Community based programs sustainability. a multidimensional analysis of sustainability factors

Abstract

Ensuring community based program sustainability is critical for the targeted communities. When such a program is no longer sustainable, its impact decreases, leading to unmet expectations, affecting the community as a whole. As such, scrutinizing sustainability factors for community based programs proves essential. This paper analyses those factors by reviewing the literature, questioning 188 individuals from community based organizations and other non-profits and providing a ranking for the most important of them. The factors were divided into 3 categories: related to program itself, related to host (implementing) organisation and related to the community where the program is operationalized. For data analysis several statistical tests were used, leading to a ranking of the most important 22 factors for community based programs sustainability.