Sustainability for community organisations

Welcome to the Sustainability How-to Guide. This guide lists selected resources for building and strengthening organisational sustainability in voluntary and community groups. By organisational sustainability we mean the capacity of an organisation to constantly renew itself and to keep working effectively for its members or clients.

It is arranged in four areas: Economic, Human, Natural and Review and Renewal. You'll find these four areas under the resource types - News, Email Lists, Resources - in the left hand menu.

Start with the Introduction and work from there.

This guide is edited by Kate Drury. Kate has been a newspaper journalist for 20 years working on publications in both New Zealand and London including the Evening Post, the Dominion Post, the New Zealander, the NZPA and the Waikato Times.

She is currently a freelance writer, editor and researcher and in her  third year of law at Victoria University. She has a particular interest in the community and voluntary sector, working as a volunteer for many groups.

We hope you find this guide useful. Please let us know - send your feedback to: information@community.net.nz.

News

• Assess your organisation's environmental performance with new online tool

  Date added: 21 December 2009

• Waikato community houses take lead on good employment practice

  Representatives from four Waikato community houses have been meeting with Community Waikato, the Department of Labour's Partnership Resource Centre and the Service and Food Workers Union to develop a Multi-Employer Collective Agreement (MECA).
  Date added: 2 September 2009

• Sustainability news sites

  News updates in all areas of sustainability - economic, human, natural and review and renewal.
  Date added: 20 June 2006

Resources   (Go to full list of 6 items)

• Natural resources

  This part of the guide shows how you can: reduce carbon emissions, conduct a waste audit, reduce use of energy/use renewable energy, deal with hazardous substances, use water wisely, and recycle.
  Date updated: 6 January 2010

• Human (People) resources

  Human resources topics include capacity building, networking, cultural sustainability, sustaining boards and committees, as well as volunteers and staff.
  Date updated: 18 December 2009

• Managing Well resource catalogue

  The Managing Well resource catalogue (online in the Community Centre section of this web site) includes references or links to manuals, websites, information sheets, books, and other documents, and a list of organisations that can help you in this area.
  Date updated: 7 December 2009

Full List

Case Studies   (Go to full list of 4 items)

• Human case studies

  Scroll down for Human case studies
  Date updated: 5 September 2008

• Review and renewal case studies

  Scroll down for Review and renewal case studies
  Date updated: 27 June 2008

• Natural case studies

  Scroll down for Natural case studies
  Date updated: 27 June 2008

Full List

Email Lists

• All e-mail lists

  Scroll down for sites offering email updates and networking opportunities.
  Date updated: 20 June 2006

Websites   (Go to full list of 4 items)

• Economic sustainability websites

  This page shows useful websites on social business and funding information.
  Date added: 28 March 2006

• Human sustainability websites

  This page shows useful websites on human resource (people) sustainability.
  Date added: 20 June 2006

• Natural sustainability websites

  The page links to environmental sustainability websites. We've listed two types of websites: those with practical guides and those giving a big picture overview.
  Date added: 4 June 2009

Full List