South African Chefs Association: Maintaining a Non-Profit Organization

In February 2020, the president of South African Chefs Association was exploring ways to ensure a sustained revenue stream for the association, which relied primarily on membership fees for survival. As a non-profit organization, South African Chefs Association had a rich history of representing chefs, enabling them to compete on the international stage, supporting their training and education, and providing members with networking opportunities and a community. The association faced several challenges; most notably, it needed to find an innovative solution to sustainable growth in terms of both membership and revenue numbers and the value created for members. The association’s president needed to establish a sense of relevance and community for its members through a range of strategic partnerships and innovative value contributions, ensure its leadership reflected the racial makeup of the country, and reconsider its structure and purpose.

This case is suitable for use in graduate-, post-graduate-, and executive-level courses in strategy and innovation. The case is suitable for students who already have gained a fundamental understanding of strategic growth and innovation. Building on that base, the case focuses specifically on strategic value creation through innovation and partnerships. The case learning can be extrapolated for students in all organizational contexts to understand the principles of designing an approach to engage members and bring about novel revenue streams. It helps students understand the nature of non-profit associations, their challenges, the importance of stakeholders, and the need for innovative value creation. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to<ul><li>outline the identity, nature, and purpose of non-profit professional associations, identifying their potential revenue streams and explaining how they can create value for members through partnerships and innovation;</li><li>explain how to create membership engagement and growth in a non-profit organization;</li><li>evaluate the chosen growth strategy of a non-profit organization; and</li><li>create an innovative response to the growth challenges faced by a non-profit organization.</li></ul>

• non-profit organization
• strategic growth
• value creation
• partnerships
• membership retention