Success Factors of Founding and Developing a nonprofit Social Research Institute

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Success Factors of Founding and Developing a
non-profit Social Research Institute
Karin Steiner, M.A. sociologist managing
director of abif, since 2000
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Mission

• being open to different research topics and
  work on them without political intervention
• being open to national and international
  co-operations
• to promote a continuous further development of
  the team and the research that is produced
• each hour working for the organisation being
  fully paid
• offer working conditions that enable employees
  to have free time / family .
• enable a working culture that allows employees
  to articulate their wishes openly and makes
  company decisions transparent to them

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Fields of research

• Education and qualification role and methods
  of vocational orientation, quality of further
  training and labour market programmes,
  transitions between education and labour
  market
• Labour market labour and health (promotion),
  vocational rehabilitation, disabled people on
  the labour market, placement methods for
  unemployed people, precarious jobs and
  flexibilisation, disadvantaged people on the
  labour market, migration, vocational careers
• Evaluation labour market programmes and pilot
  projects, school programmes

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Main Products

• Various kinds of qualitative and quantitative
  methods (expert interviews, problem-focused
  interviews, focus groups, case studies,
  questionnaires.)
• High-level knowledge collection vocational
  information broschures, methods handbooks for
  trainers, social workers etc.
• Conferences on a national level (app. 80-120
  participants)
• Publications on research projects, broschures,
  events(Books, articles)

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Foundation year strategy

• Main goal Acquisition of 2-3 national projects
  with fast liquidity
• Financial situation no capital but time
  investment
• 1 person ? social capital
• 1 person ? proposals
• 1 person ? organisation, administration
• Networking building up first national
  co-operations in scope of projects

? Success 3 national projects within 6 months,
possibility of 2 people salary each 20h
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2nd-4th year

• Project management delegating tasks (free-
  lancers or employees), develop standardised
  project management procedures
• Financial situation not enough projectsmoney
  to finance the staff and infrastructure
  (loan!)
• Acquisition little experience consuming lots
  of time, trial and error (more errors than
  successful trys), really successful
  acquisition strategies 3 years (!)
• Processes nobody takes care of them properly as
  money problems are the most dominant ones.

2 nd 3rd year problems! 4 th year financial
crisis
Main topic of the first phase acquisition!
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5th-7th year

• Project management delegating tasks within a
  fix team important high quality standard
• Financial situation projects for 1 year,
  liquidity more or less solved
• Acquisition more efficiency, less errors, more
  successful strategies, more products

5th year proper acquisition for the 6th year
with a complete planning 6 th year new staff
structure with clear functions and competences,
controlling system, standardisation of different
procedures
Main topic of the second phase
professionalisation efficiency!
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Important questions evolving during the last 6
years

• Acquisition WHO is doing WHAT? Who CAN do
  what? WHAT KIND OF PROJECTS are being worth
  to be applied for? WHAT FIELDS of acquisition
  could we explore to a larger extent? (?
  acquisition by managing director, project
  managers) HOW can acquisition know-how be
  transfered to the staff?

• Liquidity assurance How can liquidity as the
  main problem be planned and assured properly?

• Staff policy Who is responsable for what? How
  can different tasks be done and by whom?
  (processes, project management, accounting)
  How can the staff be motivated sufficiently to
  prevent fluctuation? (discussion between
  employees and employer)

• National and international co-operation Who
  shall we co-operate with, in which kind of
  projects?

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Developed Strategy acquisition

• Acquisition
• Max. 1/3 EU-projects, 2/3 national projects
  (liquidity assurance)
• Know-how transfer to project managers and
  project assistants plus correlating salary
  increases
• Acquisition not only in classical social
  research field but also in other fields (events,
  methods handbooks, vocational information
  broschures)

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Developed Strategy acquisition co-operation
Project co-operations With organisations which
have competences and references abif does not
have (SORA, SME Research Austria ? stronger
quantitative focus) 1st example different
methods expertise abif ? qualitative
approach SORA ? quantitative approach 2nd
example expertise on different contents abif
? unemployment SME research ?
enterprises With strategic partners (NGOs)
Austrian Union Federation, Caritas, Public
Employment Service Organisations which have
specific customer contacts
Research project
Research project
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Developed Strategy company and project management
Company management tools Liquidity planning
instrument (for next 12 months, including all
planned costs and income)

• Project management tools
• Project plan to be designed by project managers
  Who? How many working days? Until when? Other
  costs
• b) Controlling tool data base (planned versus
  actual working hours) controlling analysis

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Developed Strategy process management

• Internal processes divided up among employees
• Library entries ? being responsable for
  delegating data base entries
• Public relations ? press articles, events
  announcements
• CMS website entries
• Internship organisation ? students doing
  voluntary work
• Server safety copies
• Programming of
• a CMS for the website up-dating
• a web database project controlling system
  (working hours project documentation)
• a web database with 1.500 entries, interested
  people and organisations (for events) automatic
  e-mail
• forwarding
• a web database library system

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Developed Strategy process management

• Outsourcing
• Chartered accountant (entire bookkeeping,
  financial statement to the fiscal authorities)
• Technical support by a computer programmer
• Transcripts (students), quantitative interviews
  (firm doing an entire telephone survey)
• Smoothening project acquisition
• Different templates for letters, faxes, research
  proposals, project reports.
• Definition of daily rates for different
  researcher categories (EU, national rates)
• Definition of approximate working days for
  different research tasks

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Developed Strategy staff policy

• Integration guidelines for new employees rights
  and duties, general office rules, who is
  responsable for what?
• Operating agreement
• Salary scheme according to qualification,
  competencies, skills and output
• Working times, working hours (overtime payments)
• Further training (internal, external)
• Accounting of travel costs
• Discussions between employees and employer (1-2
  per year, lasting for 2 hours)
• Active team development yearly 2-day lasting
• Conclave with the entire team on the past year
  and new visions

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Developed Strategy public relations

• Public Relations (starting in 1999)
• Corporate design by a graphic designer
• Website (English and German existed before an
  office was rented) containing staff descriptions,
  projects, events etc.?minimum requirement (!)
• Abif folder (short description)?minimum
  requirement (!)
• Give aways for events (pens, writing pads)
• Abif activity report (all project descriptions)
• Regular newsletter with on-going projects
• Organisation of events and regular project
  presentations on different events

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Time investment in different tasks since 01/2005
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Identified abif success factors
To have the psycho- logical strength to overcome
crises and to fight against possible burn-out
to invest time in important tasks and to accept
to get only little gratification (money)
to build up and use your social capital for
acquisition, PR ..
to have and enlarge qualifications
competencies of yourself and your team
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Thank you for your attention!