NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS:
Groups Faced with Lack of Qualified Coordinators

FEBRUARY 20, 1997

Volunteer activities are booming despite a shortage of experienced managers. (Photo: Jiji Gaho sha)

Over the past few years nonprofit organizations have significantly enhanced the number and range of their programs and are increasingly being seen as a third societal sector, alongside government and industry, for their contributions to society. However, their rapid growth has brought to light a number of problems, particularly their poor organizing skills and lack of staff who can provide core support services. In response to this shortage, a growing number of colleges and nonprofit groups have begun setting up programs designed to create a new class of professionals.

Moves Among Universities
According to the Ministry of Education, 74 colleges offered classes in which students spent time working as volunteers in fiscal 1995 (April 1995 to March 1996), 11 more than in fiscal 1993. One such institution is Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, which established a Department of Socio-economic Networking in its School of Economics in fiscal 1995. The students in the department, who totaled 230 the first year, attend lectures given by NPO staff and gain practical experience as interns in such groups. Kokugakuin says the department is designed to send graduates into society who can play key roles in nonprofit and international-cooperation organizations or as counselors for the elderly and other segments of society.

Edogawa University in Chiba Prefecture will open a Department of Environmental Information in April 1997 to train students through internships and other programs. The institution emphasizes that students will be taught how to negotiate, raise funds, and plan projects, skills that are useful not only in nonprofit organizations but in corporations and government agencies as well.

Group-sponsored Training Programs
Moves are also under way among NPOs to establish their own programs and institutions for turning out qualified personnel. The Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (now known simply as AMDA), which undertakes medical relief activities in war-torn regions around the globe, is now pushing forward with a plan to build an international university where students will study subjects such as management of nonprofit organizations and international cultural activities.

Agency officials explain that the idea for the university grew out of a realization that professionals had to be dispatched abroad along with doctors and nurses to ensure the smooth flow of the overall relief process, from distributing medical supplies to procuring food for the volunteers. In this regard, they point out, Japan has far fewer such coordinators than the United States and European countries, and training such personnel is an urgent task.

Similar principles were behind the establishment in December 1995 of a management course for young leaders at the Japan Ecology Center in Tokyo, a venue for exchanges among nonprofit groups working on environmental issues. Each series of four classes features lectures and discussions on such themes as the basics of fiscal management and marketing. Hoping to have participants put their classroom experiences to work immediately, the center teaches each class by adapting its theme to the problems faced by the students' own organizations.

One group leader describes the decision to enroll as follows. "Many people in nonprofit organizations joined on the strength of their enthusiasm alone. For this reason, few groups have bookkeepers that can take charge of account management, for example, and this aspect of the organizations' activities tends to be neglected. In some places members even payout of their own pockets if accounts don't balance at the end of the fiscal year. But a growing number of people think that enthusiasm alone is not enough and nonprofit organizations must be run properly if they are to survive."

Ideally, volunteer activities should be a combined effort of three sets of people: the frontline workers; behind-the-scenes supporters, such as those providing financial backing; and the coordinators in charge of planning, account management, and other such facets of the operation. Many people involved in nonprofit activities believe that organizations must be able to provide a clear explanation to outsiders of how accounts are handled and other such points in order to gain their understanding and support. Japan's NPOs are now making steady gains in this direction.