REVIEWING STRATEGIES FOR NPO PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY: A CASE STUDY OF

AN ORPHANAGE
Minenhle N. Majola1 and Peta Thomas2

Abstract:
The role of not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) in South African society is that their strategies for community
engagement projects must ensure long term sustainability of these projects. This research sought to identify some
of the challenges in the strategic management of an NPO project post-delivery at an orphanage in Mpumalanga
province, South Africa. This research aimed to help the NPO improve on their post-project delivery in order to
encourage long-term sustainability of their projects. The qualitative research design sought the perceptions of
purposefully selected participants about the post-delivery management of an orphanage that was a project of this
NPO. The findings suggest that there are gaps regarding what is currently being done by the NPO to prepare a
project to ensure long term sustainability. The conclusions drawn and subsequent managerial recommendations
draw attention to the importance of stakeholder inclusive procedures to ensure long-term sustainability for any
NPO project.

Keywords: NPO, South Africa, sustainability, orphanage

INTRODUCTION

In a developing country such as South Africa, the role of not-for-profit (NPO) companies in encouraging sustainable
development in communities is increasingly important (Fink, Klerman, Markovitz and Minzner, 2014; Fourie and
Van Dyk, 2015). This research sought to assess the sustainability strategies employed by a specific NPO as regards
its ability to maintain a project’s viability specifically that of an orphanage in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The
orphanage is a facility that caters for the needs of children who are either orphans or deemed as requiring care by
South African Social Services. The home was started in 2004 to address the dire need for residential care facilities
for such children in Mpumalanga. The ANPO facilitated the funding for the initial establishment of the home through
donor corporates. The home has up to 100 children at any time aged from three to 18 years. The aim of the ANPO
was to provide a stable and caring home environment to the children so that they may live as normally, fully, and
comfortably as possible at the home situated within a local community with support from the local community.

This research posed the research question: What principles has the NPO adopted to ensure the sustainability the
orphanage project? This research helps NPOs improve their project delivery techniques. Exploring the long-term
sustainability of the orphanage project is the main consideration of this study to advise on sustainability approaches
to adopt in the future for other similar projects. This research helps fill the existing gap in literature on South African
NPO projects in terms of how they ensure both tangible and intangible value creation in their implementation
activities of a community project.

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Nationally compiled statistics report for the non-profit sector of South Africa (Kaunda, 2022) stated that NPOs play
a crucial part in the construction of the nation’s economies and policies. Their quantification in the South African
System of National Accounts ensures explicit reporting of every registered NPO’s performance figures helping
indicate vital elements in supplying direction for future government MPO policies from government and giving
corporate donors and civic leaders information that will assist them in making decisions about the resources a
community requires. According to Fourie and Van Dyk (2015), NPOs are the best candidates to engage corporate
donors with recipient communities. NPOs can make the frontline bridging contact having a complementary, in-depth
comprehension of a community’s priority needs. Banerjee (2014) argues that corporate social investment (CSI) is a
tool for the corporate donors to use in partnership with NPOs knowledge of needs in the development of communities.
NPOs can step in using the donor funding as the donor themselves often have limited abilities to attend to the social-
economic challenges faced by the communities they operate in, but the NPO has the special skills to help. CSI is an
important mechanism in addressing the constant socioeconomic problems that face developing countries such as
South Africa (Ndwandwa, 2016). NPOs have the challenge of delivering a well-managed, community project
implementation. The end goal of the project must be to remain sustainable after they depart, as the recipient
community often initially lacks the human capital, skills and expertise to see these projects through in the long-term
(Carvalho & Martens, 2017).

1
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
2
University of Johannesburg, South Africa

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In this study, the focus is on an international NPO which has operated for some years in South Africa and is registered
under the South African companies act (2013) as a not-for-profit company (NPC). To maintain the anonymity of the
NPO it is referred to as ANPO. ANPO works with the local community throughout South Africa and has sought to
establish processes that ensured the survival particularly of the orphanage that it established. This project required
consideration of a long-term sustainability action plan to continue to be of benefit to the children of the local
community it serves, for years to come after ANPO was no longer directly involved. Frugality is crucial as incoming
resources, both financial and non-financial are scarce, with decreasing government support in this regard.

The matter of project sustainability and success is central to project management as many elements can influence the
degree of project success (Müller & Jugdev, 2012). Project success is unquestionably amid the top concerns for
project managers and project stakeholders (Müller & Jugdev, 2012). According to Alias, Aris, Yusof and Zawawi
(2014), critical success factors (CSF) are inputs to a project’s lifecycle that can lead directly or indirectly to project
success if utilised in the most efficient and effective manner. CSFs incorporate numerous components, which are
required to be synchronized during the project lifetime to certify the project delivery on time (Alias, Aris, Yusof and
Zawawi, 2014).

To attain the South African constitutional mandate of poverty alleviation and social development, NPOs are argued
as needing to consider adoption of the concept of frugal innovation in their business dealings with communities.
According to Basu, Banerjee and Sweeny (2013), frugal innovation is the standard by which sustainable solutions
should all be evaluated especially in the NPO domain. Leliveld and Knorringa (2017) assert that frugal innovation
entails the redesigning of products, services, systems, and business models to decrease the complexity and total
lifecycle costs to strengthen functionality, while providing exceptional user value and inexpensive solutions for the
end-user. Dabić, Obradović, Vlačić, Sahasranamam and Paul (2022) highlight that frugal innovation is more than a
mere strategy for an organisation to implement. It signifies a new mindset, one that views a constraint in resources as
an opportunity rather than a liability for the NPO, a view that favours NPO agility in using available resources for
community development and ensuring the recipient community subsequently knows how to continue applying a
frugal approach to the project (Dabić et al., 2022). This means challenging any pre-existing mental models of every
NPO member involved in a project delivery (Senge, 2014).

Adopting these core competencies for an NPO project should become the norm when developing appropriate,
affordable, adaptable, and accessible project solutions for the recipient community (Banerjee & Sweeny, 2013). These
competencies make a good starting point in analysing a value chain in determining the sustainability of an NPO
project (Banerjee & Sweeny, 2013). According to Porter (2001) the value chain is a tool used to examine the critical
value creating activities systematically and their interactions that create value for the organisation. According to
Fearne et al. (2012) value chain analysis (VCA) can expose strategic and operational flaws within value chains and
the consequential misallocation of resources, and therefore loss of opportunities for improvements, which could have
created value and economic sustainability for a community. Regarding NPOs, VCA can identify the improper use of
resources that can lead to wasteful usage of available resources and lack of input resource optimisation (non-frugal)
(Schnurbein, 2014).

Leliveld and Knorringa (2017) note that frugal innovations are because of planned negotiations between diverse
community stakeholders and the NPO. These negotiations ensure transparency and trust-sharing information to
maintain what is often complex relationships, during the entire project process from initiation to closure and hand-
over to the community. These relationships can be considered networks of social capital and explain much of an
NPO’s ability to add value to a society. Social capital importance in NPO operations and strategic planning is
understood to be “networks, norms and beliefs that warrant community members to act together coherently in
pursuing shared objectives” (Schnurbein, 2014: 358). This type of network assists the NPO in building sustainable
relationships with key community players, fostering the innovation that is needed to utilise less resources in creating
more value. Szeman and Kaposy (2011) note that social capital can eventually become so embedded as to its value
to the organisation that it creates a broad and positive reputational status and thought of as an institutionalised
relationship network. Bahmani, Galindo, and Méndez (2012) assert that the amount of social capital the network has
(in this case derived from community, donor(s) and NPO relationships) is an intangible resource dependent on the
strength of the network connections. These connections should be marshalled by when required, representing the
amount of capital both tangible (financial) and intangible (social capital), at the disposal of the network to do what is
required in the community project during and post implementation. New relationships can emerge from this
investment or transform existing ones, creating a diversified pool of potential input resource donors and value chain
participants (Bahmani et al., 2012) for continuous improvement initiatives of network dynamics and performance
(Aragón et al., 2014). This type of network creates opportunity for the NPO projects long term sustainability.

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Renz (2016) urges that to attain long term sustainability, strategic management principles used in for-profit
organisations should also apply to NPOs, as the purpose of strategy management for both types of organisations is to
reach a desired future state through planning and implementation. In measuring the sustainability of a project, it is
important to identify the key elements of sustainability in that project and to comprehend their importance based on
the project managers’ perspectives, and the perspectives of all major stakeholders (Carvalho & Martens, 2017). NPOs
operating in the child welfare spaces globally are continuously pressured to deliver on performance reporting
measures, from governments who subsidise such organisations for taking care of vulnerable children, or donors who
expect empirical results from their social investments (Carnochan, Samples, Myers & Austin, 2014). According to
Poister, Hall and Aristigueta (2015) the ability to undertake performance measurement is the sole element that can
explain that the organisation has applied a performance-based approach to managing its resources. Arshad, Omar,
Bakar, and Nasir (2015) claim that performance measurements in the NPO context should be utilised for the purpose
of demonstrating the accountability of the NPO to donors and governments, and to provide evidence of improvement
to the NPO’s social impact on their beneficiaries (Mehta, 2018). Resource providers to NPOs are concerned with the
effectiveness of the attainment of the stated social purpose of the NPO, not profit maximisation. Burkart, Wakolbinger
and Toyasaki (2018) note evidence of performance management by NPOs should be considered in as critically
important in assessing a delivered project’s sustainability by policy-makers and donors. Therefore, establishing
organisational efficiency plays a crucial role in the delivery of these social objectives by the NPO (Poister et al.,
2015).

RESEARCH DESIGN

According to Mills and Birks (2014), a case study is an exploratory type of enquiry that requires in-depth immersion
of the unit studied, which can be an individual person, a group, an organisation, or a social situation. In this study, the
unit of interest was the orphanage established and currently run by the community and ANPO. This research was
deemed a case study. Ethical approval was gained for the study from the University of Johannesburg research
committee. the qualitative sample was purposefully selected and comprised various stakeholders with in-depth
knowledge of the orphanage and ANPO to make the qualitative data gathered rich and informative (Table 1). Creswell
and Clark (2017) suggest that in qualitative research there are factors that influence the sample size such as the ease
of access to participants together with the researcher’s judgement of the perceived extensive knowledge that the
participants hold. The qualitative sample of this study used purposefully selected key stakeholders with knowledge
of the orphanage and the NPO activities on this project. According to Bryman and Bell (2014) a qualitative interview
is less structured and the initial research ideas are conceptualised more extensively so that the interviewer is given a
considerable amount of flexibility to probe and prompt response from the interviewees. The qualitative sample of
this study used purposefully selected key stakeholders with knowledge of the orphanage. Purposeful sampling
refers to the researcher intentionally selecting or recruiting participants that have experience or in-depth knowledge
of the core concept being explored in the research study (Creswell & Clark, 2017). For this study, a semi-structured
interview schedule was utilised as the data collection method. The interviews were conducted one-on-one with each
participant lasting between thirty minutes and one hour, at a meeting place convenient for the participant. Interviews
were recorded on the researcher’s cell phone and transcribed verbatim into Word™ documents for thematic analysis.

Qualitative studies rely on the concept of trustworthiness to have value in their findings and derived managerial
recommendations by acknowledging the role of four criteria in the research design as follows (Lincoln & Guba,
1985). Credibility involves forming the chain of affirmation that supports your translation of the data collected as
clearly and concisely as possible. the researcher spent between 30 and 60 minutes per interview, to allow for rapport
to develop and to gain richer answers. To ensure the researcher remembered exactly what was said, the interviews
were recorded. Finally, these were transcribed verbatim, so nothing was lost from the conversation before data
analysis took place. The transcriptions were carried out as soon after each interview as possible so that the
perspectives of the interviewed participants raised an awareness of new issues to be interrogated in the next interview
held. This is all argued as lending to the credibility of the qualitative research findings; ‘Thick’ description as a
strategy can be utilised to help facilitate transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), as it presents in vivid detail the
context and meaning of occurrences and scenarios that are relevant to those implicated in them. By expressing a
phenomenon in adequate detail, deductions drawn are transferable to various times, settings, situations, and people
can be analysed; Dependability was attained by keeping a detailed record of the data collection process was also kept
as part of the audit trail and recorded in this document as the steps of the design; Discerning confirmability can be
done through an audit trail, which is maintained through writing comprehensive notes relating to the contextual
background and the methodological decisions For this research, the researcher covered the relevant theory of NPOs
and related concepts from a global context, narrowed down to the local context in terms of the case study.

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According to Saldaña (2015) a code in qualitative research, is a word, short phrase, or term that symbolically allocates
an essence-capturing attribute for a part of a written text or visual data. The coding technique used in Table 1 was the
descriptive coding style.

Table 1: Example of coding of interview transcripts

Interview Code assigned to

Text from Interview Transcript
Question no. text
... in the beginning they were incredibly beneficial, because those guys
Shared vision
brought into the dream…
... that they needed us, and organisations like us, to get their economic
empowerment points up, to get their social responsibility points in Shared benefit
terms of their social responsibility plans...
So, the strength of what we were able to do over the past 15 odd years,
1 Robustness
really, is that we were able to survive changes of partnerships.
... they look at us differently towards how they look at the general guy
Uniqueness
that goes and ask for money for charity.
The major fundraising still comes from the board; and from people who
convince volunteers to get involved, and those volunteers give, because Shared vision
they want to give.

The University of Johannesburg gave the study ethical clearance to proceed. It was made clear to the qualitative
participants that they were free to opt out of the study at any point they felt the need to do so and that their
anonymity would be assured in all reporting. Each participant signed a participation consent form.

According to the ANPO, the specific responsibilities of the ANPO board of directors and ANPO volunteers in
the project include:
• Co-ordinating the timing and implementation of projects
• Checking alignment of project proposals from different committees to see if they are in-line with the
goals and objectives of the project
• Monitoring the on-going finances of the organisation and ensuring that accounts are paid in a timely
manner; and
• Monitoring the ANPO’s implementation of its strategic plan.

The management team of the orphanage were deemed suitable participants for the study, as they carry out the
daily planning, organising, leading, and controlling functions of the initiatives pertaining to the orphanage, and
ANPO members who manage the strategic financing side (Table 2).

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Table 2: Participants in the study

Participant Profession of Perspective

Reason for Participation Role of Participant
no. Participant Contribution
In depth insight of strategic Chairman of the ANPO and Board
1 Lawyer
initiatives of the Orphanage Orphanage Board Member Perspective
Information
Industrial Deep knowledge of online ANPO/ Orphanage
2 Technology Officer
Engineer presence of the Orphanage Volunteer Perspective
for ANPO
Board Member since Treasurer ANPO/ Orphanage
3 Pensioner
inception of the Orphanage Orphanage Volunteer Perspective
Business
Deep insight of fundraising Head of Fundraising ANPO/ Orphanage
4 Manager/
initiatives for the Orphanage Orphanage Volunteer Perspective
Entrepreneur
Teacher at local
Knowledge of academic
Deputy School which
5 performance of some of the Educator Perspective
Headmaster children from the
children at the Orphanage
home attend
Weekly contribution of time Volunteer at the Internal Volunteer
6 Receptionist
to the Orphanage Orphanage Perspective
Knowledge of the Board Member of
7 Optometrist ANPO Perspective
Orphanage since inception the Orphanage
In depth knowledge of the
Former Board
8 Farmer Orphanage and strategic ANPO Perspective
Member Orphanage
initiatives of ANPO
Knowledge of past Past District
Charted ANPO / Orphanage
9 initiatives of the Orphanage, Governor/ Past
Accountant Volunteer Perspective
successes, and failures President/ Financier
Board Member Orphanage Volunteer/
In depth knowledge of
10 Pensioner Orphanage / Former Social worker
social impact on the children
Social worker Perspective

LIMITATION

The limitation of this study was a lack of prior research studies on the topic as there is limited data on the
sustainability of NPOs in the South African context. This limited the scope of the topic in the South African
context. Data were gathered from sources outside South Africa to gain a background for the study.

FINDINGS

For the sake of brevity, the participant quotes included as an exemplar to represent the viewpoints of all
participants.

Project sustainability and organisational efficiency of ANPO

From the coded responses of the participants, several challenges were identified and considered hindrances to the
attainment of the vision and mission of the orphanage. The vision is to provide a stable and caring home
environment for the children, so that they may live as normally, fully, and comfortably as possible at the orphanage.
Participant: I don’t think we’re running very efficiently. Firstly, we’re under resourced. And that results therein
that your guides (caregivers) and overall manager has to be the jack of all trades. I mean effectively, this place,
which looks after 108 kids, is run by four people.

The challenge faced regarding this aspect was that people were being overworked having to balance multiple tasks,
sometimes tasks that require a skill set for which the people were not trained. Participants felt that changes in the
South African regulatory environment, the socio-economic environment, and the political and security aspect
continually affected the managing the sustainability of the orphanage as each plays a fundamental role in the
altering the organisational efficiency. The importance of cash-flow management stemmed from the challenge the
orphanage encountered regarding payment of the government subsidies, which were usually received in arrears.
To compensate for these delays, the orphanage executes value-adding ideas, which stem from their flexible
organisational culture to attaining long term sustainability. Participants suggested that the care village was very

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effective in building and maintaining strategic partners. A major point to highlight, according to the participants
is the fact that the board of the care village played a critical role in seeking and building partnerships with various
stakeholders. Iwu et al. (2015) points out that organisational efficiency consists of planning and controlling both
financial and non-financial measures. For instance, achieving project goals ensuring stability of funding were non-
financial (building relationships) and financial aspects respectively. Participants believed that the orphanage was
not managed efficiently or effectively, as ideally it should be in this respect.

Measuring project success, maximising the value from input resources and, frugal innovation

According to Poister et al. (2015), the ability to undertake performance measurement is the core element in the
performance management model, as it is the sole element to explain that the organisation has applied a
performance-based approach to managing its resources. Keeping records of the performance of the orphanage
explains that the orphanage takes a performance-based approach in managing their resources.
Participant: I think that’s the reason we have survived, because we work on the basis that businessman would
work. We work on cash-flow, we work on no decisions get made without proper think through.

Eden and Ackermann (2013) asserted that strategic management is the manner in which an organisation is
regenerated, through the continuous monitoring and evaluation of their vision and mission that drives the purpose
of the very existence of the organisation. The strategic orientation of the orphanage stems from their strategic
management plan as an organisation. The analysis of the results suggested that the orphanage was doing well in
terms of their current strategic orientation. The participants agreed that the orphanage currently emphasises long-
term planning frequently. The significance of using management principles was due to providing managers with
useful insights into reality regarding optimum utilisation of resources, making sound scientific decisions, meeting
the requirements of a changing environment, effective administration, and fulfilling social responsibilities
(Mahmood et al. 2012). According to Dabić et al., (2022) frugal innovation signifies a new mindset: one that views
a constraint in resources as an opportunity rather than a liability for the organisation. A very real concern to the
care home success was that participants mentioned the issue of the children leaving the orphanage without having
gained valuable skills to help them succeed in life. Children came to the orphanage with a backlog of missed
education, and yet the cut-off age (by law) to leave the orphanage is 18 years, leaving little time for the child with
a backlog to catch up.

DISCUSSION

A prominent aspect that materialised from the responses of the participants was the importance of cash-flow
management, which dealt directly with the finances and the reporting of financial activities of the orphanage; and
how the board played a pivotal role in this regard. The strategic planning element was also crucial in giving
direction for decision-making; the strategic orientation of the orphanage stemmed from their strategic management
plan as an organisation. The analysis of the results suggested that the orphanage was currently doing well in terms
of their strategic orientation. More than half of the respondents believed the orphanage frequently emphasised
long-term planning. According to Mahmood et al. (2012), these management principles provide managers with
useful insights into reality and decision-making. However, despite the identified management tasks and principles
applied at the orphanage, most of the participants stated that there was no specific sustainability plan drafted for
the orphanage. The findings revealed that their source of sustainability was from the government subsidies they
received monthly. This posed challenges for the orphanage as these subsidy payments were not always paid on
time by government, leading to the importance of cash-flow management mentioned above. The quantitative
survey questionnaire results also supported this notion of cash-flow management regarding performance
management practices. According to Poister et al. (2015) the ability to undertake performance measurement is the
core element in the performance management model, as it explains that the organisation has applied a performance-
based approach to managing its resources and making decisions. Overall, the research highlights the importance
of streamlining an organisation’s value chain, for the purposes of segmenting each stage of the value creation, and
its utilisation to improve on any deviations. Social capital (relationships with stakeholders) was found to be of
great significance to the value chain, as it constituted the actual and potential resource aggregation of social
behaviour by an organisation. These resources played a crucial role in the transformation system of the
organisation, as they served as inputs that were transformed by using different forms of resources, to produce the
desired output for the organisation. Application of sound management principles were crucial for each of these
concepts as they had to be managed in proximity to each other.

A prominent aspect that materialised from the responses of the participants was the importance of cash-flow
management, which dealt directly with the finances and the reporting of financial activities of the orphanage; and
how the board played a pivotal role in this regard. The strategic planning element was also crucial in giving

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direction for decision-making; the strategic orientation of the orphanage stemmed from their strategic management
plan as an organisation. The analysis of the results suggested that the orphanage was currently doing well in terms
of their strategic orientation. More than half of the respondents were of the opinion that the orphanage frequently
emphasised long-term planning. According to Koontz and Weihrich (1993), and Mahmood et al. (2012), these
management principles provide managers with useful insights into reality and decision-making. However, despite
the identified management tasks and principles applied at the orphanage, most of the participants stated that there
was no specific sustainability plan drafted for the orphanage. The findings revealed that their source of
sustainability was largely reliant from the government subsidies received monthly. This posed challenges for the
orphanage as these subsidy payments were not always paid on time by government, leading to the importance of
cash-flow management mentioned above. The ability to undertake performance measurement is the core element
in the performance management model, as it explains that the organisation has applied a performance-based
approach to managing its resources and making decisions. Most participants believed that performance
management was currently only utilised to comply with legal requirements and annual reporting.

Fostering of long-term collaborations with stakeholders as very important. Schnurbein (2014), claimed that social
capital can be an individual or bundle of assets that is stored within the relationship between individuals, groups
or organisations. the operational efficiency of the orphanage, the value creation process, and the crucial role
innovation plays in dealing with organisational challenges. Participants noted that:
• The orphanage should make it easy to collaborate with stakeholders. Practicing interactive collaboration
between the various stakeholders (partners, suppliers, staff, and volunteers) is an effective way to boost efficiency
while reducing costs from various parts of the value chain.
• Direct some resources to training caregivers on occupational specialisation is also a potent way in dealing
with the challenge of operational inefficiency. If caregivers can be trained in dealing with the diverse tasks of
taking care of foster children, the long-term returns will be invaluable.
• To continue fostering innovation across the value chain, the continuous sharing of information coupled
with effective communication between the value chain members is certain to develop innovation and attain
operational efficiency.

MANAGERIAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Leliveld and Knorringa (2017) suggest that frugal innovation pertains to the redesigning of systems and business
models to lower the complexity and total lifecycle costs, and strengthen functionality, while providing exceptional
user value and inexpensive solutions for recipients. Solutions to maintain the orphanage in terms of sustainability
while varying in life span can also contribute significantly to the intangible value received by the recipients or end
users. As regards stakeholder support which has an influence on the orphanages’ effectiveness this must be in
fostered with partnerships keeping the surrounding community involved in orphanage initiatives by ensuring
sustainability as follows:
• A partnership can last longer when parties have clear partnership agreements drafted, to avoid being
involved in a partnership that does not align with your vision and mandate.
• In aligning a partnership with a set vision and mandate, it is important for parties involved to state their
expectations of each other clearly, to avoid any hardships and misunderstandings of what is expected from each
party.
• When assessing a potential partnership to embark on, the orphanage should always keep in mind its
weaknesses and those areas in which it needs help. Bearing in mind the people they serve is crucial as it gives
guidance on the type of partnership that benefits them.

Findings revealed that the long-term planning aspect of the orphanage can improve as it links directly to
sustainability of the orphanage by introducing regular assessments of achievement of sustainability. According to
Bond et al, (2012), sustainability assessment refers to any procedure that leads decision-making towards
sustainability. In this regard, long-term planning is a procedure necessary in aligning decision making with
sustainability.

To counteract the trend of children leaving the orphanage without having had full access to education, there should
be a plan to foster skills development for the children through perhaps apprenticeships in the community, to
produce equipped citizens to be reintroduced to society.

In implementing innovative fund-raising projects to alleviate cashflow problems, the orphanage should:
• Seek to create and implement more legacy projects that will continue to generate value for the orphanage
for in the long-term. This should be done in close consultation with the surrounding community, to get their buy-
in.

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• Create a project catalogue for all their projects, to determine the frequency and rate of project innovation
and execution. This will allow the orphanage to streamline their projects and identify where and when more
projects can be implemented, without clashing with each other.

Management practices, processes, and procedures applied at the orphanage to remain sustainable should include:
• Formulating a sustainability plan that clearly defines what sustainability is in relation to the orphanage;
and specify sustainability objectives in that align with the orphanages long-term aspirations.
• Reducing financial risk further by diversifying income and not relying solely on government subsidies,
keeping good records of their finances for donor trustworthiness, and having quality control measures in place for
all projects initiated, to manage financial wastage.
• Brokering a deal with universities and colleges for students in the social works field to come and do their
work integrated learning at the orphanage, to give the students first-hand experience in social work. This will
lessen the burden on the caregivers and give rise to a transfer of skills between the students and the caregivers.

CONCLUSION

The research highlighted several gaps and deficiencies in managerial practices for the orphanage. A critical
challenge faced by the orphanage stems from the government’s side in terms of receiving late payments for
subsidies, and the trend of decreasing subsidy support. Further research can be conducted to enquire about the root
causes for this downward subsidy trend considering the rate of poverty and inequality in the South African context,
an upward trend would be expected.

To remain sustainable in this uncertain environment, characterised by a shortage in crucial financial and non-
financial resources, the orphanage needs to apply frugality in allocating their limited resources. Building strategic
partnerships with stakeholders that align with the NPOs goals and mission is crucial to the attainment of the NPOs
purpose. Furthermore, applying frugal innovation in projects is paramount in dealing with challenges that require
‘out of the box’ thinking, due to limited resources.

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