These youngsters are native to a rural township called Orange Farm, a short drive from Soweto Johannesburg. The "orange" in the name refers not to the fruit but rather to soil colour of the region. Unfortunately Orange Farm has one of the highest unemployment rates in the region with accompanying high rates of HIV infections and orphan led households.

All this contributes to why it is more than a sporting achievement that three lads from this community boarded a plane to the US via Dubai and participated not only as MaAfrika Tikkun benefactors of the Safelite Triathlon but also as participants. I clearly remember my first impressions touching down in the Big Apple when I was not much older than this cadre but I can’t possibly fathom what Times Square or Vegas looks like to 3 teenagers from rural Africa where indoor plumbing is a luxury item.

So when these lads with their coach popped into my office last week on returning from their trip, they were accompanied by a glow of "wow", the effects were almost palpable and the aura of a once in a lifetime experience oozed from their tired adolescent brows.

At this moment I realized some of the benefits of a career in the NGO sector.

Recent surveys of MBA graduates as well as other relevant industry surveys have been reporting the growing importance of work-life balance, corporate social involvement and green credentials when selecting a work place, I marshal my personal experience in support of those who seek to benefit from work of this nature, benefit as a verb and benefit as a beneficiary.

In this series of articles on NGO’s I will attempt to deal with some of the pertinent issues facing financial management in the not for profit sector as well as the challenges of managing personal that lack many of the key skills that are taken for granted in the for profit world.

My recent move to the NGO sector was a complex decision, making a career decision as a by-product of this generation that desires to do good but also to do well is a tough neuro-juggle. Salaries in the NGO sector can never match corporate finance or private equity so there will always exist the chasm that involves a values driven trade-off.

I believe in order to properly evaluate the decision one needs to create a personal value index (PVI), this need not be an auditable spreadsheet, a napkin will suffice but the exercise requires allocating quantifiable figures to what makes you tick and what you are prepared to sacrifice for your "big picture" career perspective.

This obviously does not only apply to a NGO career, deciding to go into corporate finance will probably entail sacrificing sunlight hours and your marriage whereas an NGO career may involve sacrificing the yacht and the yard. My point of distinction is the need to have a tool to facilitate these decisions rather than drifting down the career stream docking wherever your resume takes you.