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Update: This story should have included Fundly.com, the largest site for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs.
If money is the only thing stopping you from doing something good in the world, stop waiting and start doing some good!
Nothing better symbolizes entrepreneurship than fundraising. Social entrepreneurs are no different. Today, there are a host of on-line resources for crowdfunding that social entrepreneurs can use to fund their projects, films, books, and social ventures. Today, I'll briefly profile eight.
Kickstarter.com: Kickstarter is the 800 pound gorilla in crowdfunding, originally designed and built for creative arts, many technology entrepreneurs now use the site, some reporting to have raised millions of dollars. The Kickstarter funding model is an all-or-nothing model. You set a goal for your raise; if your raise exceeds the goal, you keep all the money, otherwise your supporters don't pay and you don't get anything. This protects supporters from some of the risk of your running out of money before your project is completed.
- StartSomeGood.com: StartSomeGood, which I used to raise some money for my book, Your Mark On The World, is great for early-stage social good projects that are not (yet) 501(c)(3) registered nonprofits. StartSomeGood uses a unique "tipping point" model for fundraising, allowing you to set a funding goal and a lower "tipping point" at which your project can minimally proceed and where you will collect the money you raise.
- Indiegogo.com: Indiegogo allows you to raise money for absolutely anything, using an optional "keep what you raise" model with higher fees or pay less to use an all-or-nothing funding approach.
- Rockethub.com: Rockethub is also a broad platform targeting "artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists" on their site, using a keep-what-you-raise model that rewards you for hitting your funding goal (or penalizes you for failing to hit it).
- Pozible.com: Pozible, run from Australia, has a global platform for all types of projects, emphasizing "creative projects and ideas" and specifically precludes fundraising for charities. Pozible operates with an all-or-nothing funding model.
- Causes.com: Causes is designed specifically for 501(c)(3) registered nonprofits to raise money. The fees are low and all donors on the site understand that all of the contributions will be tax deductible. Causes is widely used to launch "action" campaigns, like boycotts, petitions and pledges rather than fundraising campaigns.
- Razoo.com: Razoo boasts that it has now helped 14,000 causes raise over $100 million. This site is exclusively for social good causes but is not limited to 501(c)(3), using a keep-what-you-raise model, charging just 2.9% of money raised.
- Crowdrise.com: Crowdrise is a site for 501(c)(3) charities to raise money, with the novelty being that anyone can sign up to volunteer to launch a fundraising campaign for a charity already registered on the site. Everyone can instantly become a social entrepreneur for a cause they believe in.
All of these sites are making great things happen for real people every day, advancing the arts, entrepreneurship and philanthropy in myriad ways. Check them all out and decide which one is the best for you.
Update (October 28, 2012): I'm working on a book about crowdfunding for social entrepreneurs. Please share your experiences here.
If you've had experience with one of these sites, or others that I may have missed, please share in the comments below, at my site, yourmarkontheworld.com, on Facebook, or Twitter.
Note that in general, the tax deductibility of donations made on these sites is determined by the tax status of the organization to which you donate and not by the crowdfunding site used. Donations made through any of the sites to a 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit will generally be tax deductible for U.S. donors who itemize deductions on their tax returns. Check with your tax accountant if you have questions before you make a donation.


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By E.J. Crawford, USTA.com
At the 2013 Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria, Emily Hangstefer paired with Laura Chapman to win the gold medal in women's doubles, snapping a 16-year medal drought in tennis for Team USA. She then teamed with her brother, Daniel, to earn a silver medal in mixed doubles.
On Thursday, Hangstefer's efforts were rewarded. The Signal Mountain, Tenn., native was named the USA Deaf Sports Federation Sportswoman of the Year for 2013, becoming the first tennis player ever to receive the award.
"Emily worked so hard and prepared extremely well to get ready for the Deaflympics," said brother and mixed doubles partner Daniel, "and it paid off."
In women's doubles, the unseeded Hangstefer and Chapman knocked off the top three seeds en route to the title. And in singles, Hangstefer stretched the No. 2 seed to three sets, falling, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5, in the longest women's singles match in Deaflympics history.
"Playing with Emily was quite an honor," said Chapman. "Emily has incredible passion for the game of tennis, and that attitude drives her success on the courts."
Hangstefer did not play in high school but was a nationally ranked junior. She went on to star for the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, where she was named to the conference All-Freshman Team in 2009 and went 42-18 (combined singles and doubles) as a senior in 2011-12.
Hangstefer is now training to play for Team USA at the Maere Cup for Deaf Women, to be held at the Champions Club Tennis Center in Chattanooga, July 14-19, 2014.
Information from the USADSF was used in compiling this report.

subset: commoncrawl


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Snapshots from Germany: Spätzle
Like Maultasche, Spätzle is a signature Swabian dish from Baden-Württemberg, arguably one of the most interesting culinary regions of Germany. Spätzle is essentially an egg noddle served either plain as a side dish or as a main course typically with cheese, onions and speck.
The ideal flour type for the Spätzle dough is Dinkelmehl (spelt flour). Dinkel is a wheat-like, dark-colored, sweet and nutty flavored flour. It is an ancient grain of the wheat family, believed to have been first cultivated across central Europe around 3000 BC, where traces of Dinkel grain have been found at Neolithic settlements. The flour is then mixed with organic eggs, lukewarm water or sometimes milk, salt and an optional pinch of nutmeg. The Spätzle dough must have a thick liquid texture so that it may be scraped of a moist wooden Spätzlebrett (chopping board) into boiling hot generously salted water.
Once the Spätzle rise to the surface of the boiling water, they're done, which should take no longer than a couple of minutes. If used as a side dish the plainly cooked Spätzle would then be served without any further ado. But it is strongly recommended to take the cooked Spätzle to the next level. For Kässpätzle (Cheese Spätzle) you'd quickly fry the cooked Spätzle in butter, soft onions and cheese (whatever you like; I prefer a mix of Gouda, Parmesan and Blue cheese) before placing your pan in the hot oven for 10 minutes to let the cheese fully melt and give it a golden crust . Garnished with freshly chopped spring onions and black pepper, the dish will look like the image above. Add to this a Thüringer bratwurst and a Neumarkter Lammsbraü Pilsner and you'll have a wonderful meal.
Another favorite is the Spätzle-Waldpilz-Pfanne, which adds lovely seasonal forest mushrooms such as Maronenröhrling, Pfifferling and Steinpilz (chanterelle and variaty of porcini mushrooms). Dishes with Waldpilz are popular in Germany, especially the chanterelle is widely used in pasta dishes or butter fried on toast.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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©photography by Crede Calhoun
Western Maryland Deep Creek Lake Wedding Photographer & Deep Creek Lake Photographers
Dear Crede,
We love the photos and so has everyone that we have sent and showed them too.
Thanks again for all the beautiful photos and for the amount of time you put in to our wedding, you have helped us in remembering our special day forever!!
Amber & Graham
Mark Gage
Our new site is indexing well in many search engines and we are even on page one in Google for many search terms related to our cabin rentals. You delivered what you promised us at a price that was well worth it. Our new website is by far our best form of advertising and we couldn't be more delighted.
We especially like the web video you did for us on our mule rides and folks really seem to like it.
Laura Frazee
Crede, Thank you for such a terrific job with our family reunion photos. Everyone is thrilled with the results. Susan Caldwell
To Whom It May Concern;
Having a web site has been a great benefit to our business. We have had countless people tell us that they have found our ski center on the internet. I have searched many times myself for items related to our site and Crede knows how to work the search engines. Our web site has come up at the top of the list many times, I'm always amazed!
As well as designing the site, he also came out and took some fantastic photos. I feel like having him be both a photographer and web designer is a great mix. It enables him to be a true artist with his work.
In today's world where the internet is so important, I've learned not to underestimate the power of a good web site. I've also learned the value of leaving it to the professionals.
|Travel Photography by Crede Calhoun
|Home of the Top Wedding Sites™
Search for wedding catering services and party supplies in Maryland
Professional Wedding Photography and Commercial Photography in Deep CReek Lake and western Maryland
E-Commerce Web Site Design
Professional Ski Resort, Skiing and Snowboarding Photography
Adventure Photography Studios - Whitewater Paddle Sports - Eco Tour Companies - Outdoor & Recreation Business Marketing Experts
Graphics & Brochures ~ Deep Creek Lake Photographer ~ Online Business Solutions
Sell Event Photos like we do HERE!
P.O. Box 119, Friendsville, Maryland, 21531
Toll Free 1-800-446-7554 ~ FAX 301 746-5840 ~ Local 301-746-4083
Photography For Deep Creek Lake
Wedding Photography Addison and Farmington PA
Real Estate
Pittsburgh ~ West Virginia ~ Cleveland ~ Cumberland ~ Baltimore ~ Washington D.C. ~ Deep Creek Lake
Deep Creek Lake Wedding Photographer
ALL photos and text on this website are for personal viewing and evaluation use only and are copyrighted © Crede Calhoun/ VisionQuestStudios.com unless otherwise indicated. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. NO commercial, non-profit, or governmental use of any kind is allowed without written permission. Educational use is allowed as permitted by law under the "fair use" clause of the copyright laws. No redistribution of any modified or altered photo is allowed. All images may be commercially licensed. Contact Vision Quest Studios to discuss usage of our protected work.


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The Homeless and Community Outreach Committee of the Detroit Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. marked more than 3,500 hours of volunteer service earlier this month as members prepared and served meals to nearly 800 people at Crossroads, a social service agency that provides emergency assistance, advocacy and counseling to those in need.
"Our mission is to provide hands-on service to the Detroit community. We are always happy to partner with like-minded community agencies and to benefit both the non-profit community and those people who depend upon these agencies for their day-to-day survival," said Beverly A. Gray, president of the Detroit Alumnae Chapter.
Under the leadership of Homeless Committee chair Charlene Jones Mitchell and co-Chairs Bronwyn Burton and Carolyn Gamble, the chapter has provided meals for more than 1,200 individuals this year. Deltas served veterans at Piquette Square on Valentine's Day and homeless men, women and children at a variety of organizations, including Cass Community Services, Operation Get Down, and Metropolitan United Methodist Church, throughout the organization's 2011-2012 calendar year. The committee also facilitated the donation of clothing, toiletries, and other items to address additional community needs.
"Members of our chapter support projects that serve the homeless members of our community because we understand the value of a supportive community during troubling times. We're also excited about another supportive project, 'Wrap It Up,' a campaign to collect towels for area shelters including the Ronald McDonald House," said Charlene Jones Mitchell, committee chair.
For more information, contact Alicia Nails, public relations chair, at (313) 613-8369 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Established in 1939, the Detroit Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. strives to confront the challenges facing African Americans, women and girls, and to build stronger, healthier families and communities with emphasis on the metro Detroit area. The Detroit Alumnae Chapter coordinates initiatives focused on a five-point programmatic thrust: economic development, educational development, international awareness and involvement, physical and mental health, and political awareness and involvement. Efforts include working in metro Detroit homeless shelters; mentoring youth; operating Delta Manor, a residential facility for seniors; hosting financial literacy and healthy living events; and organizing voter registration activities and political awareness forums. For more information, visit www.detroitdeltas.org.


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Nike Women Dri-Fit Lightweight Socks (3 Pairs)
43% nylon / 31% cotton / 23% polyester / 3% elastane
Notify me when this product back to stock:
43% nylon / 31% cotton / 23% polyester / 3% elastane
Notify me when this product back to stock:
This high-performance microfiber polyester fabric actually pulls sweat away from the body and transports it to the fabric surface – where it evaporates and leaves the skin cool and dry. It's all you need for hot days, and a critical base layer for cold days.
it is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants. The fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile.The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times.
Natural fibers
Soft, dry and comfortable
Excellent moisture absorption
Cotton fabrics lack of elasticity and reverse capability
Properly treated easily curls
is a thermoplastic, silky material, first used commercially in a nylon-bristled toothbrush (1938), followed more famously by women stockings after being introduced as a fabric at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. Bill Pittendreigh, DuPont, and other individuals and corporations worked diligently during the first few months of World War II to find a way to replace Asian silk and hemp with nylon in parachutes. By August 1945, manufactured fibers had taken a market share of 25%, at the expense of cotton.
Strong, tough and resilient synthetic fiber
Quickly drying
Is poor against liquids, humidity
it is a strong, durable and resistant to most chemicals fabric. They also resist wrinkles, shrinking, abrasion and mildew. Compared to cotton, polyester withstands wear and tear longer and retains its shape even in harsh climates.
Synthetic fibers are often used in the production of sportswear
Strechy and does not crease
Strong and durable
Is weak against liquids
Spandex or elastane
is a synthetic fiber known for its exceptional elasticity. It is strong, but less durable than its major non-synthetic competitor, natural latex. It is a polyurethane-polyurea copolymer that was invented in 1959 by chemists C. L. Sandquist and Joseph Shivers at DuPont Benger Laboratory in Waynesboro, Virginia. When first introduced, it revolutionized many areas of the clothing industry.


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Commercial Gym Machine
Our company is a leading China Commercial Gym Machine manufacturer, supplier and exporter. Adhering to the pursuit of perfect quality of products, so that our Commercial Gym Machine have been satisfied by many customers. Extreme design, quality raw materials, high performance and competitive price are what every customer wants, and that's also what we can offer you. Of course, also essential is our perfect after-sales service. If you are interested in our Commercial Gym Machine services, you can consult us now, we will reply to you in time!
Free Weights
- Commercial Multifunctional Smith
- Multi-functional Rack
- Flat Bench Rack
- Incline Bench Press
- Decline Bench Press
- Deep Squat Rack
- Olympic Military Bench
- Leg-lift AB Crunch Machine
- Dip Chin Leg Raise
- Bicep Curl Bench
- Sit-up Training Bench
- 45-Degree Hyperextension
- Abdominal Bench
- Adjustable Bench
- Dumbbell Flat Bench
- Dumbbell Bench
- Weight Plate Rack
- Dumbbell Rack
- Barbell Stand
- GYM Flooring
- Dumbbell, Barbell, Weight Plates
Dual Motion Series
- Shoulder Press/Chest Press Training Machine
- Chest/Deltoid Training Machine
- Pull Down/ Low Row Machine
- Inner Thigh/Outer Thigh Training Machine
- Seated Leg Extension/Seated Leg Curl Machine
- Seated Leg Press/Calf Raise Machine
- Abdominal And Back Trainer
- Biceps Press/Triceps Training Machine
- Deep Squat Trainer
- Assist Chin-Dip Trainer
- Hip Trainer
- Weight Plate Loaded Machine
Strength Machine
- Seated Chest Push Trainer
- Chest / Deltoid Muscle Trainer
- Pectoral Fly Machine
- Chest Shoulder Push Machine
- Low Row Machine
- Seated Lat Pull
- Seated Leg Curl Machine
- Seated Leg Extension Machine
- Seated Leg Press Machine
- Prone Leg Curl Machine
- Calf Press Strength Machine
- Inner Thigh Adductor Machine
- Outer Thigh Adductor Machine
- Abdominal Trainer Machine
- Rotary Torso Machine
- Triceps Press Machine
- Biceps Curl Hammer Strength Machine
- Assist Dip-chin Machine
- Back Extension
- Home Gym
- Commercial Multi Gym
- Cardio Equipment


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Units violation alert.
25mm wide, 4mm thick and 133.5mm long = 1.63985169 × 10-12 cubic furlongs
Memory maker Micron is leaping into the widening world of NAND flash-based solid state disks. The shiny new RealSSD brand comprises three products: SATA drives for desktops and laptops, embedded USB drives and module storage for servers. The RealSSD geared for computae domestica will be introduced in 1.8" and 2.5" form factors …
All you need to do is plug it into your computer. PATA (old style IDE, not SATA). The connecter is small, smaller than a standard laptop IDE connection, and Compact Flash cards have a socket (standard hard drives have pins - the socket is on the cable), so you need to buy an adapter. But since it's just a wiring adapeter, you're looking at 5 0/0 plus postage.
The Compact Flash card I am using as a boot drive in my computer is not ultra dma 166, so it's not the fasted IDE drive in world, but the seek time is very good. CF cards come in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB versions in all shops. 0.5 and 8GB are also available
You used to have to format your CF card when you first put it in your camera, but now a CF card typically comes with a FAT file system installed.
"Not big enough and probably costs too much and by sound of it not as fast as
we would want for the money. I want one of these when they are comparable
to disk drives *THEN* I will buy one."
Gee and I was hoping it would be free. Really, it will not be all that long. The curves will cross soon - unless the disc drive companies come out with all new technology. (Yes, I know that there is hype that this is coming....)
I suspect these devices will remain a solution in search of a problem in the PC world - maybe some utility in media players, camera and crossover devices, but nothing more.
They might find some utility in PC's - when they have better data access rates than the latest SATA drives - thinking of pagefiles on a slower drive than existing here, what a performance boost!
The noise/physical size/power advantages look interesting, especially in space limited applications. I wonder what the heat output is like though?
Not to mention price...
Still, I'm easily satisfied - all I'm looking for is something about this physical size, low power consumption, low heat output, low noise, around 120Gb, faster than a WD Raptor (Hey! It's solid state - isn't silicon supposedly faster than a HD? If not, why bother with RAM?) and with a cost advantage over spinning metal.
So, it ticks a few of the boxes. But not enough, not as yet.
Must try harder...
I wish people would stop using the phrase "Form Factor" when referring to an item's shape.
Who put the word 'factor' after the word 'form' and then decided it was a new and trendy way to say and write 'shape'? I want that person caught and shot (if that's not too much to ask).
Precisely what decision or outcome was the item's form a factor in? None!
We almost never talk about price factor, weight factor, battery-life factor, speed factor, capacity factor, etc. but any of those things might be a factor in a person's decision to buy an item. Otherwise they are just attributes.
This rather daft phrase seems to be limited to the IT industry at the moment but I wonder how long it will be before we'll be discussing Paris Hilton's form factor.
So you'd like it to be smaller, faster, lower power, cheaper, and capable of making a decent cuppa.... Not asking for much are you.
It costs more and will do for some time, but that's balanced by higher speed (well it should be), lower power, damage resistant and completely silent.
I'd pay a premium for that in my laptop, and the capacities will be sufficient soon.
In fact, i'd probably pay for it for my desktop as well. I currently have an 80Gb raptor, which is about the only noise producing component in the system. If it's faster and silent then it's worth the premium.
If you need more storage space then you need to think about moving your data off your pc and onto your NAS.
Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2020


text: Last Saturday, Green Cove Springs, 2-up on a F650 with hard bags, thought I saw a ADV sticker on the back. If so, FYYFF! I am a RiderCoach, I'm halfway through day 1 range exercises, theres a dirt access road that leads onto the runway where I work. All of a sudden this F650 comes rolling up on the dirt road (that I didn't think led anywhere!) He sees us, stops, thinks about it for a second, then turns around and rides back down the dirt road.


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Due to overload on the Official Translation thread, two new translation threads have been started. he Official Sindarin Translation thread is now open for business.
Please keep all relevant Sindarin translation questions to this thread and this thread only in an attempt to cut down on extranious threads. I will try to keep all translations added to the first post, so that one will not have to dig through all the pages to find a particular word, if it has been translated before. Also please note: this thread will be rather ruthlessly modded (by me at least), so stay on topic. Thank you, and enjoy.
Your Resident Language Forum Tirno,
"goodbye" -- cuio mae lit. "live well"
"hello" -- suilad lit. "greeting"
"I'm sorry" -- díheno anim or goheno anim lit. "forgive me".


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The congressional supercommittee failed to satisfy its mandate, missing its Nov. 23 deadline for finding $1.2 trillion in cuts to the federal budget. Now $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts are scheduled, and neither party is happy.
The supercommittee's failure may mark the end of a decade that saw income tax rates lowered and the gift and estate tax exemption increased. With the supercommittee's failure and elections looming, there seems little chance that an agreement can be reached to extend the Bush era tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2012.
Is there anything we can do to shore up our clients' portfolios for what could be a massive tax increase in 2013?
The automatic cuts don't start until 2013, giving Congress time to rescind or amend the legislation that forced the automatic budget reduction measures. But according to government affairs expert Andrew Friedman, the supercommittee's inability to reach a compromise is symptomatic of greater problems in Congress—problems that could very well lead to a massive increase in taxes for everyone, rich and poor alike.
Proponents of extending the Bush tax cuts beyond 2012 face a steep uphill battle in Congress. Given the supercommittee deadlock and "the parties' competing views on taxes," the chances of Congress passing a comprehensive tax bill before next year's election are slim. And if Congress can't come together before the election to avoid the biggest tax increase in history, they're unlikely to reach agreement afterward.
When our current Congress returns to Washington after the election, President Barack Obama will still be in the White House and everyone involved will have even less incentive to find a workable compromise. And even if Congress passes legislation extending the Bush tax cuts, Obama has said he will veto any bill extending the cuts for families earning over $250,000 a year. Regardless of whether he wins re-election, the president will be emboldened to follow through on his veto promises without another term to worry about.
Planning for 2013
The prospect of Congress allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire en masse was once unthinkable; but a total lapse is looking a lot more likely. What can we do over the next year to prepare for the possibility of the largest tax increase in history?
Gifting will be more important in 2012 than before. A couple can make up to $10,240,000 in gifts without being subject to transfer taxes. Wait until 2013 and that limit could drop to $2 million. The over $8 million difference could amount to $4.4 million in additional estate taxes. In the first scenario a couple can transfer $10 million in net gifts, for example, with no transfer tax paid.
In the second scenario, the couple's beneficiaries net only $5.6 million in gifts from the couple's estate. And the beneficiaries in the first example also receive all appreciation in the $10 million gift transfer tax free. If the gift is made twenty years prior to the death of the second spouse to die, its value likely will have doubled at least once outside the grantor's estate.
Introduce life insurance into the estate planning equation and the exemption can be levered up to provide millions in transfer tax free dollars. Utilizing 2012's $5,120,000 generation skipping transfer tax exemption amount and the tax savings multiply. Bring a life insurance funded family bank or dynasty trust into the mix and your clients can leave a legacy to generation after generation. A $10 million gift can grow for generations without transfer tax liability, turning into a legacy of $100 million or more.
Wait a mere 13 months and these opportunities could be gone forever.
For additional coverage of this issue and similar ones, we invite you to sign up with AdvisorOne's Summit Business Media partner, AdvisorFX, for a free trial.
You may also be interested in signing up for a free trial with another Summit Business Media partner, Tax Facts Online.
See also The Law Professor's blog at AdvisorFYI.


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(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)
At Tuesday night's (Oct. 30) BMI Country Awards in Nashville, I had the chance to catch up with the Pistol Annies. And when a band comes together like they did and has such a natural gift for writing genuine country songs, I had to know what songs kicked off their collective talents. Fortunately, all three Annies — Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe — have vivid memories of the first tunes they wrote.
"I started when I was about 14, and wrote half of one," Lambert told me. "But the very first song I finished was when I was 17, and it was called 'Take Me Back to Texas.' It wasn't very good."
Presley took a stab at it when she was a teenager, too.
"I was probably 16, and I wrote one called 'Fairy Tale Land,' and it was about me moving away and going to college and leaving your parents," she said. "It was awful. I would die if anyone heard it." Referring to Loretta Lynn's first single, she added, "It was no 'Honky Tonk Girl,' that's for sure."
Monroe recalls her first attempt having a lot of blanks.
"It was called 'I Need You More Every Day,'" she said. "I kept filling in the blanks with 'Oh, I.' So it had a zillion 'Oh I's' in it."
But what they love now, when they're all in good moods anyway, is Little Big Town's "Pontoon." Lambert told me she played that one all summer long because she was in a good place.
"But when songs are about how everything is perfect all the time, it starts to gets on your nerves a little bit," she said.


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It's a challenge for anybody selling a wide range of anything online: how do you get the right products in front of the right customers?
Shutterstock, which sells stock-art photos and videos to customers such as ad agencies and PowerPoint presenters, has the matchmaking problem in spades. With 550,000 active customers and more than 23.7 million images, pairing the right buyer with the right photo isn't easy.
Which is why the New York-based company, which went public last October, is retooling how it presents its products to better compete with iStockphoto and other rivals.
Shutterstock has just launched a new stock image discovery tool called Spectrum on its labs site that lets people explore categories of photos based on their dominant color.
It's not the first such move. Last year, it launched an iPad app whose "mosaic" interface presents wall-to-wall images that customers can browse rapidly by swipe gestures. A similar interface for the Web, Instant, was the first Shutterstock labs project.
And it's not the last, said Chief Executive and founder Jon Oringer: an overhaul for video is on the way so customers can evaluate footage with something approaching the ease and rapidity that they can check the results of searching for still images.
"With 50 thumbnail image results, it's very easy to scan. When it's 50 video clips, it's very hard to scan -- you don't know what's in each video," Oringer said. "We're working on ways to take that whole page of data and show it to you really quickly."
On top of that, the company takes a very Googley approach with its traditional photo-search techniques, in which customers type in search keywords and see an array of image thumbnails. "We're tracking hovers [where people direct their mouse pointers], clicks, and downloads," checking how customers refine searches and otherwise gathering data on what converts a search into a purchase, said Wyatt Jenkins, the company's vice president of product. "Our results are more relevant."
The formula is working, said Lee Torrens, who watches the industry closely at Microstock Diaries.
"They're innovating a lot on the buyer-side functionality, helping them catch up to iStock in terms of getting buyers to the image they're seeking as quickly as possible," Torrens said. "Overall, they're growing very quickly, remaining uniquely friendly to contributors, and pushing closer and closer towards iStock."
The new search techniques can appeal to different designers or to the same designer in a different mood. With the new avenues for exploration, "We see people downloading different images. It gets their creativity moving in a different direction," Oringer said. And relative use of the iPad app increases on the weekends, he added.
So far, the company's held things together in its transition from private to public. Revenue for its most recently reported quarter, ended Sept. 30, increased to $42.3 million from $31.2 million the year earlier. Net income increased from $4.3 million to $6.6 million.
Shutterstock raised $82 million in its October IPO, when the shares went public at $17 piece. Its stock now trades above $24.
Oringer has a big stake in how things go at the 250-employee company -- indeed, by owning 55.2 percent of the company's stock, a controlling stake.
Stock imagery in a nutshell
Stock photos are a staple in advertisers' imagery diet -- the senior couple strolling through the park, the fit-looking woman in a yoga pose, the businesspeople shaking hands. They're used in everything from annual reports to blog posts.
A decade ago, the stock-photo business moved from the hands of a relatively small number of professional photographers to a vastly larger pool of people as digital camera image quality improved and the Internet provided a global market. Making the commerce possible were microstock start-ups, led by iStockphoto, which old-school agency Getty Images acquired in 2006.
Microstock companies offered photos for relatively cheap on a "royalty-free" basis, meaning that customers could pay once to license a photo and then use it over and over in many ways. It's a much more liberal mechanism than the traditional rights-managed approach that came before, in which photo use is limited to particular geographic regions, times, and other constraints.
There are plenty of microstock companies out there -- well established Shutterstock competitors also include Dreamstime, Fotolia, and 123RF Images. With dozens of other out there, photographers can call on even more middlemen such as PicWorkFlow that'll retouch photos, add keywords, and upload to multiple microstock agencies.
Shutterstock tries to set itself apart. One way is that doesn't try to draw contributors into exclusive partnerships that increase royalty payments if photographers sell imagery only through a single microstock.
"The bottom line is that as a microstock photographer it just doesn't make sense to be exclusive to any one agency," Oringer said in a blog post. Among the company's reasons for not offering exclusivity: "Image marketplaces that offer exclusivity to contributors must favor certain images...While other agencies sort their search results based on maximizing revenue, we maximize on search success."
Sales by subscription
Another distinguishing feature is that Shutterstock offers a subscription model. Customers that spend $249 a month (or less, if they sign up for longer periods of time) may download up to 25 images each day. Most microstocks, in contrast, sell images one at a time, an option Shutterstock also offers.
About half the company's revenue comes from subscription plans, according to the company's regulatory filings. (Video footage, a fast-growing part of the company's business, is not available through subscriptions.)
And Wall Street likes subscription businesses, with their lower churn rates.
"What makes us a good candidate for going public is we are at the core a subscription product with predictable, repeat, recurring revenue helps smooth things out on a quarter-to-quarter basis," Oringer said. "In general, we have remarkable consistency in terms of acquiring subscribers and monitoring how much they download. That's been stable. If the stability was changing, we probably would taken a different route -- gone for a more private kind of equity raise."
Subscriptions might seem like a bad idea for the contributing photographers who supply Shutterstock with images. The company only passes on 25 cents per photo to photographers for a shot sold via a subscription plan, according to Shutterstock's photographer payout formula, though that rate goes up to as much as 38 cents as the photographer's lifetime photo sales increase.
In contrast, an on-demand purchase of a single image generates 81 cents to $1.24 for lower-resolution images and $1.88 to $2.85 for high resolution.
Low cost, high volume
But subscriptions can also encourage customers to loosen up, downloading images more often and not losing a lot of sleep over which one is best or over which resolution to buy, Oringer said.
"Shutterstock is selling more images than anybody else in the world," with two images downloaded each second on average, Jenkins said. "In sheer volume, we're the clear leader...The subscription is a motivator."
And of course customers who like it will continue with their subscriptions, which ultimately is good for Shutterstock contributors. Shutterstock customers who spent money in 2010 spent more than double as much in 2011, accordinging to a company regulatory filing. And from 2010 to 2011, customer growth was 71 percent. (The company hasn't yet released 2012 statistics.)
The approach is the opposite of iStockphoto's strategy, which emphasizes upselling customers to expensive images, but Torrens said it works.
"Their business model still makes them the cheapest of the cheap," Torrens said. But photographers forget about that fact, "especially when Shutterstock sends them more money at the end of the month than any other agency."


text:
Dos and Don'ts in MalaysiaKirsty Turner
Malaysia receives a large number of tourists and the Malay people are used to the different habits of foreigners. Although Malay people tend to be tolerant to cultural differences, it is important to remember that this is a conservative country and you should show respect by trying to follow the established customs. While some customs may sound a little bit complicated at first, simply observe the behaviour of other people and all will become clear.
The people of Malaysia generally dress conservatively by Western standards, and showing too much skin in public is sure to cause offense. Although the high temperatures and humidity levels throughout the country may make visitors want to strip off, it is best to wear long, loose clothing at all times. Wearing shoes indoors is also considered to be rude, and visitors will usually notice a place to put shoes just outside temples and private houses.
Malaysian people usually greet each other with a salam, which is a type of handshake that it made with both hands. When greeting someone for the first time, the protocol is for you to stretch out your hands in greeting. The other person will touch your outstretched hands, and then bring them to their chest in a gesture that means "I greet you from my heart". Now it is the visitor's turn to return the gesture. In some cases, someone may offer to shake hands instead, although this isn't common and shouldn't be initiated.
Eating etiquette
Eating etiquette is important in Malaysia and varies depending on the type of food you are eating. While Malay and Indian food is usually eaten with the right hand (never the left, as it is considered to be unclean), chopsticks tend to be used to eat Chinese food. Those who prefer to use cutlery than their right hand will be supplied with a spoon and a fork. Knives are not commonly used here, as most dishes feature pieces of meal that are small enough to scoop into your mouth without cutting them first.
Showing Affection
People rarely show affection in public, aside from the traditional salam greeting, and kissing and holding hands when in a public area is sure to cause embarrassment to onlookers and attract unwanted attention.


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South African Journal of Education
On-line version ISSN 2076-3433
Print version ISSN 0256-0100
S. Afr. j. educ. vol.32 n.2 Pretoria Jan. 2012
A qualitative analysis of facilities maintenance - a school governance function in South Africa
M I Xaba
School of Education Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, South Africa email@example.com
I analysed school facilities maintenance, a school governance function in South Africa. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 principals and three deputy principals as coordinators of this function at their schools. The interviews were purposively and conveniently selected to gather data regarding school facilities maintenance and gain insight into the challenges this function presents to schools and their governing bodies. Findings indicate that schools generally do not have organisational structures for planned facilities maintenance, nor do they have policies on facilities maintenance. Evidence of facilities maintenance at schools mainly relates to concerns with facilities repairs, (mostly "as the need arises") and general campus cleanliness; mostly with emergency and corrective forms of maintenance as opposed to crucial preventive maintenance. Therefore, there is a need for interim facilities maintenance committees and, in the long term, a whole-school approach to facilities maintenance that makes facilities maintenance a strategic lever for school functionality.
Keywords: facilities maintenance; facilities maintenance categories; facilities maintenance inspection; facilities maintenance organisation; facilities maintenance planning; facilities maintenance policies; facilities management; school facilities; school facilities maintenance; service systems maintenance
Numerous studies indicate that most school governance functions prescribed by the South African Schools Act (Republic of South Africa, 1996) are specialist and complex in nature, require specialist skills to execute and there is generally, a dearth of such skills in school governing bodies (Xaba 2011; Xaba & Ngubane 2010; Chaka 2008; Grant-Lewis & Naidoo 2006; Naidoo 2005). This poses mammoth challenges for school governing bodies in so far as executing their school governance functions is concerned. One such function is school facilities maintenance, which by its very nature is a specialist function that requires specialist knowledge and skills to execute.
While not particularly explored in South Africa, the significance of facilities maintenance to school functionality is recognised worldwide to the extent that many education departments have dedicated organisational structures or units responsible for school facilities management and maintenance and it is reported in numerous international studies (Victoria State Government Department of Education and Training, 2006; Alberta Learning Facilities Branch, 2004; lorida Department of Education, 2004; Akram, Anderson, Arent, Ashkin, Ayers & Brittain, 2004; Mearig Crittenden, Morgan & Guess, 1999; Organization of American States General Secretariat, 1998). For example, Asiabaka (2008), wrote about the need for effective facility management in schools in Nigeria; while Baltimore County Public Schools' (2007) Office of Strategic Planning published a handbook entitled Comprehensive Maintenance Plan. Bastidas (1998) wrote a comprehensive manual on the maintenance of school buildings for schools in the Caribbean and Szuba and Young (2003) wrote a comprehensive planning guide for maintaining school facilities.
Facilities maintenance is also beginning to be recognised in South Africa, with, firstly, its prescription as a school governance function in the Schools Act and, secondly, with the recent proclamation of the Schedule for the National Policy for an Equitable Provision of an Enabling School Physical Teaching and Learning Environment (Republic of South Africa, 2008:25), which states in Section 4.107:
If well maintained and managed, they [school facilities] provide conducive environments that translate into quality education. If well maintained and utilised, they can realise substantial efficiency gains ... also deepen national and sector values of school-community relationships and community ownership of schools. Other studies also report on the significance of facilities maintenance in school programmes and learner academic achievement. Uline and Tschannen-Moran (2008:55) state that there is a growing body of literature that provides evidence of a link between school building adequacy and learner achievement. Young, Roehrich-Patrick, Joseph and Gibson (2003:2) postulate that an effective school establishes a well-disciplined, secure and wholesome learning environment, and maintains clean and orderly school buildings.
In the light of its significance, it is necessary that school facilities maintenance be accorded a priority as part of school programmes aimed at promoting teaching and learning goals and effectiveness. In this regard, I argue that this is a specialist function and should be assigned to professional facilities-maintenance staff as opposed to being allocated to lay school governors. Since no studies in South Africa explore facilities maintenance, which is a school governance function, I sought therefore to explore this phenomenon.
Facilities maintenance: conceptual framework
School facilities can be broadly classified into buildings, grounds and service systems. School buildings consist of the external building envelope, which comprises the building foundation and external walls of buildings, which, in conjunction with the roof, windows and external doors, separate accommodation from the external environment (Coll & McCarthy Architects, 1998:3-02) and protects the interior in terms of, inter alia, the exclusion of dampness and moisture, and the provision of reasonable levels of thermal comfort (Hoffman Architects, 1997:5. Schools grounds comprise the grass areas and their uses, pathways and paved areas, trees, shrubs and planted areas, car parking, slopes, walls and fences, corridors and steps unimproved grounds and playgrounds (Akram et al., 2004:29, 306; Szuba & Young, 2003:83). Service systems comprise access control, fire control, electrical, plumbing, sanitation, waste disposal, HVAC, signal and communications, safety and security, landscaping and vehicular systems (Szuba & Young, 2003:75).
School facilities maintenance basically relates to the repair, replacement and general upkeep of physical features as found in school buildings, grounds and safety systems (Nhlapo, 2006:42). Szuba and Young (2003:43) make the point that maintenance is concerned with ensuring safe conditions for facility users, be they learners, educators, staff, parents or guests, and is also concerned with creating a physical setting that is appropriate and adequate for learning. Then (1999:463) points out in this regard that facilities maintenance relates to resource integration with the emphasis on the provision of an enabling working environment. To this end, Leung, Lu and Ip (2004:226) espouse facilities maintenance as aiming to provide end-users with a comfortable, effective and quality environment with minimum resources to enhance organisational effectiveness. Accordingly, Organization of American States General Secretariat (1998:1) and Bastidas (1998) provide a rounded off definition of school facilities maintenance by stating,
"A school maintenance programme is an organisational activity carried out by the school community in order to prolong the life expectancy of school buildings, its furniture and equipment ... for normal use, (and) should be systematic and pro-active".
Facilities maintenance comprises emergency, routine, preventive, predictive, corrective and deferred maintenance (Szuba & Young, 2003:74). According to UCSC Physical Plant (2004), emergency maintenance is concerned with the repair or replacement of facility components or equipment requiring immediate attention because the functioning of a critical system is impaired or because health, safety or security of life is endangered. Routine maintenance refers to the repair, replacement and general upkeep of the grounds and buildings (Carter & Carter, 2001:3). Preventive maintenance is perhaps the most important category of facilities maintenance. To this end, Szuba and Young (2003:74) posit that it is the scheduled maintenance of equipment, such as the replacement of air conditioner filters every ten weeks or the semiannual inspection of water fountains and is crucial for ensuring that equipment is always in good working order and provides safety for learners and educators. Szuba and Young (2003: 74) describe predictive maintenance as maintenance that forecasts the failure of equipment based on age, user demand and performance measures. This kind of maintenance is rooted in the proper execution of a facilities audit (Gaither, 2003), which aims to assist schools in avoiding emergencies and dramatically reducing damage. Corrective maintenance addresses deficiencies that inevitably result from unforeseen events like vandalism, lightning strikes, hail and flooding but excludes activities that expand the capacity of an asset or upgrade the asset to serve needs greater than or different from those originally intended (Grasmick, Hall, Collins, Maloney & Puddester, 2008:5). Deferred maintenance includes scheduled activities that are delayed or postponed for reasons such as lack of funds or personnel, changes in priorities and use and occurs when preventive maintenance costs are selectively deferred to a future period of time and has merit when a school facility is non-performing or under-performing and when cash preservation is critical (Baltimore County Public Schools, 2007:92).
For facilities maintenance to be carried out effectively, the following important aspects must be put into place:
- Maintenance organisation, which relates to creating an organisational structure for facilities maintenance, which should clearly define duties and responsibilities, and should vary with the complexity of the school community (Elghaffar, 2007:60). Since school facilities management is the responsibility of the school governing body in terms of its governance functions, the school governing body must establish a school committee for facilities maintenance, which should then be responsible for ensuring regular maintenance and repairs, raising funds for maintenance activities and educating the school community on how to look after the buildings properly (Wakeham, 2003:5).
- Maintenance inspection, which relates to school building examination in order to prepare a school maintenance plan and most importantly, gather information to form the basis for the maintenance programme, using various forms of inspection checklists for building structures including, roofing, building envelope, grounds and service systems (Bastidas, 1998).
- Maintenance planning, which relates to formulating a maintenance strategy for achieving better use of school facilities and minimising the cost of resources tied up in grounds and buildings (Scottish Executive, 2003:7). Maintenance planning invariably includes maintenance policy formulation and aspects of maintenance funding (Priestly, 1997:12; Howard, 2006).
From its conceptualisation, it is apparent that school facilities maintenance is a challenging function and its execution requires apposite knowledge and skills.
Research methodology
The study aimed to analyse facilities maintenance, a school governance function. To this end, I was convinced that only the people who have experience in facilities maintenance would be able to shed light on this phenomenon. Consequently, a qualitative inquiry was used for this purpose and it enabled the collection of data at the site, where participants experience facilities maintenance (Creswell, 2009:175). For this purpose, face-to-face interviews with open-ended questions were used.
Twenty participants were purposively and conveniently (Strydom & Venter, 2002:285) selected for interviews. However, due to informational considerations and saturation, only 16 participants were interviewed. Of the 16 participants, 13 were principals and three were deputy principals. The participants comprised six primary and secondary school principals (three each) from suburban1 schools, four and three township2 primary and secondary schools principals, respectively, two deputy principals from township primary schools and one secondary school deputy principal from a township school. This was done because the aim was to select participants deemed to be best able to provide insight into challenges in school facilities maintenance (Creswell, 2009:178). It was also noted that while facilities maintenance is a function of the school governing body through the maintenance committee, at operational level the school management team is responsible for its implementation. Although eliciting only the views of principals and deputies may be a limitation in terms of data collection, they provided useful insights into the study phenomenon because they are part of the schools' management teams.
Data analysis was done using a priori coding, which means using preset categories into which data are sorted and implies that data coding begins with a list of categories determined in advance (Nieuwenhuis, 2007:109). To this end, data about facilities maintenance at schools were sorted into the following categories: maintenance organisation, facilities inspections, maintenance policies, maintenance planning, maintenance categories, maintenance funding, and service systems. Responses from the participants were then transcribed verbatim, read to gain an overall impression of the responses, matched to the preset categories, and analysed through content analysis (Nieuwenhuis, 2007:101; Creswell, 2009:186).
To ensure reliability and validity, a digital data recorder was used for recording interviews; a similar semi-structured interview-schedule with open-ended questions was used for all interviews. The data were transcribed verbatim; and the meanings and information provided by interviewees were compared, member-checked and peer-validated to determine the accuracy of findings; and rich descriptions were used to convey the findings with direct quotes being used in the report write-up (Creswell, 2009:190).
For ethical purposes, permission to conduct the research at schools was obtained from the Gauteng Department of Education, the school principals and deputy principals as participants. Furthermore, they were apprised of their right to voluntary participation and to decline to answer questions they felt uncomfortable with. This included obtaining their informed consent.
Furthermore, participants' anonymity was guaranteed and, as such, the report uses only pseudonyms and is carefully written up to conceal any form of possible identification.
Research findings and discussion
The profile of participants
Participants from townships were from schools with enrolments of between 700 and 1,500, although two schools had fewer 500 learners. Most of these participants' schools were noticeably poorly resourced and had old buildings in need of large-scale renovations. While township schools were generally large, they had few general workers and no custodial workers as compared to suburban schools, which despite lower enrolments had more custodial staff, apparently owing to their being employed in school governing body posts. It must be noted, however, that some township schools were relatively new and presented newer and modern school facilities. Suburban schools were generally old, having existed for 30 to 50 years. The enrolments at these schools ranged from 500 to 1,500.
Participants' involvement in school facilities maintenance ranged from one to 30 years. Ten participants had experience of less than 10 years, three with less than 20 years, two with less than 30 years and one had 30 years of experience. Most experienced principals seemed to have perfected their own ways of maintaining their schools, mainly through trial-and-error over the years, as was evident from their clean and presentable school environments.
Maintenance organisation
Most schools were found to have some organisational structure in the form of committees, variously named Campus Care Committee, Environmental Committee, Building and Grounds Committee, whose functions revolved mainly around cleaning school campuses and effecting minor facilities repairs and upkeep. In this regard, Mr Easy indicated,
"...on the governing body is the Building and Grounds Committee. We've got eh, monthly checks, we take a stroll along the school to see where the areas are that need upgrading and fixing".
It was remarkable that at one school, the maintenance committee was led by the clerk as indicated by Mr Overly, "We are now working closely with the committee that is led by the clerk", while at another school, facilities maintenance was "outsourced" as stated by Mr Down who noted that the painted office was recently painted ". by three guys who are doing piece jobs (odd jobs), ... because they are specialist painters".
It was also found that, generally, schools had only cleaning staff and no staff expressly assigned to facilities maintenance. Because this was a risky undertaking, Mr Prefab indicated that, although the
"groundsman did the maintenance of service systems, in the event of major maintenance works that required specialised knowledge and skills, we outsource such jobs to qualified experts".
Maintenance inspection
Participants' responses indicated that there were poor systems for facilities maintenance inspection. Inspections were mostly conducted in an ad hoc manner and only when equipment broke down or became damaged would an inspection of facilities related to that object be conducted. This indicates inspection for purposes of repair or replacement. This was evident in responses such as:
"No, we do not have a system. We just assess by looking at the thing that needs attention, broken windows, burglaries, broken taps and so on. Then we give attention to such ... we just look at the things that need attention" Mr Nearby.
Although some participants indicated having their ways for facilities inspections, it was not very clear how this functioned. It was, however, apparent that these systems were unplanned and did not make use of any standardised methods of data collection, such as inspection checklists. It also seemed that there were no records of inspections because only random visual walk-about inspections were done, as opposed to well-planned and systematic processes. However, all participants indicated that their schools had asset registers as these were required by the Department and also indicated that these were detailed as they contained records of movable and immovable assets, dates of receipt and delivery, the condition of assets and the quantity. It was, however, notable that the asset registers were kept by different people. For instance, Mr Ballot commented that their asset register was updated by the gardener, the grounds man and the maintenance committee. Mr Central indicated that their asset register was compiled and updated by the administrative staff, while Mr Down indicated that he, personally, was in charge of the school stock by summarising what educators had compiled for their classrooms.
At suburban schools, extra personnel were employed and paid by the school governing body, specifically for compiling and updating the asset register as part of their job descriptions. However, because there were no organisational structures for deliberate facilities maintenance, inspections were not for purposes of maintenance planning and programming.
Maintenance policies
Fifteen participants indicated that their schools did not have specific policies on facilities maintenance, with most being forthright and stating categorically that they did not have such policies. Mr F commented, "There is no policy around that", while Mr Justice and Ms Grounded categorically stated that their schools did not have school facilities maintenance policies. In this regard, Mr Nearby expressed what is perhaps the state prevalent at most schools by actually appreciating the interview as an eye-opener. He remarked:
Yes we do have a policy, but it says security and maintenance. Basically, when I look at our policy, it becomes the issues of security more than maintenance. This interview in a way is an eye-opener. As the SGB (school governing body), we need to account. No, we need to look into that, it must be reflected in our policy. Only one participant, Mr Highlight, indicated that they had a facilities maintenance policy.
He stated: "A policy is there, though I must say, the people do not adhere to it. But it is there".
Maintenance planning
Participants were more familiar with and mistook facilities maintenance for school development planning, which is a departmental requirement and a legislative directive (Gauteng Provincial Government, 1997). Examples of this are evident in responses such as,
"No. The school does not have that kind of a plan. We only have a school development plan that looks at the entire school. We do not have a specific plan for facilities maintenance".
Other participants were explicit in likening facilities maintenance planning to their development or improvement plans. Mr Kingstone stated, "Our school does not have a written maintenance plan, but the maintenance plan is included in our school development plan". Other participants indicated directly that their schools did not have facilities maintenance plans, nor did they include maintenance planning in their development plans. They indicated that there was no long-term facilities maintenance planning. This could be because development planning is mainly strategic and focuses on all the functional areas of the schools.
Maintenance funding
Maintenance funding was found to be the basis of facilities maintenance challenges at most schools. Although the Department of Education allocates money to schools, participants indicated that it was not enough. All participants indicated that, of the overall financial allocation to schools, the department allocated 12% for maintenance, which was "ring-fenced", implying that even if maintenance needs exceeded the 12%, schools could not use funds allocated for other functions. Most participants, especially experienced principals, indicated that their maintenance budgets were higher than the allocated 12% and they had to raise funds to augment the allocated amounts. For example, Mr Ballot stated:
At times we even go beyond that, as I'm speaking to you we are spending in the range of R50,000.00 towards the renovation of the school which is money that we won from...3 competition.
Similarly, Mr Lobbied commented, "The 12% of the whole school budget does not suffice. We augment by fundraising". It was therefore abundantly clear that the allocated 12% was very inadequate considering the facilities maintenance needs of schools. Although principals at suburban schools indicated that they were also inadequately funded, it was found that the money budgeted for facilities maintenance was more than that of township schools. For instance, Mr Easy commented, "I can tell you that, one, R400,000.00 for maintenance has been allocated..." while Mr Greensome similarly stated, "...we're working on a R2m budget and I would say about R500,000.00 is for maintenance... "This is possible because the suburban schools charge monthly school fees of more than R200.00 per learner. It is therefore not surprising that suburban schools appear better maintained than township schools.
Service systems
The maintenance of service systems requires specialist expertise, and people responsible for maintenance should be qualified for, inter alia, the electrical, plumbing, HVAC and waste management and disposal systems. As alluded to elsewhere in this section, it seems that general workers, gardeners and groundsmen play a prominent role in the maintenance of these systems. Some participants mentioned that this was because some of these workers had skills, although elementary in the maintenance of systems like basic electricity and plumbing. It was also mentioned that waste disposal was their responsibility.
It was found that where electricity work was concerned, qualified electricians were hired to fix electrical faults and problems. In this case, principals mentioned that the electrical systems were their responsibility. Ms A indicated that she checked electrical systems and on finding faults, informed the school governing body, except in emergencies where immediate attention was needed.
Plumbing works at schools seemed to be the responsibility of male general workers. It must be stated that reference was made to repairs of plumbing fixtures, rather than actual maintenance in terms of predictive and preventive measures. It was also mentioned that when major works were involved, these jobs were outsourced to professional companies or reported to the department. In this regard, Mr Highlight commented:
Plumbing is done. We got [sic] this basic knowledge. It is done by the general assistant but if there is a major problem, we also have people who have better equipment and, in terms of locating those plumbing material [sic], we always invite people from... , actually we hire them.
Township schools did not have HVAC systems. Maintenance in this regard seemed to revolve around repairing broken portable heaters, which are only used in winter. However, at suburban schools there were HVAC systems although all were no longer used. This was well articulated by Mr Dunsta who said,
"There is a system, but it hasn't worked for years. For many years, like in 12 years. It would be a massive, expensive job to fix that turbine which generates heat to the school".
Waste management and disposal at schools is a critical aspect of school facilities maintenance because waste affects the environment and public health by degrading water, air and soil, and also seeks to ensure that no injuries occur because of wrongly disposed hazardous material like chemicals. Waste management and disposal at schools seemed to be the responsibility of general workers. Some schools dug holes in which waste was disposed by burning. By her own admission, Ms Alexandra was aware that burning waste was an unacceptable practice since children could be injured. She was also aware that an alternative was to recycle their waste. In other schools, waste was disposed of in large bins collected regularly by the municipality. As regards chemicals, Mr Lobbied pointed out that they hired a person to collect the chemicals for proper disposal. It was, however, clear that the general workers and groundsmen were responsible for managing and disposing waste. This has implications for the safety of learners and staff, as well as the general workers themselves, especially when having to dispose of waste that is hazardous, and since no mention was made of general workers' skill or knowledge levels regarding different kinds of hazardous materials.
Maintenance categories
Interviews revealed that school facilities maintenance was an unfamiliar phenomenon for most participants. While there was evidence of facilities maintenance in its narrower sense, it was clear that the nature of the phenomenon was generally unknown. Consequently, responses mostly indicated that only routine, emergency and corrective maintenance were carried out. In most instances, there was evidence of deferred maintenance. There were clearly no systems for predictive and preventive maintenance. Because of that, facilities maintenance was mostly a reaction or response, and comprised repairs and replacement of items deemed indispensable for sections considered crucial for the school to function.
The terminology associated with maintenance categories indicated inadequate knowledge of facilities maintenance as a process integral to school programmes. For instance, participants viewed preventive maintenance as a way of preventing learners from causing damage to facilities, which, while sensible, relates narrowly to preventive maintenance. This could also be gleaned from Ms Alexandra's remarks,
"We predict that next year we'll be having this broken, and so many parents won't pay in time. And what we normally do is, we set aside a certain amount of money from the maintenance fund that is allocated".
It must, however, be stated that due to "trial and error" experiences, most schools presented facilities in usable conditions and most participants indicated an understanding of the need for ensuring that school facilities were generally sound and served school needs.
Discussion and conclusion
The analysis of data collected revealed a number of important factors and challenges regarding facilities maintenance practices at schools. Firstly, the general appearance of school environments indicated that maintenance work is carried out, albeit ad hoc and unplanned. The average extent of participants' experience as facilities maintenance coordinators indicates that whatever approaches schools used for the maintenance of facilities, is a result of trial and error and experiential knowledge.
Secondly, facilities maintenance at school connotes its narrow definition of facilities repairs and upkeep against facilities maintenance having a strategic dimension covering issues like facilities design and maintenance programmes, upgrading the knowledge and skills of the workforce, and deployment of tools and "manpower" to perform maintenance work and provide a clean and safe environment, as well as creating a physical setting that is appropriate for learning. (Tsang, 1998:88; Szuba & Young, 2003:2). This is perhaps the reason for the lack of knowledge of facilities maintenance concepts. It could also explain the reason for deferred maintenance and the involvement of general workers and groundsmen in maintenance functions requiring people with appropriate qualifications.
Thirdly, it is evident that without policy directives informing school facilities management and maintenance, schools would have systematic processes aimed at ensuring that school facilities maintenance promoted educational programmes. Clearly participants' attempts at facilities maintenance without a policy framework are constrained by numerous challenges, including:
- Creating an organisational structure for facilities maintenance programmes being curtailed by poor resourcing. For instance, there are no qualified and properly trained facilities maintenance people.
- Staffing of general workers at schools being based on the staff provisioning norms, which are also based on the enrolment of schools. This, in essence implies that the number of general workers is determined by the staff provisioning ratio, regardless of the physical size of the school and the nature of facilities. For example, a secondary school with science laboratories would require more maintenance staff than a primary school offering the mainstream curriculum. This results in one school prioritising more security guards instead of maintenance workers.
- Funding for maintenance being less than adequate. Funding is also based on norms that determine the quintile classification of a school. In terms of these norms, suburban schools usually receive less funding than the so-called quintile 1 schools. This is regardless of the nature of facilities at these schools and the concomitant maintenance requirements. This is why most suburban schools, while having HVAC systems, cannot make use of them. As one participant stated, it would be too expensive to repair the systems, let alone sustain their functionality. The non-functionality of the HVAC systems has a negative effect on the thermal comfort of classrooms and thus could adversely affect learner academic performance.
Fourthly, it was evident that participants generally did not have knowledge of school facilities maintenance. This was evident from responses indicating misunderstanding of maintenance concepts, such as different maintenance categories. This clearly implies that facilities maintenance at schools, and possibly at departmental level, is not accorded a priority status that regards it as a component of schools' educational programmes. The candid request for the interview schedule by participants attests to this.
Fifthly, schools seem not to have direction in terms of systematising school facilities maintenance. This is evident in the fact that there were no policies informing facilities maintenance. It is therefore clear that in schools' development and improvement planning processes, facilities maintenance was not considered a component. While development planning caters for school safety and security as a strategic lever, maintaining facilities is not regarded as an aspect of strategic planning in terms of being facilitative of school performance effectiveness.
Finally, it was also evident that stakeholder involvement in planning for facility usage, management and maintenance is lacking. The fact that the administrative clerk heads facilities maintenance at one school attests to this. In essence, this implies that school governing bodies do not have facilities maintenance sub-committees and, consequently, do not engage in strategic facilities maintenance planning where all school stakeholders would be involved. It must, however, be stated that there was evidence of some form of school facilities maintenance, with each school on an ad hoc basis, attempting to maintain its facilities in its own way. The main weakness is the fact that these attempts were not formal, planned, and organisationally structured practises.
There is therefore a need for, firstly, school facilities maintenance to be placed at the core of school programmes and since schools already compile school development plans, facilities maintenance should be regarded as one of the major strategic levers in the development planning processes. This will ensure that it is planned and budgeted for, and included in implementation plans of school development processes. Secondly, in the short term, interim school facilities maintenance committees should be established so as to have some functional organisational structure for facilities maintenance, which will assist in determining systems for ensuring planned preventive, routine and corrective maintenance. Where workers and gardeners are also responsible for small-scale repairs of equipment and service systems, they should be provided with training in basic skills in such functions.
The overriding need for school facilities maintenance seems to be on developing comprehensive long-term strategies, because it is evident that maintenance work at schools is unsystematic, uncoordinated, and not holistic. Therefore there is a need for a whole-school approach to facilities maintenance which is, according to International Facility Management Association (2009:5),
"a process by which a facility management organisation envisions its future by linking its purpose to the strategy of the overall organisation and then developing goals, objectives and action plans to achieve that future".
The whole-school concept firstly propounds the involvement of stakeholders in school educational processes, and secondly, advocates the focus on a programme that embodies all school facilities in the school programme.
This study was limited by the fact that participants were generally not adept and not knowledgeable regarding school facilities maintenance. This, however, helped to engender insight into facilities maintenance at schools, especially because it is not viewed as integral to school performance enhancing programmes. It would have been more useful to elicit insight of the study phenomenon from school governing body members. This also leaves scope for further research on facilities maintenance. Finally, the literature on facilities maintenance is mostly foreign because there is very little in South Africa. However, this study and this shortcoming should place school facilities maintenance as a school governance function in the academic research domain, and also invoke interest from school governance units of education departments.
1. Suburban school were located in whites only settlements and catered for whites only before democracy in South Africa; while
2. Townships schools were located in blacks only settlements and were meant for black learners only.
3. Name withheld for anonymity.
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BOSTON (MarketWatch) — It might not be the bank of first or last resort, but it's a bank nonetheless. About one in four investors borrow money from their 401(k), but, while such loans have some benefits compared to other sources of credit, they also can hit your retirement savings in unexpected ways.
About 22% of plan participants who are allowed to borrow from their 401(k) have such a loan at any given time and half had used a plan loan over a seven-year horizon, according to the authors of a just-published paper, "The Availability and Utilization of 401(k) Loans."
The probability of having a loan follows a hump-shaped pattern with respect to age, job tenure, account balance, and salary, according to John Beshears, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, James J. Choi, a professor at the Yale School of Management, David Laibson, professor at Harvard University, and Brigitte C. Madrian, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who co-authored the paper.
Those likeliest to have a 401(k) loan are plan participants in their 40s, with 10 to 20 years of tenure, earning $40,000 to $60,000, with $20,000 to $30,000 in their 401(k) plan. In 2008, the median amount of these loans was $4,000.
According to David Wray, the president of the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America and author of "Take Control with Your 401(k)," more recent studies suggest that one in four employees eligible for a loan have taken advantage of the option, with an average outstanding balance of $8,800.
Some borrow from their 401(k) to buy a home or for home improvements. Others to consolidate bills or pay off loans (sometimes the interest rate on a 401(k) loan is lower than other, more traditional sources of credit). And still others borrow to pay for education, medical bills, weddings, divorces and cars. But no matter the reason, experts say there are several things to consider before borrowing from your plan.
Not without advantages
According to Wray, there are two big advantages to a 401(k) loan. One, if your plan has a loan program, you have the security of knowing that your money is available "just in case," Wray said.
"This means you can comfortably make the maximum contribution commitment to your plan without worrying if you might need those funds later," he said.
And two, loans help prevent you from depleting your retirement savings when a financial crisis occurs. "If your plan offers loans, you will be required to take a loan first before you can take a distribution because once money is taken as a distribution, it cannot be replaced."
Cheap source of credit
If you've already made up your mind to spend a certain amount and the only question is how you're going to finance that spending, a 401(k) loan may be a reasonable source of financing, said Choi, a co-author of the report.
"A 401(k) loan will almost always be a better option than credit-card debt because the former's interest rate is so much lower," he said. The interest rate on 401(k) loans is usually the prime rate plus 1%, though rates vary from plan to plan.
Others agreed. According to Steve Utkus, a principal with the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research, 401(k) loans are a relatively cheap source of credit, compared, for example, to unsecured lines of credit or credit cards. Plus, there are no credit underwriting standards. "You are borrowing from yourself — and therein lies the rub," Utkus said.
By law, the total outstanding principal of 401(k) loans can be no larger than 50% of a participant's vested account balance or $50,000. The authors of the 401(k) study also note that participants are less likely to use loans in plans that charge a higher interest rate, and loans are smaller when plans allow fewer simultaneously outstanding loans, impose a shorter maximum possible loan duration, or charge a lower interest rate.
Besides being a source of cheap credit, Wray said there are other advantages to a 401(k) loan. There's less paperwork to fill out as compared to other types of loans. There usually are no restrictions on how the proceeds are used. Most plans let you borrow for any reason. It's fast. You can receive a loan in mere days, depending on how often your plan processes transactions. And the rate of repayment for your loan may be greater than the rate of return you were receiving on your fixed investment.
Not a free loan
But cheap doesn't mean free just because you're borrowing from yourself, Choi said. "Your 401(k) loan interest payments face double taxation, since they are made with after-tax dollars and then get taxed again when you withdraw them in retirement," said Choi. "And of course, whatever balances you spend now aren't earning an investment return for you."
Other experts share Choi's point of view. "401(k) loans can be an important resource for participants facing financial hardship," said Lori Lucas, a CFA charterholder, an executive vice president at Callan Associates, and chair of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association's research committee.
"The danger is when they are overused for non-essential purposes," she said. "Participants pay back 401(k) loans with after-tax money. And, they become withdrawals if they go unpaid."
Make sure your job is safe
Also, before taking a loan from your 401(k), consider how safe your job is. That's because one of the dangers of a 401(k) loan is that if you leave your job or are laid off, you have to pay the loan off in full within a short period of time, usually 60 to 90 days, said Choi.
The greatest risk with loans is if they don't get paid off, said Stacy Schaus, a senior vice president at PIMCO.
"Any balance you haven't paid off at the end of that time is considered an early withdrawal, and if you're younger than 59 ½, you'll have to pay income tax on that amount plus an extra 10% tax penalty," Schaus said. "Unless your job is very secure and you plan on staying with your employer for the duration of the loan, borrowing large amounts from your 401(k) is risky."
Lucas agreed, and warned about a feature of some 401(k) plans. "While some plan sponsors allow repayment of plan loans after termination, most do not," said Lucas. "Taxes and penalties can take a huge bite out of participants' assets if the loan becomes a withdrawal. Further, withdrawn money is then forever lost to the retirement system."
To be fair, the odds are high that you'll repay the loan, according to Vanguard's Utkus. According to his and other research, 90% of loans are repaid.
Still, one in 10 won't repay their 401(k) loan, more often than not due to a job change. Since you don't know whether you'll be among the one in 10 who don't pay back their loan or the nine in 10 who do, Utkus offered this advice: "If you anticipate changing jobs in the near term, I'd steer away from taking a loan, unless you have money outside the plan to pay off the loan when it becomes due."
Other disadvantages
Dave Tolve, retirement business leader for Mercer's U.S. outsourcing business, said borrowing from a 401(k) can have major consequences — even when repaid on time.
And plan participants should consider the advantages of not taking a loan. For instance, your money can keep growing. Plus, if you take money out of your account, even temporarily, you will miss out on valuable compounding and may end up with a significantly smaller nest egg by the time you retire. And, it is much easier to continue saving without the burden of a loan.
"Many people find it hard to continue making regular 401(k) contributions while repaying their loan — making it even harder to get back on the path to preparing for their retirement," Tolve said.
Wray identified another disadvantage: 401(k) loans are not without fees. Some eight in 10 plans charge a one-time loan fee — of about $72 on average. Another 28% of plans charge an annual service fee of $35 on average. Plus, you may need to get your spouse's permission for a loan.
Bottom line? "The long-term benefits of not touching your retirement savings may far outweigh the short-term benefits of taking the loan," Tolve said. "Although it may seem easy to take a loan from your plan now, there may be other alternatives with lower interest rates that are available to you. Be sure to consider the impact a loan may have on your financial future and explore other options before you borrow from your plan."
The study, "The Availability and Utilization of 401(k) Loans," can be found at this National Bureau of Economic Research website.
Robert Powell is editor of Retirement Weekly, published by MarketWatch. Learn more about Retirement Weekly here.Follow his tweets here.


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