4.9 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER FOUR
5.2.3 Entrepreneurial Skills
management crisis. Hence, there were great possibilities for each of the departments of the Diocese to have and work on its own vision. Otherwise, they relied largely on the instructions and orders from the Rt. Bishop, who according to the church bureaucratic and hierarchical structures, is the overseer of the church (Appendix VI).
According to the organogram of the ELCT - IRD (Appendix VI), the highest body in ten11S of decision-making on church matters is the General Assembly. Interestingly, the researcher leamed from various decision-making meetings, including those of the two most important bodies. The Diocesan Executive Council and the General Assembly, that meetings were all chaired by the Diocesan Bishop and, based on the church policies, it is hard to challenge the meetings and decisions that are made under the chairnlanship of the Rt. Bishop. As was cited in the literature review, Watkins (1993, p. 373) said:
Spiritual protectionism' prevents the questioning or critique of cun-ent church structures since they are believed to be sacred.
Having such mechanism and using the above concept, the researcher finds that it is very easy for unfaithful leaders to abuse power.
The findings from the respondents who are the project beneficiaries to the first question were:
• 80% of the total respondents said 'Yes'
• 13% of the total respondents said 'No'
• 7% of the total respondents skipped the question.
Responses to the second question were as follows:
• 93.% of the total respondents [beneficiaries] said '1 was trained on how to prepare cow sheds, how to feed and prepare cow feeds, preparation of grazing paddocks, detecting when the heifer is on heat and when to bring in the bull for mating, symptoms and types of animal diseases'.
• 7% of total respondents [beneficiaries] said '] was trained how to work with groups and in animal husbandry. 1 was taken to an agricultural college for a two weeks course so that1can help my fellow farmers'.
One possible conclusion is that the lack of business skills causes income-generating projects to fail. These skills are: competitive quality management, response to business objectives, effective results that maximise quality and profitability, improved productivity, cash flow, improved management planning and control. This could be proven through responses to the question on their original incomes per month at the time of joining the project and afterwards. The findings indicated that:
• 27% eamed an average of about Tshs. 0 - 5,000 a month
• 47% eamed an average of about Tshs. 5,000 - 10,000 a month
• 6% earned an average of about Tshs. 11,000 - 24,000 a month
• 6% earned an average of about Tshs. 15,000 - 30,000 a month and
• 14% skipped the question.
There were no changes in income and this was due to the fact that there were no reliable markets for milk and other cow products as all famlers relied on few village members (village teachers) to sell their products. It was also realised that the church (ELCT) could not help these farmers in establishing market links as the church was more service-oriented than business-oriented. This was reported by 80% of total respondents who said:
•
The Church (ELCT-Iringa Diocese did not have experience and necessary skills in managing income-generating projects. Itis however good at relief and evangelisation work.79
Conflicts of interest
This theme was established as a result of the Diocese being in a position to accept funds from organisations that had different interests from those of the church Responding to the question 'What challenges does the church face during the initiation and implementation of community based projects?' the church focus group said:
• As a faith organisation, our interest is in spiritual needs [evangel isation] but our main donors have an interest in material needs - serving the poor through community development work
• It is difficult to get donor support for the establishment of church infrastructures as well as for church owned-income-generating projects
Such statements show that the church's reasons for entering into development were ambiguous and not always based on a common vision. This situation led the researcher to develop an interest in seeing whether this has any impact on the well- being and sustainability of church-sponsored projects.
Based on the response from the representatives of the church (the implementing agency) to the question 'Who are your main supporters?' the findings indicated that the implementing agency received funds from six different organisations. These organisations had of different characteristics ranging from the spiritual to the non- spiritual. According to this research, the main donors were:
• The Lutheran Mission Co operation [LMC]
• Christian Reformed World Relief Committee [CRWRC]
• CARE International
• Canadian International Agency [CIDA]
• Heifer Project Tanzania [HPT] and
• Heifer Project International [HPI]
The researcher took this conflict of interest as a theme for the purpose of investigating whether receiving financial support from a number of donors for development work affects the service delivery process. The researcher was also interested in finding out how the church with its strong vision fitted into the interests and missions of such organisations. The researcher also wanted to learn if there was true church
commitment to using such opportunities in meeting the needs of the members of the society or if the interest was just in having donor money.
Funding
Based on the fact that the church as a faith organisation faces difficulties in soliciting funds for its core evangelism work, it has historically received grants for non-spiritual works from various types of donors. Sometimes such grants are given with conditions attached. There an interest in discovering the reasons for continuing to accept such grants that are not used for facilitating spiritual work. The following questions need to be answered:
• Are there loopholes for misallocating and or diverting some of these funds to other church work?
• Is the church really committed to serving the poor or is it merely chasing the donor's money?
To answer these questions, it is necessary that the theme be discussed in relation to the literature review and based on the primary infomlation from the Projects and development department of the ELCT -lringa Diocese.