Essay on Core Strategies

2.Unit 4 – Core Strategies   For your organization, identify two core strategies and the appropriate assumptions used to establish those strategies.

Answer.

For ACF International, core strategies should be focused on increasing organizational ability to address hunger and malnutrition and creating sustainable communities. Two core strategies of ACF International at this time are the creation of partnerships with other nonprofits which have similar goals, and creation of knowledge base on hunger and malnutrition. The former strategy is aimed at increasing coverage for ACF International programs and reaching out to a larger number of communities suffering form hunger or malnutrition. The goal of the latter strategy is to provide necessary information and early identification patterns to the researchers and governments in the target countries, and to help these communities create sustainability at the higher levels of power, thus causing long-term social improvements there.

Key assumptions for the first strategy are: existence of international nonprofits with similar goals, willingness of these nonprofits to cooperate and unite efforts, existence of legislative and social base for partnership of international nonprofits in the developed countries, and the ability to increase program coverage and cost-effectiveness of ACF International programs due to partnership with other nonprofits with similar goals.

Basic assumptions for the second strategy are the lack of sufficient knowledge in the communities affected by hunger and malnutrition, lack of public attention to the problems of hunger and malnutrition, ability of ACF International to present their long-term results of social programs in a consistent way, and the existence of other nonprofits which would be motivated to take part in the creation of a knowledge base on hunger and malnutrition issues.

3. Unit 4 – Budget Issues. In the private sector, money is critical for determining which programs or products will be kept and or expanded. Many times, public and not-for-profit organizations are also driven by funding sources.  Using the Internet, investigate the current federal budget. Based on the budget, what types of programs do you think will be increasing? Why did you select those programs? Place your response on the discussion board established for this assignment. Provide the Web addresses for any sites you used for this assignment.

Answer.

There are two parts in the federal budget: mandatory and discretionary. Mandatory part is mandated by federal laws, and can be changed only with appropriate Congress acts. Discretionary spending is the part which can be changed every year, and is approved using appropriations bills. Key areas for federal spending are pensions, health care, education, defense welfare and remaining discretionary parts. In 2012, total planned federal spending equals to $3.80 trillion, where 22% of funds should be allocated to pensions sector, 22% to health care, 24% to defense, 12% to welfare, 6% to education, 6% – interest, and the remaining 8% are distributed between transportation, general government financing, protection and other expenses.

In 2011, a Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed, in response to the threat of debt-ceiling crisis which took place that year, and threatened to cause a default in the US. The course towards a balanced budget and towards the reduction of budget deficit. This is planned to be reached by slow increases of debt ceiling along with slightly larger cuts of federal spending (proportional to GDP though), without imposing any additional taxes or other tariffs on the population. In accordance with this program, discretionary parts of federal budget might experience significant cuts, while mandatory parts might increase, due to increasing number of retired citizens and legal regulations guiding the distribution of mandatory federal budget spending.

It is suggested that the defense part will significantly decrease in the next years, continuing the tendency towards reducing this spending which started in 2009-2010. Interest part of the budget might also be decreased through changing regulations on interest-free loans. Spending on education is also likely to be decreased, as well as the spending on protection, due to the discretionary nature of these budget parts, and priority status of mandatory parts. Transportation part is likely to remain the same, or even increase a bit along with GDP growth. Two parts of federal budget which are likely to increase are health care and pensions, since these are governmental obligations, and are required to maintain a balance in the society. The need for pensions and health care spending is growing since the generation of baby boomers is retiring, and this fact should be taken into account for future versions of the federal budget.



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