INDEPENDENT MEDIATION SERVICE OF SOUTH AFRICA (IMSSA)

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
Results

Organizational Vision

The Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA) was started in 1984. It is an intermediate citizen sector organization that provides services and training programs in the areas of mediation, arbitration, facilitation, and dispute resolution. Its clients include trade unions, government, parastatals, other citizen sector organizations, and communities. The organization employs a total of 35 people, distributed throughout 4 regional centers (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban) and has an annual core budget of approximately R18 million.

Citizen Base Strategy

In 1994, IMSSA began thinking about its long-term sustainability. It gave itslf a five-year period to substantially decrease its dependence on foreign funding. The leaders made sure that staff at all levels were involved in making IMSSA more sustainable and helping to move the process forward. In this way, people took more ownership of the organization and the sustainability issue, leading to changes in attitude and practice about how resources were used. What started as a narrow exercise for meeting specific financial targets ended up being a complete transformation of IMSSA into a more sustainable citizen sector organization.

Since 1995, IMSSA has been quite successful in meeting its targets to reduce dependence on foreign funds. It has reduced its dependence on donor funds from 95% to only 35% in 1998. These financial goals have been met through a combined strategy of increasing income from alternative sources (mostly contracts) and decreasing expenses and making changes in the infrastructure of the organization.

A layer of middle management was eliminated, some of whom were voluntarily retrenched, reducing the salary bill by 30%. More than half of the remaining staff had to reapply for their old jobs to ensure that they met more clearly and competitively defined job descriptions.

IMSSA used to have a small national directorate and three regional offices, each with its own support services. Because this was found to be inefficient, the organization was restructured along business lines. The new structure, which had been in place since January 1998, splits the organization into two divisions:

• Projects/ client services/ marketing
• Support services (which includes human resources, finances, and information technology.)

Regional offices now fall under the line management of the projects division, and support functions are managed centrally through the support division.

IMSSA continues to take on contracts to generate income but have implemented adequate costing systems so that they can accurately budget and charge for contract work. A management fee is now included in all contracts. This does not make IMSSA less competitive as its prices are already quite low. Management fees will go towards building the IMSSA capital reserve fund which currently stands at R83,000. The ultimate goal is to use these funds to purchase a building for IMSSA.

IMSSA has instituted much better cost control mechanisms. The organization now has weekly cash flow statements that are monitored against the budget. This enables it to keep better track of spending and make appropriate adjustments.

IMSSA has also adopted strategies to protect the environment, as a cost reduction measure and to raise funds. These include recycling paper, recycling cans, reusing materials such as binders, and cutting use of lights and air conditioners (this has reduced the electricity bill by 30%).

Results

Financially, the restructuring realized the following:

• Salaries were reduced to approximately 35% of total expenditure (as compared to 55%).
• Rent was reduced by approximately 25% overall, and currently constitutes only 6% of the budget.
• Ongoing savings on salaries and rent makes more funds available for program work.

Overall, IMSSA's restructuring accomplished a number of important things: streamlined staffing, a better organizational structure, and financial benefits.