Habitat External Factors

In order for a non-profit to survive and grow, leaders and staff of the organization need to be aware of their external threats and opportunities. When an organization is only focused on its internal operations, there is a great possibility that it will be effected and blindsided by events and changes that occur on the outside. As an organization, especially a non-profit, your hope is to serve a particular demographic and have a positive effect on those certain individuals and the communities they are apart of. Although there are many trends and issues to consider for an organization, some are arguably major and will effect the organization more than others. Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together are both non-profits that strive to help
With headquarters in Georgia, habitat is devoted to building homes for those in need. Along with offices around the world, Habitat has affiliates located in major cities around the U.S. that help fulfill their mission. Habitat also has numerous annual events and initiatives that help build community involvement, including build-a-thons, campus chapters and collegiate challenges, international volunteer opportunities and green initiatives. Given that Habitat does their work through affiliate relations, some of the external issues they face will be situational and certainly related to their location. As a non-profit that specializes in housing though, their work overall can definitely be stifled by external forces, particularly those related to the housing market. For the sake of this analysis, I will keep my focus on the organizations domestic
For Habitat, forces that are working against their efforts are changes in the economy and the housing market and changes in the needs of the communities they serve, particularly concerning their targeted demographic. Many of the cities that Habitat serves in are becoming increasingly popular and more expensive to live in. Traditionally, Habitat has targeted low income families with children and thus a more expensive housing market, particularly for new development, makes this mission harder to achieve. Traditionally, affiliates of Habitat will fund and purchase plots of land for the purpose of building homes. This land is usually cheap, abandoned and can be purchased from the municipal government for a cheap price. They then build a home on the land that is purchased by a family, at an affordable price, through funding and community partnerships. In ever growing cities though, the price of land is becoming more expensive. An example of this is occurring in Seattle-Kings County (Rozier, 2016). Although successful in this city, they have been purchasing less and less land as time goes on and the cost of living increases. As a result, this affiliate had to decide how it would react to this external pressure but still accomplish their mission of providing homes and giving people a place to live. This Habitat decided to renovate