhaba.cz
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 45
46 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Organization models
Appendix 1
3 more examples to get ideas
three examples of small volunteer environmental NGOs from the Netherlands
To "read" the descriptions, note the following legend:
* indicates background information on the organization.
. indicates general remarks on the organization structure.
+ indicates positive points of this organization structure.
- indicates negative points of this organization structure.
When several structures or functions are mentioned in one line, they are mentioned
from high to low priority. An example:
In the model of Milieudefensie Wageningen it says:
. responsibility detail decisions: group, GMM, coordination team
This means that most responsibility is located at the single thematical or ad-hoc
groups, than at the General Members Meeting and only when problems can't be
solved by the group, the coordination team has the responsibility to find a
solution.
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 47
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Anneke Fermont, Eelco Bots and Huub Scheele for their enthusiastic cooperation and the information they gave me. István
Várady and Ani Varlan gave the idea to make this Appendix to the brochure "Organization Models; 5 examples to get ideas" for the workshop
on "Organization Models and Meeting Techniques" in Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania (13 - 15 May 1994). I am grateful for the motivating way in
which we prepared this workshop and which enabled me to get a better insight in Dutch volunteer environmental groups as well. I have been a
member of the Greenpeace kerngroep Wageningen for 13 years and of the Working group Schönberg for 3 years now. I assisted the
Milieudefensie kerngroep Wageningen in designing their new decision structure. I owe the members of these groups a lot because of their
creativity and inspiration.
Example a.: after: Milieudefensie kerngroep Wageningen (as of March 1994)
(Friends of the Earth Netherlands, local group Wageningen)
1 Background information
* local action and campaigning organization
* one of the around 120 local groups of Vereniging Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands)
* around 40 active members
* campaigning on a local and sometimes regional or national level
* supporting national and international campaigns of FoE-NL, FoEI and others
General information
. horizontal structure with bottom-up elements
. juridical form: integral part of Friends of the Earth Netherlands (an association with members)
structure
General Members Meeting (GMM)
- once every month
- can be attended by all listed members of the kerngroep Wageningen; mostly around 60% of all members are
present; in practice all groups (thematic and ad-hoc) are represented
- works on a consensus basis
- information exchange, coordination of the group-work, finances, strategic discussions, priorities
coordination team
- 4 to 5 people
- chosen annually by the GMM
- task is only to facilitate the work of the whole kerngroep
- meets every two weeks and before every GMM with the GMM facilitators
GMM facilitators
- 2 people
- chosen at the end of every GMM for the next one (volunteers)
- task is to facilitate the General Members Meeting
thematic groups
- 3 to 15 people
Friends of the
Earth
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 49
- work on a certain theme over a longer period (2 to 5 years)
there are groups on:
. traffic (local and national traffic policy, car-use, public transport)
. forests (support of tropical rainforest actions, local policy on tropical timber)
. meat (ecological food-consumption, lifestyle)
. local authorities (lobbying local authorities)
. education and eco-counselling (work on schools, information meetings of groups of housewives, old-aged, and
others, preparing information materials)
. discussions (prepares discussions for the kerngroep and other interested people on ecological themes
(strategy, philosophy))
- people join the group that interests them
ad hoc groups
- 3 to 10 people
- work on a certain theme over a shorter period (some weeks to one year)
- examples include: the preparation of the annual weekend meeting of the kerngroep, a support action for an animal
rights group, participation in international contacts (twin-city contacts)
- people join the group on the basis of interest
. responsibility long term policy: virtually non-existent; in cases: GMM
. responsibility middle long term policy: GMM
. responsibility detail decisions: groups, GMM, coordination team
. external relations: groups (never: the coordination team!), GMM
. internal relations: members, coordination team
. international relations: ad-hoc groups, GMM
membership
. students and people, who just finished their studies
. time-investment: in average around 4 hours per week
range: 0 to 10 hours per week
. around 60% of the members is part of more than one group
. not all members are also formal member of Friends of the Earth Netherlands
. continuity: members are in average 2 years active. Range of activity: 6 months to 5 years, with a few exceptions longer (up
to 12 years); people in the coordination team stay 2 to 5 years active in the kerngroep
finances
. annual turn-over: normally around DM 1.500; in case of large campaigns up to around DM 5.000 per year
. sources: subsidies from the town and province, private foundations
. in case of budget deficit, the kerngroep can receive additional funds from Friends of the Earth Netherlands
. the group can decide autonomously on amounts below DM 50
. amount higher than DM 50 have to be discussed in the GMM
. bookkeeping is done by the kerngroep-treasurer, who is part of the coordination team
. when a group (for instance the tropical forest group) runs a large campaign, it appoints an own treasurer and does its own
fund-raising. In this case the group itself is responsible for the finances. It has to report to the GMM and the kerngroep-
treasurer
Positive points and advantages
+ strong social contacts
+ informal structure
+ large involvement of members
+ very open communication structure
+ discussions (self-education, internal education)
+ many actions (a few every month)
+ many concrete successes with concrete action themes
+ task orientation: high
+ human orientation: high
+ motivation members: moderate to high
50 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
+ groups can move very independently
+ open financial structure
Negative points and disadvantages
- in some groups some individuals have too a prominent role
- responsibility is concentrated at relatively little people (but the kerngroep tries to spread this)
- the continuity is felt to be too low
- lack of time of volunteers
- no activity during examination times on the university
- too little involvement of non-students
- the results of eco-counselling and education activities are very difficult to see (motivation problems)
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 51
52 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
information
officers
Example b.: after: Greenpeace kerngroep Wageningen (as of March 1994)
(Greenpeace Netherlands, local group Wageningen)
Background information
* local support and information group of Greenpeace Netherlands
* one of the around 25 local support groups of Greenpeace Netherlands
* around 12 members from which 9 are active
* information and education work, fund-raising for Greenpeace Netherlands, practical support of Greenpeace campaigns
and actions
General information
. horizontal structure with top-down elements
. juridical form: integral part of Greenpeace Netherlands (a foundation)
structure
Greenpeace Netherlands
- coordinator for local groups
- local group are a part of the information, publicity and education department
- two times a year a meeting of local group coordinators; once a year a meeting for all interested members of local
groups; irregularly thematic meetings on campaigns; courses for information officers, group coordinators and
PR coordinators
GREENPEACE NL
financial
department
administration
department
campaign
department
administration
co-ordinator
PR
informal coordination
meetings with local groups
from the region
information
officers
other active
members
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 53
informal regional coordination
- informal contacts between activists from the region
- internal education (excursions, discussions)
- coordination of activities
group
- meets every three weeks; every second meeting with a common dinner in a students' restaurant
- works on a consensus basis
- divides tasks, discusses policy, evaluates activities
- everybody has a specific task (in total 12 tasks varying from group coordinator to responsible person for bringing
cookies during the meeting)
group coordinator
- contact person for Greenpeace Netherlands
- responsible for continuity
- official representative of the group on national coordinator-meetings
PR coordinator
- responsible for external contacts (including regional and local press)
administrator
- responsible for mail and other administration
- responsible for financial administration
- responsible for the management of promotion materials (partly for sale)
information officers
- 6 information officers
- have followed a specialized course by Greenpeace Netherlands
- do education and information work (schools, groups, old-age pensioners, housewives, clubs of rich people, police
officers, etcetera)
group members
- support information officers
- organize information and promotion material sales stands
. responsibility long term policy: Greenpeace Netherlands, group
. responsibility middle long term policy: Greenpeace Netherlands, group
. responsibility detail decisions: group
. external relations: PR coordinator, information officers, group
. internal relations: group coordinator, group
membership
. 5 working people, 7 students; age: 19 - 34
. time investment: in average 4 hours per week
range: 0 to 8 hours per week
. continuity: members are in average 4 years active. Range of activity: 1 year to 13 years
finances
. annual turn-over: around EUR 800
. source: Greenpeace Netherlands
. the group gets a monthly budget, which it is free to spend; every month a report has to be given to Greenpeace
Netherlands (financial department); overdraw of the budget is possible on a declaration basis
. all financial reimbursements afterwards on receipts
. income from information evenings and other activities has to be sent to Greenpeace Netherlands monthly
Positive points and advantages
54 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
+ clear responsibilities
+ clear task-setting
+ efficient
+ a lot of contact with the public
+ a lot of internal information about Greenpeace
+ strong feeling of being part of the international Greenpeace organization
+ task orientation: moderate to high
+ relatively little time involvement
+ possibilities for work on a national level
+ possibilities for self-education (much information material available; excursions)
Negative points and disadvantages
- human orientation: moderate
- members have too little energy and time available
- too little critical attitude towards Greenpeace Netherlands
- little own initiative possible: activities depending on demand
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 55
Example c.: after: Working group Schönberg (as of March 1994)
Background information
* national action group
* working group in a coalition of three organizations
* around 12 active members
* campaigning on toxic waste export to the East German waste dump site near Schönberg
* campaigning on a national and sometimes international level
General information
. horizontal structure
. juridical form: non-registered working group / action group
. two of the coalition organizations (A SEED Netherlands and EYFA Netherlands) are associations with only informal (nonregistered)
membership; Milieukontakt Oost-Europa (the third coalition partner) is a foundation
structure
group
- meeting every three to four weeks (depending on work load) on a central place in the country
- works on a consensus basis
- members are not official representatives of their organization; they participate on personal responsibility
- information exchange, task division, evaluation of past activities
ad-hoc subgroups
- two people
- contact mainly over telephone, sometimes irregular meetings
- coordination of the largest part of the execution of activities around one waste exporting firm
WASTE EXPORTING
FIRMS
1.1
1.2GRÜNE LIGA
Mecklenburg Vorpommern
e.V.
Foundation
for Nature
and
Friends of
the Earth
Netherlands
Greenpeace
Germany
Greenpeace
Netherlands
EYFA
Netherlands
A SEED
Netherlands
Milieukontakt
Oost-Europa
subgroup
sub-
group
sub-
group
sub-
group
56 MILIEUKONTAKT OOST-EUROPA, EAST-WEST ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT
- all members are active in more than one subgroup
. responsibility long term policy: group
. responsibility middle long term policy: group
. responsibility detail decisions: subgroups, group, individual member
. external relations: group, subgroup
membership
. 4 working people, 8 students
. time-investment: in average around 3 hours per week
range: 0 to 8 hours per week
. all members on a voluntary basis; one member is working on a professional basis for one of the coalition partners
. not all members are also related to the coalition organizations
. continuity: members are in average 1½ year active. Range of activity: ½ a year to 3 years
finances
. annual turn-over: around DM 600 (mainly travel-costs and communication)
. sources: subsidies from A SEED Netherlands, some foundations and one town
. in kind support from the coalition partners
. the group decides about the finances
Positive points and advantages
+ very concrete work
+ the work clarifies for the members regional, national and international relations in environmental policy
+ because it is a one-issue group, it can go very deep into the matter
+ regular concrete successes (firms stopping waste export)
+ very good and open contacts with national and international NGOs on the subject
+ very good and open contacts with a partner organization in East Germany
+ good and relatively open contacts with the Ministry for the Environment
+ human orientation: high
+ task orientation: high
+ motivation members: high
+ low budget activities
Negative points and disadvantages
- not suitable for more than one issue
- only a clearly limited subject can be tackled
- members have little time available
- much travel involved
- because of the concrete issues: sometimes strong anti-campaigns from waste-traders against the Working group
(including anonymous threats)
ORGANIZATION MODELS;5 EXAMPLES TO GET IDEAS 57