A Business Opportunity to Believe In

I firmly believe that one of the best business opportunities out there for a young entrepreneur is rehabbing non-government organizations who have fallen into patterns of indifference and lack skilled personnel to handle current and future problems. These needs are possessed by nearly every big charitable organization, such as Red Cross or United Way, as all have hit slumps at times. In particular, any person in a management capacity would know of these problems. The need stems from not being able to adequately pay people who are competent in these positions due to poor allocation of money and a generally smaller amount of money left for employee incomes. People are attempting to meet this need by bringing businesspeople and financial experts onto their boards of directors; they use their advice to shape their business plans and current company actions. I am nearly 100% certain these problems exist because I have seen them. Having spoken to higher ups in charitable organizations back in my hometown of Tampa, Florida, and near here in Gainesville, FL, I feel as though I have some small matter of qualification in discussing these matters because I frequently do so. 

An organization based out of my hometown called Mary and Martha’s House helps to serve abused women and their families through rehabilitation, rehoming, and repeated contact with the organization. However, they often suffer from having burn out within their organization and losing qualified people who are amazing at their positions. They first became aware of their need not long after the founding of the organization because the sole focus is to rehabilitate women who have been abused for many years. Not only is it difficult work, but some return and restart the cycle of abuse. They currently address this need by shifting responsibilities frequently and allowing their employees the time to decompress. This is a far better solution for them than retraining and bringing in new people.

Another organizational head with whom I have spoken works at the HOPE clinic in Ocala, FL. Here they suffer a similar problem that was realized about a year after opening. They have far too much turnover. Because it is a medically based organization, many of the workers pass through in about a year’s time because they go onto medical school or residencies in other cities and states. They currently cannot do much about it but try their best to get more students involved and have shaped their expectations of volunteers around this idea. They still have no definitive way to solve this problem and are still seeking solutions.

The last organization's worker I had spoken with was an employee of ECHO of Brandon. Here, they suffer from problems like volunteer indifference and employee burnout, but they do not seem to face as much as I had previously thought. Because of the small scale of the organizations workforce but large scale of diverse responsibilities, the organization is able to train its volunteers and employees effectively so they can complete tasks well and efficiently. They usually see that their volunteers stay for a short time 6 months to 1 year, and employees stay around for much longer. While this is expected, the organization hits a volunteer slump at times. This does not seem to perturb the organization's head because the employees are a tight knit group that work together in hard-pressed times to share responsibilities equally. They seem to be remotely satisfied with their current solution but not entirely.

While I had previously thought that patterns of indifference and lack of skilled personnel was a much more plaguing fact than it was, I am still not entirely convince that it is not a problem. These employees with whom I spoke did not persuade me that they do not face these problems, but instead that they have developed temporary solutions to solve them. I believe that with adequate time, good and wholesome solutions can be developed.