Ikaya Trust

We are now wrapping up our engagement with the Trust Center and have learned a lot of lessons from the whole experience.  The homestay tourism project stands to gain from further involvement if upcoming donor funds are used optimally to increase the network of the Center with other NGOs as well as private tourism businesses.  The Indaba Tourism conference/exhibition runs yearly in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal. Attending this exhibition with representatives from the homestays would reap potential relationships with tourism planners, retail and group tourism agents as well as other tourism destinations that focus on township visits elsewhere.

Ikaya Trust Center

I met with six ladies who operate homestays in Kayamandi today.  Mrs. E Swartbooi, Ezme Makhalima, Kholeka Fingo, Valencia Mgijima, Julia Zulu and Patricia Mayakiso

have all been hosting volunteers and other visitors for the past couple of years. The center and municipality would like the women to upgrade their homestays to the level of bed and breakfast and all have received hospitality and tourism training funded by an organization called Boland. THe women do not see themselves becoming bed and breakfast businesses and want to remain the way they are.  Kholeka said a bed and breakfast would not be “a home away from home” and as she sees it, the homestays are there to welcome the visitor into the home, where a family goes about its day as usual while providing for the guests in African fashion.

We are meeting with the women again on Thursday at 1pm at there homes to take photos and learn more about each woman’s homestay experience and what each plans on doing to make their individual experience a memorable one. 

Ikaya Trust

Today, Dustin and I went to pay a visit to the centre and met with the restaurant owner ‘Roots’. Roots is being backed by four business people from the Stellenbosch area in his venture of opening up an African cuisine restaurant in Kayamandi.  We were there to see how he planned on collaborating with the centre and its activities.

Its clear that there may not be much. Besides assisting the crafts people to gain exposure with any influx of visitors that takes place after the opening in September, the owner expressed no willingness to have anyone at the centre controlling any aspect of his operations.

We are putting together a booklet for the homestays that Ikaya assists in terms of booking and advertising. We will shoot some photos of each one of the ten homestay mothers’ houses and write up a short profile for each.

SMART Objectives

I met with Kholi at IKaya today and discussed the pitfalls and opportunities for the education project at the center. She heads the education project and spends a lot of time reaching out to the community, especially parents, who are not as receptive to the center’s education program as she would like them to be at the moment.

There is a need at IKaya for increased information sharing and collaboration among various stakeholders within Stellenbosch and Kayamandi in particular. There is also a need for clear and easy to use performance indicators to measure the work performance of the overall organization in terms of the education project, music project and tourism project. 

In developing DALS plan of attack in working with Ikaya, we need to focus on clear and measurable deliverables that are SMART:

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed.

Obective of Performance Indicators for effective communication with donors and internal coherence of the organization

• initiate three performance measurement tools that are easy and effective in measuring the impact of the education, music and tourism project

Timeline: Education evaluation — 14 July 2006, Music evaluation — 21 July 2006, Tourism evaluation 28 July 2006

Responsbility: Steve

Objective of Collaboration among local stakeholders

• Establish a regular working relationship with three separate stakeholders in the Greater Stellenbosch Area and delegate an IKaya contact person for all three

Responsibility: Lindsey (with other NGOs including Kuyasa in Kayamandi and Stellensbosch), Dustin (with the music conservatory at the University and MIAGI contact), Alvira (with the outreach center and writing center at Stellenbosch University)

Timeline:

5 July 2006 Meeting at Schuman Building

Our consulting group, DALS Consulting, met with the manager Eugene and one trustee Hannes, today at 1300. 

Hannes lead the discussion today, explaining more about the background of IKaya and its funding sources. 

Donors 

The center has applied for funds from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund in partnership with a Swedish NGO that has also given money to Ikaya for administrative training and development. The education program is funded by ’godparents’ of students who show an ability to excel and finish out their schooling. One grey area in the project is a determined commitment for a defined length of time, for which the donor will finance each student’s education.

The money from the National Lottery Fund will go to develop the music training project that is currently lacking funds to continue and build. A large local company, Distell Group Limited, has shown a willingness to fund the musical project at Ikaya but has not committed to any time or amount that will be given.  We proposed a strong partnership with Stellenbosch University’s music conservatory in order to draw upon the resources available at the local University.

Volunteers 

A volunteer coordinatior position would be ideal not only for this partnership but for all volunteers that shuffle in and out of Ikaya providing their numerous skills and training.  Eugene mentioned that volunteers are unreliable but with a coordinator to assist in scheduling and managment of volunteer procurement and activities, we feel volunteers’ impact and productivity would improve substantially.

Kayamandi Tourism Corridor

This is an intiative by the local municipality and all stakeholders involved in the Kayamandi Community. IKaya coud potentially benefit from this development as long as there is collaboration among itself and the other restaurants, nonprofits, hostels and homestays within Kayamandi. Hannes mentioned some political obstacles that should be worked out with time and negotiations between Board of Trustees’ from different nonprofits and IKaya.

Performance Measurement

Performance measurement tools will be put into practice by the end of the next four weeks for the education, music, social services and tourism project.  Having measurments by which to assess the impact of each indiviual project will give the donors, board of trustees and staff benchmarks from which to strive to obtain and provide coherence around the overall mission of the center.

Competitor Analysis

This may be a misnomer because competitor nonprofits in Kayamandi should become collaborators and partners to make each organizations’ projects more effective. A competitor anaysis however, will be carried out to provide information to all organizations on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of each center’s mission. By leveraging each organizations assets in categories where Ikaya does not perform as well, we can improve the overall working environment among nonprofits throughout Kayamandi.

Partnership with Stellenbosch University

As was mentioned above, a partnership will be sought out between the music conservatory at Stellenbosch and Ikaya but we have also proposed a staff development partnership between the community outreach program at Stellenbosch and the adminstrative staff at IKaya. The writing laboratory at Stellenbosch would potentially be used to improve upon typing skills as well as information organization using programs such as excel.

Education is IKaya’s Strength

It has been noted that a teacher/manager position is urgently needed at the IKaya center for the kindegarten project. We will work together with the Trustee in charge of this project to project a timeframe of when a teacher/manager will be procured and how it will figure into the education budget. As it stands now, the education project is financially stable and a new classroom has recently been constructed for the next term. The next step is procuring someone for the teacher/manager position.

IKaya Trust Center

Ikaya needs to focus on the relative advantage as a musical education provider for disadvantaged students with a lifelong commitment and appreciation for music making.

First Deliverable 

One deliverable we have decided to implement from the beginning is developing a standardized reporting and measurment tool that will I. Externally a) increase accountability, b)increase competitiveness, c) attract funding and II. Internally a)create an adherence to mission, b) measeure results effectively, c) assist in strategic planning and d) assist in budgeting.

Outcome Levels

Initial Outcomes

Most directly related to programs. eg: Children’s music program raises awareness within community (parents and young adults) of music education.

Intermediate Outcomes

Link immediate program effects to ultimately desired outcomes. eg: Morechildren are attracted to program, parents involvement increases, children’s time practicing is increasing

Long-term Outcomes

The ultimate goals of the program. eg:Students are starting their own musical groups, attending higher education for music, giving back to the program, etc.

Outcome measured depends on TIMING 

Data for Outcome Measurement

Exiisting Data:Proprietary or Secondary — group comparisons for benchmarking

Observations

Generated Data: Surveys (Quantitative, Qualitative)

MEASURMENT TOOLS

Standard           What is there to measure         Indicator              

Determinate       Binary, yes or no                         A clear rule

Rating Scale      From ‘acceptable’ to ‘unaccepable’  3, 5,or 7 point scale

Evaluation        Compare to adopted goal          % or distance reached

Developmental  Step-by-step                      Milestone reached

Benchmark        Compare to a recognized leader  Proximity to standard of excel.

Historical           Compare to past experience      Previous Performance

Some examples of the standards are determinate: a successful audit or accreditation, rating scale: public awareness of the org’s mission, evaluation: decline of a specific vulnerability, developmental: completed stages of a strategic plan, benchmark: compare to a competitor organization, historical: compare to the past status of the org.

Potential Deliverables

Human Resource development. What needs to be done? Can Stellenbosch U. find volunteers/students in the music department to provide training (possibly for credits).

First meeting with iKaya

iKaya is a ‘communtiy trust’ that at this time is lacking focus and a strong vision, especially from its board of trustees.  We (Dustin, Alvira, Lindsey and myself) met with the two members of the Board of Trustees, the Treasurer (who will soon be leaving) and the Manager of the organization today.

We discussed the activities that take place at iKaya and the dreams they have for the future. One of there biggest concerns was communication to donors (‘Godparents’) and how metrics would be assessed given the current underskilled staff. The organization provides pre-school education to about 76 students without a qualified teacher, music training and dreams of establishing a restaurant or coffee shop to attract tourists in the future. Another concern of the organization is an upcoming organization close-by that will potentially duplicate some of the projects iKaya is engaged in.

My thinking right now is that iKaya needs to really concentrate on its focus and outreach to the Kayamandi community, who at the moment see iKaya more as an outside organization, funded and run by outsiders, that provides little in terms of a livleihood for people in the community. Of course, fundraising cannot come to a halt during this process and more effort needs to be focused on reaching donors’ wallets for a general fund to provide iKaya with more flexible capital. Now, all funds are earmarked for specific projects or students and the organization really has its hands tied with regards to general development, personnel and personnel training.

We’ll be meeting with iKaya again tomorrow to get a better understanding of day-to-day operations and hopefully gain more insight into iKaya’s image within the Kayamandi community.