Northside Company Sustainability Analysis

This assignment analyzes the sustainability of Northside Company, a non-profit organization focused on community development. It explores both financial and environmental aspects of sustainability, highlighting potential challenges and opportunities. The analysis also delves into the company's relationship with stakeholders, particularly volunteers, employees, investors, and the broader society. The goal is to assess Northside's overall commitment to sustainable practices and identify areas for improvement.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 1
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 2
Community Engagement
A non- governmental organization (NGO) is a group majorly consisting of volunteers
who organize themselves at a local or an international level, but their operations are non-profit.
They are usually people who have the same interests and orientate themselves with tasks like
humanitarian functions, represent citizen’s issues to the government, monitor policies and boost
political involvement by delivering information. Most importantly, NGOs act as a voice for the
community and people should embrace them around the globe to help their communities grow.
One of these companies is Northside (connected. care. community), which is located in Sydney,
Australia. Northside offers services for people with disabilities, the mentally ill and the aged.
This paper is based on a discussion about Northside’s sustainability matters, volunteer issues,
and stakeholder concerns.
Sustainability is the ability to endure, and Northside has shown potential for
sustainability financially and environmentally. By the use of various metrics such as
benchmarking and environmental sustainability, Northside was measured and it was discovered
that the organization had no interest in production operations that can destroy biodiversity
(Francis, 2017, p. 23). Furthermore, its strategy and core activities lie in helping the community
achieve the set goals. The practice of environmental care is vital to the community and the
Northside feels that it is also critical to them and thus they take the full responsibility to keep the
environment clean. When people are in poverty, they tend to destroy the environment by
utilization of natural resources like trees for commercial purposes. One of the Northside’s
programs is: The Northside Community Forum that helps to alienate poverty. This helps to
conserve the environment though indirectly. Financial sustainability is also potential because the
organization has plans on organizing finances such as review of the operational funds,

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 3
competitive tendering, and consultation with the local community and is sufficiently supported
by HACC, which offers support that is above the limits. Also, its operation is locally based
which enables them to reduce wastage of resources. However, Northside has potential problems
with financial sustainability because there is more input required regarding business hours to
achieve the objectives of the organization which is not an easy task for volunteers to do. There is
also a lot of political intrusions which emerge during the selection and allocation of tenders. This
results to cases of the organization running low on finances especially when there is no
transparency.
Volunteers are an essential part of non-for-profit organizations because they drive
operations. In Northside, there is a deficiency in the availability of volunteers because of a
centralized form of organizational structure which has to be changed and monitored to avoid
inefficiency (Tan, 2016, p. 42). Also, local services like Neighbor Aid depend on a lot on
volunteers which may cause problems when volunteers are unavailable. Relationship with
HACC must be maintained because it promotes volunteer labor force more than the Australian
Government Community care programs do.
Volunteers cannot be treated the same as paid employees because their financial value is
huge for the company to offer compensation. One reason for the difference of the two is that
employees are compensated monetarily for their job while volunteers are not compensated for
their work monetarily. Another reason is that there is an age limit for employees which is
between ages 18 to 67 while volunteers are not limited by age (Gardinier, 2017, p. 34). Also
because volunteers are not paid, their schedule is flexible while that of the paid employees has
rules. Volunteers should be treated better and differently from paid workers to maintain the
provision of their services because without them the organizations will hardly survive.

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Northside’s point of differentiation lies in its strengths of providing high-quality
customer service. In its strategy, its pledge mainly lies in improving customer relations. It has
collaborated with service providers like HACC which widely offers the best services to
customers (Preece, 2017, p. 16). Also, the referral rate from private hospitals to private hospitals
is highly accessible. The set framework and organizational structure are being revised and
changed due to lack of flexibility of customer service delivery in the organization. Also, the team
in charge of promotion of the organization’s services ensures that customers have information on
services offered which help them to make better choices when selecting the services being
offered (Crosby &Brockmeier, 2107, p. 32). Also, all operations are customer-based approach
rather than the bureaucratic approach which ensures that the customers’ preferences have been
well considered. After being provided with information, customers are allowed to make the final
decision which makes the customer appreciate the organization because they feel that they have a
sense of belonging.
One of the main challenges affecting the sustainability of Northside Company is the
Centralized System among others (Purushotamdas Thakurdas & Finance., 2015, p. 12). The
centralized system would prevent the company from being provided with proper service since it
is only offered to local services. If the company was not supported by the local council which is
supported by the local community, it would lead to hazardous misunderstandings because the
local community is a vital stakeholder of the company. Furthermore, as earlier stated, the
centralized system makes the company lose volunteers, thus affecting sustainability because the
company cannot operate without volunteers (Cohen et al., 2015, p. 10). Another problem
affecting sustainability is increasing population, especially in the environmental sector. Increased
population causes deterioration of the environment. With increased population, comes increased

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Dementia which calls for the increase of the services required. This reduces the sustainability
chances since the company may not be ready cater for the heightening demand. The society is
also an essential part of sustainability, but Northside has issues with the same (Great Britain.
Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts, 2015).
There is need to examine the access of clients to HACC services where people have a lot
of assets but no cash, and also, there are many homes that need extensive renovations that are
outside the home. The primary stakeholders for Northside are the volunteers. They invest their
energy and time to offer services for community development, without monetary compensation
which makes them the most significant stakeholders for the company because it cannot run
without them. Volunteers are usually concerned with the tasks that they are oriented with.
Another stakeholder is the society. The organization’s main purpose is to improve the society,
but it has an even more important goal which is its social contract where without putting the
community in consideration during its operations, it cannot do business according to its
expectations. Other stakeholders include employees, investors, and customers (Morse et al.,
2015, p. 8). Stakeholders’ stake high no matter what and during decision, making the company
always considers their opinions. Employees and investors are usually concerned with financial
statements, for those who their efforts are compensated monetarily.
In conclusion, in Northside company there is a big potential for sustainability both
financially and environmentally although there are some problems with affecting the same, from
the volunteer’s perspective. The company needs volunteers because the form of organizational
structure is affecting their availability. Volunteers should not be treated equally with paid
employees because they are a big deal to the company and the point of differentiation in at

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Northside Company lies in its customer service. Also, stakeholder’s concerns should not be
taken for granted because they also hold the company together.
References
Cohen, S., Eimicke, W.B. & Miller, A., 2015. Sustainability Policy: Hastening the Transition to
a Cleaner Economy. 1st ed. Hoboken: Wiley.
Council, M.a.N., 2015. How to Revalidate with the NMC: Requirements for Renewing your
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Francis, G., 2017. Striving for environmental sustainability in a complex world: Canadian
experiences. Vancouver; Toronto: UBC: Press.
Gardinier, L., 2017. Service-learning through community engagement: what community partners
and members gain, lose, and learn from campus collaborations. 1st Ed. New York, NY:
Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts, 2015. Financial
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Morse, A., Government. G.B.D.f.C.a.L. & Office., G.B.N.A., 2015. Financial sustainability of
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Preece, J., 2017. University community engagement and lifelong learning: the Porous University.
1st ed. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Purushotamdas Thakurdas, S. & Finance., I.I.o.B. &. 2015. Taxman’s economic reforms,
financial inclusion, international monetary system, financial sustainability & talent management.
New Delhi, India: Taxmann.
R, F., 2013. Trust Public Inquiry. Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation.
Tan, Y.S., 2016. 50 years of environment: Singapore's journey towards environmental
sustainability. 1st ed. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.