The Blue Sweater Analysis

What do you think why many traditional charity projects usually become unsuccessful? In The Blue Sweater, the author, Jacqueline Novogratz, had a chance to work with a project that failed because of several reasons. However, the two main reasons why traditional charity projects often fail are a lack of an efficient financial plan and a lack of professional experience and political connections of management team. To begin with, traditional charity projects fail because of a lack of an efficient financial plan. Most traditional charities do not have efficient budgeting and accounting control. As a result, they do not have a steady stream of funding, and also they have a lack of planning for an unseen financial crisis. For instance, in chapter 5, Novogratz mentions a traditional charity project in Rwanda, and the project was losing …show more content…
The management team of failed traditional charities usually does not have professional management experience to run an organization. The management team needs experience in the following areas governing body, elimination of corruption, good organization skills, leadership skills, communication, etc. In addition the management team of most traditional charities often lacks political connection with government and local authority to obtain registration, license, etc. Moreover, if the management is skilled, it will keep all expense receipts and other documents to avoid corruption. For example, the most famous traditional charity project in Ethiopia, Etege Charity, failed after 10 years because of corruption. The management was asked to show 2 years financial documents to find out why it failed; however the management said “we did not keep the documents”. This illustrates the management was unskilled. To sum up, traditional charity managements should have experience and set up political