Page 28 - Sustainability and entrepreneurship for CSO's and CSO networks Cambodia 1 November 2018

In their research paper: Commercialization in the Non-Profit Sector: The Emergence of Social Enterprise in Cambodia (2014), the authors describe why CSO’s increasingly prefer to earn income for their organisation. During the last few years, commercial activities among Cambodian NGOs have increased from 6% in 2006 to 21% in 2012 (Khieng 2013).
“CSOs generate income mainly from tourism and hospitality, education and vocational training, and agriculture and fishery. The motivation for NGO leaders to engage in commercial activities extends beyond solely generating funding to sustain the organizations and the communities. They also seek to gain ownership and autonomy. Consequently, the aspiration to become more self-sufficient and self- reliant enables NGO leaders to initiate new programmes independent of conventional funding sources and, by so doing, avoid stringent terms and conditions imposed on them by their institutional donors and make them more responsible to their primary clients. The commercial activities can become as critical to their independence as they have become embedded in their mission. The increasing push towards self-financing activities further promotes the NGOs’ capacity to negotiate the terms of collaboration with their donors and thus achieving organizational autonomy .”(Dahles, H., Khieng S, 2014).
In other words, CSO’s already assess opportunities to become independent from traditional funding sources and to combine earned money with (social) commercial activities. Due to the shrinking funding opportunities, this trend is expected to continue.
• Task
Where do you want to position your organisation in the spectrum (graph pag 26)? What kind of organisation do you want to be? What does it take to get there, what obstacles do you have to overcome?
Ambition
Entrepreneurs are ambitious; they have the explicit intention of achieving goals, whether personal or organisational. Entrepreneurs are action focused on doing and achieving dreams. They detest the idea of being limited by obstacles, procedures, rules, money or other resources. Entrepreneurs dare to dream.
• Task
What ambitions or dreams exist within your organisation at board -, management -
and staff level?
Check your dreams and ambitions and determine how many people you want to reach, how much you need to earn and how, what organisational capacity, skills, staff, ICT, organisational culture, innovation, marketing, you need?
Most CSOs submit applications for a grant or subsidy. What triggers is the absence of ambitions in many applications. Managers and employees of CSOs often seem not to think of the long-term focus of their organisation. If aspirations exist, they are largely determined by today’s activities. CSO management argues that the lack of a future oriented growth ambition is caused by insecurity of funds or capacity, or that CSOs should not think as a commercial organisation. CSOs seem to market their own organisational needs instead of the stakeholders’ needs. Project applications then become tools for survival rather than investment opportunities.
!28