have four contract staff who teach group workshops, and several non-tutor volunteers who help out in the office and library.

Why We Did the Project
Over the last fifteen years in the province of Alberta, literacy co-ordinators have made considerable strides in improving literacy development opportunities for adults. They have accomplished this with basic levels of core funding, additional amounts of project funding and generous amounts of volunteer goodwill. However, core funding has shrunk significantly over the past few years while at the same time there is an increased demand for programs that are accessible, affordable, responsive and accountable. In order to meet these demands, co-ordinators need to find new ways of increasing the effectiveness of their programs and of making the most of the resources available to them.

We read about 50/50 Management in Maintaining the Balance: A Guide to 50/50 Management (DuPrey, 1992) published by the Literacy Volunteers of America. We found the concept useful and we began to use some of the ideas from the book in the Prospects' program. Soon, we realized that we were spending a lot of time discussing 50/50 and thinking about how we could continue to improve our program. We also began to see that other literacy programs would benefit from what we were learning. We applied for and received a grant from the National Literacy Secretariat in May 1994 to write up a case study of the 50/50 Management concept in practice. The case study was completed in June 1995 and is presented in this report.

What Is 50/50 Management?
The basic premise of 50/50 Management is that the key to effective volunteer management of literacy programs is maintaining a 50/50 balance between the "intake" and "support" focuses of a program (DuPrey, 1992). A 50/50 balance means that fifty per cent of the organization's energies and resources will be directed towards recruitment and training of volunteers and towards recruitment and assessment of students, while the other fifty per cent will be directed towards support and retention of existing tutors and students.