Sustainability of 'Educating the Future'

This assignment analyzes the sustainability of the non-profit organization 'Educating the Future'. It explores the organization's financial stability through government and corporate funding, and its reliance on passionate volunteers. The analysis also highlights the organization's commitment to stakeholder needs, including educational support for the local community and qualified teachers providing life-empowering lessons.

Running head: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Community Engagement
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................2
2.0 Potential Sustainability..............................................................................................................2
3.0 Needs for Volunteers.................................................................................................................3
4.0 Treatment of Volunteers versus Paid Employees......................................................................4
5.0 Point of Differentiation within the Community.........................................................................4
6.0 Positive or Negative Issues Regarding the Sustainability of the Organization.........................6
7.0 Community Engagement as Per Theory....................................................................................6
8.0 Stakeholders Concerns...............................................................................................................7
9.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................8
Reference List..................................................................................................................................9

2COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
1.0 Introduction
Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with the community
groups for addressing their issues and developing their well-being (Douglas 2017). The
organization chosen for this study is Educating the Future, which is a highly recognized non-
profit organizational in Australian. The organization is focused on overall community
development through educating and developing the students and youths. The study will discuss
the potential for sustainability from financial, environmental and from the volunteer perspective.
The study will analyze the needs of Volunteers and discus the difference between the treatments
of volunteers versus paid employees. Apart from that, the study will also discuss the point of
differentiation of the organization within the community and analyse some positive and negative
sustainable issues. Furthermore, the study will assess the stakeholders concerns of the
organization.
2.0 Potential Sustainability
Potential Sustainability of Educating the Future
Financial Sustainability Environmental
Sustainability
Volunteer Sustainability
 Get huge financial support
from Government of
Australia
 Get financial and
distribution support for
learning materials from
 Concerns for environment
protecting through
educating the community
 Educate the community
members about the
 Adequacy of volunteer
centers ensure sustainable
source of volunteers
 Increasing employers and
employee driven volunteer
programs ensure volunteer

3COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Unicef
 Source of donation from
corporate groups
 Source of fund from
willing community
members
 Source of fund from event
sponsorship
environmental protection
 Encourage the community
to keep environment
pollution free
sustainability
 Local government offices
and educational institutes
also provides adequate
volunteers for charitable
purpose
 Adequate training and
benefits to the volunteers
ensures volunteer
sustainability
Table 1: Potential Sustainability of Educating the Future
(Source: Educating the Future 2017)
3.0 Needs for Volunteers
Volunteers are the backbone for the success of “Educating the Future “. Volunteers have
inner willingness to support for the youth development and life empowerment of the people.
Therefore, they can provide best services to the community people. On the other hand, the
volunteers of Educating the Future often take the responsibility of policy making. The
organization need not to pay regular salary to the volunteers, which can actually save overall
organizational cost of the organization (Barnes and Schmitz 2016). Volunteers are themselves
highly passionate about bringing their community and expertise towards serving the community.
Volunteers actually foster efficiency of educational programs of the organization offered to the

4COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
community people (Hume and Hume 2016). Volunteers also help the organization is raising fund
for supporting the educational programs of the organization.
4.0 Treatment of Volunteers versus Paid Employees
There are great differences between the treatment of volunteers and the paid employees
of ‘Educating the Future’. According to Hume and Hume (2015), volunteers are not paid for
their work for serving the community. On the other hand, Hyde et al. (2016) opined that paid
employees are paid for the work for serving the community. Volunteers are not bound by any
working rules for serving the community, whereas the paid employees are bound by the
organizational rules and regulations towards serving the community. Volunteers are not
pressurized to do any particular work towards serving the community. Moreover, the volunteers
are only energized to do their work from their inner motivation. On the other hand, paid
employees are sometimes pressurized to some particular work for serving the community (Rathi,
Given and Forcier 2016). Moreover, volunteers enjoy flexible working schedule for developing
the community, whereas, paid employees may not enjoy flexible working schedule as they are
bound by some organizational rules and regulations.
5.0 Point of Differentiation within the Community
Point of differentiation of ‘Educating the Future’
Support to Universal
Students
‘Educating the Future’ is not only limited to Australia, but the
organization has reached across the domestic boundaries for
supporting the global poor students through educating them. Global
identification of the organization has built its recognition and

5COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
reputation in international countries.
Highly Qualified and
Trained Teachers
‘Educating the Future’ has made a differentiation through its
availability of highly qualified and trained teachers. Moreover, such
highly qualified and trained teacher use their unique learning
technique and depth of knowledge for educating the global students.
The organization also regularly trains the teachers for upgrading them
with modern teaching technique and learning.
Life Empowerment
Lesson
The innovative workshop in the life empower lesson encourage the
youth towards a massive social change through educating and
developing them.
Adequacy of Learning
Materials
‘Educating the Future’ gets huge support from the Unicef, which helps
them in getting wide access to learning materials. Moreover, with the
help of Unicef, the organization can provide required and necessary
learning materials to the poor students of across the country.
Rural Development ‘Educating the Future’ has also become able to make it unique through
establishing Pre-school Construction in the rural areas. Moreover, the
organization is highly focused on rural development through educating
the rural students through Pre-school Construction.
Table 2: Point differentiation of ‘Educating the Future’ within Community
(Source: Rowe et al. 2014)

6COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
6.0 Positive or Negative Issues Regarding the Sustainability of the Organization
According to Barrick et al. (2015), ‘Educating the Future’ is sustainable enough from its
financial aspect, as it gets adequate donations from several government agencies and corporate
bodies. Furthermore, the organization also gets huge support from Unicef in getting adequate
learning materials for educating the youths. Furthermore, Hume and Hume (2015) pointed out
that ‘Educating the Future’ is also socially sustainable through developing and educating the
youth across the global countries. The organization is also concerned about rural development
through establishing Pre-school Construction. However, Rowe et al. (2014) opined that
‘Educating the Future’ is only dependent on Alola Foundation for organizing logistics and
transportation to Timorese students. Therefore, the organization should source logistic and
supply chain network. Apart from that, the organization is also limited to its environmental
concerns towards protecting the environment.
7.0 Community Engagement as Per Theory
As per the theory of third section, non-for-profit sectors are more concerned about public
interest rather than the profit of the business. Public attention is the lifeblood of such non-for-
profit organizations. It needs to make numbers of concerned stakeholders for getting success and
making own identification within community. Likewise, ‘Educating the Future’ is highly
concerned about developing the community through educating the youths. They are not
concerned about their own profit, rather, they just collect donation for provide innovative and
quality education to the students for overall community development. As per the Triple Bottom
Line of sustainability theory, ‘Educating the Future’ is economically sustainable enough through
getting huge donations from government agencies and corporate bodies. Furthermore, the
organization is sustainable from its social aspect through developing and educating the youths.

7COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
However, the organization is limited to economical sustainability, as it does not have any direct
initiatives to protect the environment.
8.0 Stakeholders Concerns
Stakeholders Concerns in ‘Educating the Future’
Stakeholders Concerns
Employees The employees get adequate compensation and other benefits for serving the
community.
Members ‘Educating the Future’ maintains warm relationship with the members for
better community development.
Volunteers The Volunteers are highly valued in the organization and they are highly
engaged to serve the community.
Beneficiaries ‘Educating the Future’ is capable enough to educate and develop the students
and youths of the community for overall community development.
Donors The organization maintains regular communication with the existing as well
as potential donors for getting adequate funding towards community
development.
Local Community The youth and students of the local community get adequate educational
support for overall educational development of the community.
Table 3: Stakeholders Concerns in ‘Educating the Future’
(Source: Beer et al. 2017)

8COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
9.0 Conclusion
While concluding the study, it can be said that ‘Educating the Future’ is sustainable
enough from its financial and volunteer aspects. The organization gets adequate financial
supports and donations from large government agencies and corporate agency. Volunteers are
high passionate and willing to serve the community even without getting any pay for their effort.
Therefore, the organization gets genuine support from the volunteers for support educational
development of the community. The highly qualified and trained teachers and life empowering
lessons for the organization have made it different in the community. Moreover, the organization
is highly concerned about the needs of its stakeholders towards overall development of the
community.

9COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Reference List
Barnes, M. and Schmitz, P., 2016. Community engagement matters (now more than
ever). Stanford Social Innovation Review, 14(2), pp.32-9.
Barrick, M.R., Thurgood, G.R., Smith, T.A. and Courtright, S.H., 2015. Collective
organizational engagement: Linking motivational antecedents, strategic implementation, and
firm performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(1), pp.111-135.
Beer, H.A., Beer, H.A., Micheli, P. and Micheli, P., 2017. How performance measurement
influences stakeholders in not-for-profit organizations. International Journal of Operations &
Production Management, 37(9), pp.1164-1184.
Douglas, W., 2017. Looking Outward: Archival Research as Community
Engagement. Community Literacy Journal, 11(2), pp.30-42.
Educating The Future. 2017. Educating The Future. [online] Available at:
https://www.educatingthefuture.org/ [Accessed 23 Oct. 2017].
Hume, C. and Hume, M., 2015. The critical role of internal marketing in knowledge management
in not-for-profit organizations. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 27(1), pp.23-47
Hume, C. and Hume, M., 2016. What about us? Exploring small to medium Australian not for-
profit firms and knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(1), pp.104-
124.
Hyde, M.K., Dunn, J., Bax, C. and Chambers, S.K., 2016. Episodic volunteering and retention:
an integrated theoretical approach. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 45(1), pp.45-63.