Assignment 3: Report
Word/time limit: 1200 (+/- 10%)
Weighting: 50%
Due date: 5pm AEST Friday 29 July 2022
Assignment overview
This assignment consists of two parts: a typology and a report. You will compare and contrast the board and/or the management of any three existing small to medium community service organisations (CSOs) of your choice. You will construct a typology of three characteristics to provide a visual summary of the similarities and differences you found within the organisations. You will then write a short report that critically discusses how the respective organisations seek to demonstrate their 'effectiveness' in each of the characteristics that you have identified.
Assignment details
The purpose of this assignment is to compare three organisations in a visually effective way, and to offer a critique of three chosen characteristics, and how they demonstrate their 'effectiveness' at what they say they do.
Your assignment will be completed in two parts: a typology and a report. These will be submitted together as one document.
Typology
A typology, or grid, is a comparative tool. It is a visual representation that makes a clear comparison between items or 'types' of things for discussion.
You will need to research three existing small to medium CSOs and construct a typology that summarises three characteristics only found within these types of organisations.
In doing this, you will compile data on the chosen characteristics that assess what knowledge/gaps can and cannot be located about these organisations.
You will need to include in-text references for the websites where you find this information.
Your typology should be no more than 500 words.
Report
Building on your typology, you will now write a 700-word report.
Your report will have two parts. The first will be a critical analysis of the material you summarised in your typology. How do these organisations approach ‘governance’ and/or ‘management’? This part is a critical analysis of the data compiled from the various chosen aspects of their operations found within the typology.
The second part of your report will be a critical analysis of how each organisation seeks to demonstrate their 'effectiveness' in each of the characteristics you identified in your typology.
You will need to make reference to theory and appropriate resources within both parts of the report.
Use the following questions to guide the analysis within your assignment:
• Think of an organisation you have come across in your study so far—what does it do?
• What other organisations might you compare this to?
• What types of characteristics might you choose to compare and how many?
• How would you lay out all this information in a logical way that is easy to compare? i.e. the
typology.
• What is good/effective about the way the organisations work? How do they compare from a critical
point of view? Does what they do fit the purpose of what they say they do? Or: What is less
positive about the way the organisations work? There may, for example, be gaps in the
knowledge you were able to collect.
Note: For this assignment, you must use three community service organisations (CSOs). in which you were allowed to think about what you were discussing from either a CSO or not-for-profit (NFP) point of view. In this assignment, you must examine the key type of organisation that is the focus of this subject.
A minimum of four and a maximum of six academic sources must be used. Your text for this subject, managing without profit: leadership, management and governance in third sector organisations in Australia (Hudson 2009), must be used. In-text references, the reference list, short headings, and the points listed for comparison are not included in the word count.
Assignment criteria
1. The typology/grid is logical and clearly facilitates comparison of the three CSOs and the three chosen characteristics.
2. The three characteristics identified in the typology/grid are assessed in the critical 'essay-style' component against a range of 'governance' and/or 'management' criteria.