At the end of March 2018, the director of the Barcelona office of Street Child, a charity organization with headquarters in the United Kingdom, was looking back at the changes he had introduced in 2017. The Barcelona office was responsible for growing Street Child in continental Europe, so it was internally known as Street Child Europe. Since January 2018, the office had added a paid employee. This employee was also the director of Street Child Netherlands and a former program support officer in Sierra Leone. The office could now employ up to eight interns, twice as many as before. However, Street Child Europe still needed to accomplish five key tasks: address its governance structure, clarify its brand positioning, consolidate its fundraising strategy, increase the appeal of its international volunteer program, and sett up an internal system to use its network effectively. The director needed concrete and executable strategies to ensure stable and sustainable growth of the charity across Europe.
This case can be used in both advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on organizational behaviour, organizational design, organizational change, non-governmental organizations, management of start-ups, and international business. It can also be used to discuss marketing, brand positioning, and strategizing in non-profit organizations. It is suitable for interdisciplinary classes and capstone projects on organizational design, governance, marketing, and ethics. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:
- Analyze the organizational design of a unit of a non-governmental organization by applying Galbraith’s star model of organizational design.
- Identify issues that the director must address to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the growing charity.
- Develop an action plan and make recommendations for the design of the office and effective use of existing resources.