Abstract
Non-profit organisations (NPOs) play a critical role in national development; through the use of resources they obtain, they fulfil the needs of society that governments are unable to fulfil. Thus, the current study was conducted at an NPO Rotary District 9400 (RD9400) to identify gaps in resource utilisation and ultimately, performance planning practices. The research evaluated a key RD9400 literacy project and provided recommendations on how the value created through the project could be enhanced by improved management practices, leading to optimised resource utilisation. A case study research strategy was adopted and literature was reviewed to gain an understanding of the research problem. Subsequently, a sequential qualitative and quantitative mixed methods approach was followed. Gap analysis was used to identify areas where RD9400 could enhance value creation. The findings revealed gaps in RD9400’s management practices, signalling the need for improvement in the performance planning of its key literacy project and perhaps other similar literacy projects. The findings also indicated that RD9400 needs to incorporate management practices through the use of management tools (e.g. the balanced scorecard) in order to standardise and optimise resource utilisation and project impact. Limitations of the study included the focus on a single NPO, which reduces the generalisability of the findings. The sample also excluded individuals under the age of 18, which meant that not all the direct beneficiaries of the literacy project could be represented in the sample. The study proposed a framework of recommendations for RD9400 on how to better manage, and thereby, measure the impact of the literacy project. As limited literature is available on the topic of NPOs in South Africa, this framework could also inform other NPOs and Rotary International globally on how to better manage their literacy projects.
M.Com. (Strategic Management)