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Sampradaan - Indian Centre for Philanthropy organised the First Annual Conference of Charitable Foundations on 16th and 17th April 2001 on the theme, "New Wealth, New Technology, New Leadership: The Role of Foundations," to give visibility to charitable foundations, to knit foundations together in a strong network and to explore ways for collaboration and networking.
The informative and insightful presentations of the resource persons, coupled with the challenging discussions of the participants ensured that the Conference became an enriching experience for all present. The participants’ endorsement of the idea of organising the conference annually, and the initiative to hold it in different regions by rotation underlines the need for the philanthropic community to make common cause.
With this report, we hope to share the experience of the conference with a broader audience of all those who are interested in the subject but could not attend, besides those who were present and indeed contributed to making this First Annual Conference a resounding success.
Our most sincere thanks go to our resource persons, chairpersons of the various sessions, and all the staff of SICP for having made the workshop a worthwhile experience.
Pushpa Sundar Executive Director July 2001 ***** PROGRAMME
SCHEDULE
REPORT OF THE FIRST ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS
BACKGROUND
Sampradaan Indian Centre for Philanthropy organized the First Annual Conference of Trusts and Foundations, on the theme "New Wealth, New Technology, New Leadership: The Role of Foundations" on the16th and 17th April 2001.
The two-day event brought together 20 senior executives and trustees of Trusts and Foundations across the country. The Conference was addressed by Mr Shiv Khera, Founder Qualified Learning Systems, New Jersey, USA as the guest speaker. The keynote address was given by Dr M. B. Athreya, well known management consultant and President, SICP and resource persons included, Mr Vijay Mahajan, Managing Director Basix, Mr Venkat Krishnan, Director Give Foundation, Dr Doris Capistrano, Deputy Representative Ford Foundation, Mr Mathew Cherian, Director Charities Aid Foundation, India, Mr Sanjay Agarwal, Honorary Advisor Account Aid, Mr Vijay Sardana, Former C.E.O. Aga Khan Foundation, Mr. Rahul Nainwal ICICI Communities, Dr Prasanta Tripathi, Director Programmes Action Aid, India, Mr Ajay Mehta, General Secretary AVARD and Ms Daman Singh, Consultant Sir Ratan Tata Trust.
OBJECTIVES In her welcome address, Ms Pushpa Sundar, Executive Director SICP, spoke briefly about SICP’s previous efforts in this direction, recalling participants attention to the four city-wise workshops with charitable trusts in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai (the latter in collaboration with the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy, Bombay.) Sharing the participatory processes adopted by SICP in organizing the seminar, she explained that the objective of the Conference was three fold. Firstly to give visibility to charitable foundations, secondly to knit foundations together in a strong network, and finally to explore ways for collaboration and networking. Elaborating on the latter, she emphasized that in contemporary society, with its vast and complex problems, collaboration and partnerships were the key words making a difference.
She highlighted the importance of foundations making common cause, and gave the example of the Council of Foundations, USA, which was established in 1949. The Council now has expanded to 1600 members and over 3000 participants attend its three-day annual conference. She expressed the hope that this conference too would end with an endorsement of an annual conference and a willingness to develop SICP as a membership organization owned by foundations to represent them before government, before NGOs and before society. She then explained the choice of the theme, "New Wealth, New Technology, New Leadership: The Role of Foundations." She called the present processes of wealth creation, the second industrial revolution. She drew attention to the unique differences between this contemporary wealth creation and that of the previous era. In most cases it is the result of non polluting products and processes, is non local and often global in scope, does not require the same concentration of work forces in one location and is being created by entrepreneurs from non traditional business families or first generational entrepreneurs.
Advances in technology, especially certain kinds of technology, have played a significant part in the creation of new wealth. They also opened possibilities for foundations to do their business more efficiently, made e-philanthropy possible and most importantly, offered foundations opportunities to undertake or support innovative projects or programmes, which will make a difference.
She made a distinction between the two kinds of leadership, individual leadership of society and leadership by foundations themselves to society. She lamented the crisis of leadership in every field in contemporary society and the fragmentation of civil society. Tracing the role of foundations over the years, she stated that in the past, foundations have operated as extensions of their benefactor’s social visions: the foundation supported whatever they believed in. Although this may have helped a community to meet infrastructure needs, it did not strengthen the capacity for self-governance and leadership from within the community. Foundations need to concentrate on building individual leadership to enable communities to make the crucial choices and decisions that affect their lives.
Many of the new leaders in society emerging from the new processes of wealth creation, were now seeking ways to contribute to social progress by setting up foundations or seeking partnerships with voluntary organizations. It was therefore an opportune moment to explore the goals these leaders set for themselves, the ways in which the new technology can be harnessed to reach out to the disadvantaged and the emerging changes in the attitudes to philanthropy.
She made three recommendations. One, foundations can add the goal of promoting the values of citizenship and civic goals to their other goals; secondly, foundations can encourage social innovations and social entrepreneurship in individuals; and last but not the least, foundations can put resources at the disposal of communities as a whole with which the latter can experiment in meeting their most urgent needs. In the context of the latter recommendation, she shared the experience of Sewa Mandir, Udaipur in motivating villagers to form Gram Vikas Koshs, in which they pool money to form a fund. The fund, created by assistance from aid agencies as well, is controlled by the village people to service their own development needs, and evidence shows that the funds are well managed for the common good.
She emphasized the importance of providing leadership at the macro level, by engaging in policy debates and influencing policy action by both government and private business. But to play this role, the philanthropic community will need to be organized: well informed, properly represented, officially recognised, professionally run, and more inclusive and universal in outlook. She stressed the critical role trustees play in this context, as they are entrusted with not only the legal stewardship of preserving and increasing the foundation’s resources to see that the foundation is in a position to carry out its mission; but they also have to shape this mission.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dr Athreya, President of SICP began the keynote address with the hope that this annual conference be an important vaibhav, celebration, in the Indian calendar of social development.
Dr Athreya structured his presentation in three parts.
1. Return to Wealth Creation He traced the decline of Indian wealth, from the exploitative British colonial rule to the post-independence period, with the Indian state caught in the maaya, illusion of the command economy. 1.1 Economic Reforms He highlighted the return of the economy of wealth creation, with the first reform of Liberalisation, which gave Indian entrepreneurs and managers a greater degree of freedom from the license permit raaj, to the reforms of Globalisation and Privatisation. 1.2 Technological Innovation He spoke of the creation of wealth through a range of technological innovations, giving examples of the software industry, the pharma industry and the biotech industry. 1.3 New Philanthropy opportunities. This resumption of accelerated wealth creation, he observed, opened up new vistas for sampradaan (philanthropy.) Corporate wealth projections indicated a rise, as did compensation rates for employees, and motivation of successful NRI’s and PIO in North America, EU and Asia Pacific to return something to their janma bhoomi, land of birth. 2. Sampradaan Aandolan This environment, Dr. Athreya observed, created a propitious context for launching a new Sampradaan Aandolan, Philanthropy Movement, one that could draw from the precedents from India, benchmarks from other countries and a vision. 2.1 Indian Precedents He traced the spirit of daanam, giving, sharing, an intrinsic part of Indian civilization, culture and history. He gave examples of the practice of daanam from Indian spiritual philosophy, ancient Indian governance, nobility and business, and of private foundations and trusts during the colonial period and restrictive economic environment of 1950 to 1990. 2.2 Global Benchmarks He gave the example of the United States as the biggest benchmark in philanthropy. He also spoke of the innovative strategies that the US and EU foundations were following, and their use of information technology for e-philanthropy. 2.3 Sampradaan Vision Dr. Athreya outlined the vision for Sampradaan, good giving along the following lines: i. Deeply held values and culture of daanam in the wealth holders. ii. Vibrant and well-governed foundations. iii. A strong Indian and global civil society. 3. Leadership Action Points Reiterating that the time was ripe for our Sampradaan Aandolan, he observed that the key link was the development of new leadership. He then made the following recommendations for the leadership to act upon. 3.1 Foundations He requested the Indian foundations, especially the larger ones, to shoulder the responsibility of carrying out the Sampradaan Vision and Aandolan. He exhorted them to motivate the new wealth creators and possessors to give, promote their own foundations with imaginative branding and constantly upgrade their own strategic and organizational, systems and IT capabilities, and that of the donees. 3.2 Industry He also urged industry to advocate the importance of daanam, develop a philanthropic policy, motivate and encourage employee voluntarism and philanthropy, and thereby supplement government efforts in social development and strengthen civil society. 3.3 Sampradaan He reiterated that SICP was committed to: i. Being a focal point and sutradhaar, spokesperson of the Aandolan, on behalf of all the foundations and trusts of India. ii. Acting as a major facilitator in the primary campaigns and in the interface with major industry chambers, associations and donor groups. iii. Being a vehicle for research, documentation, collation and dissemination of the opportunity and need areas, as well as emerging success stories of philanthropy. SESSION II INTRODUCTIONS In the next session Mr V. K. Sharma, Advisor- HRD, J. K. Industries and Hon. Advisor- HRD, SICP, led the introductions. He requested that in their introduction participants’ share that one thing they would like to be remembered for. This made the session more interesting, and the participants learnt not only about the organisations the others represented, but also about the individuals. SESSION III ‘GLOBALISATION & LIBERALISATION: NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR PHILANTHROPY.’
Resource Person: Mr. Vijay Mahajan, Director, BASIX, Hyderabad. Chair: Mr. Vinod Khnna, HPS Social Welfare Foundation, Delhi. Mr Mahajan began his session, expressing the hope that SICP would emerge as ‘the’ Centre for Philanthropy in India. Defining globalisation, he added that globalisation increased interaction and interdependence between different sectors of society at the local, regional and international level. This had brought about changes in the economy; increased international trade and investments, in the polity; reduction in the power of the nation state, society; greater acceptance of universal human values, and culture; greater diffusion and acceptance of diversity and pluralism. Imposition of higher standards of working conditions through international treaties has positively impacted environmental safety, gender equity and the movement to abolish child labour. He delved into the reasons why so many people disliked it, despite these apparent benefits. It benefits the elites first, and increases the concentration of wealth, power and knowledge in the hands of the global elite, predominated by the North, particularly America. Liberalisation, by dismantling various controls that stifled legitimate economic activity had reduced the role of the state in the economic sphere. But it also reduced the role of the state as the benefactor of the poor. Increased reliance on the market for provision of public goods and social services means only those who can afford it will get these basic services. He illustrated the impact of liberalisation and globalisation on livelihood of communities, giving the example of groundnut farmers in Andhra Pradesh whose livelihoods are threatened by import of cheaper Malaysian Palm oil. But liberalisation and globalisation also present opportunities. The rural economy is changing with millions of new jobs being created in the manning of STD- ISD PCO booths, retailing, tourism and IT-enabled services. He emphasized that massive retraining is required to make the most of these new opportunities. Drawing attention to the issue of diaspora funding, he shared that over 80% of giving in the US is individual giving. The Indian diaspora, a substantial number of whom are millionaires, have been exposed to this culture of giving predominant in the US and this has generated the possibility of diaspora funding. He gave examples of Vinod Gupta, an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur who endowed a school of management at his alma mater and started a polytechnic for girls in his native village, Dr. B. V. Jagdish of EXODUS who has endowed a foundation in Bangalore and the Naandi Foundation in Hyderabad, which is a government sponsored private foundation set up by four industrialists to raise money from, mainly, NRI Andhraites. A large number of Indian Corporates are doing very well due to globalisation & liberalisation, and this generates the possibility of enhancing Corporate Philanthropy. Corporations like Infosys, Wipro, Reliance Group and Dr Reddy’s Group have instituted foundations to promote social development. Multinational corporations are also keen to improve their image and this has introduced a new concept of Corporate Philanthropy in India. He gave examples of the Citibank Card, which links giving to SPARC & SEWA, the development project that Enron has initiated jointly with Care and Dr Reddy’s Foundation’s partnership with Coke to give street kids vending machines. But, money is not the only problem. The task needs competent and qualified people. The lure of corporate jobs and migration to the west has created a shortage of these. One way to overcome this is to encourage corporate volunteering; the other is using the Internet. He suggested- l Participants establish partnerships with Industry associations, like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM. l NGO’s and foundations should invite Corporations to be on their board, not only to bring in their understanding of the world of business and finance but also to educate the latter about the enormous complexity in our work. l The NGO sector should become more savvy about- i. IT, particularly the Internet and ii. The power of finance, and broaden the range of funding to use financial instruments like equity, social venture capital. Here he gave examples of TIE- The Indus Entrepreneurs, Microcreditindia.org and Impact. l NGO’s should establish a menu driven mega website on NGO information and online giving. l Philanthropy promoting organizations like CAP, SICP, CAF, SAFRG and others should pool in their efforts. As he concluded, Mr Mahajan requested the participants to discuss the issue of educating Diaspora and corporate philanthropists, about the challenges of effective development work. The same qualities that make them successful in business come in the way of doing good development work, and leads to a lot of operating problems. Once again, he emphasized the leadership role SICP has to play in donor education. DISCUSSION POINTS l The voluntary sector in India is excessively dependent on foreign funding, will emphasis on Diaspora funding not accentuate the problem? Should we rather not focus on stimulating domestic philanthropy? l We need to embed individual giving effectively in the community. l How do we measure customer satisfaction? Who is the real customer? The payer is different from the customer. The real customers are the people who need our services, but they are unable to pay. This has made the NGO sector donor driven. Donor education is therefore critical to make them aware of the real customer. l The opportunities presented by liberalization and globalisation for philanthropy painted an unrealistic picture of the real impact of globalisation and liberalization. (Mr. Mahajan clarified that this presentation was not a reflection of his holistic views on globalisation and liberalisation, but was limited to the opportunities these presented for philanthropy.) l Retraining in multiple skills was necessary to face the challenge of loss of livelihoods due to globalisation and liberalization. l What happens when Corporates come into development? What is the impact of the values and attitudes they bring with them? Why do they not bring in the methods of working that are successful in the Corporate sector like research and development, importance of learning, studying the market, impact analysis etc? l How do we effectively utilise the talent pool of retired? How do we deal with senior citizens expectations of prior status? l Are we unwittingly giving the state an excuse to escape responsibility by taking on greater responsibility? l Can we set a ratio for administration vs. programme expenses? Participants agreed that the nature of overheads being based on the work of the NGO, are so varied that a standard can’t be imposed. l The Indian Corporate sector needs to wake up, and see the value in investing in society, that has given it the opportunity of the market. SESSION IV ENDOWMENT MANAGEMENT & ENDOWMENT FUNDING Resource Persons : Mr Sanjay Aggarwal, Honorary Advisor, Account Aid, Delhi. Ms Daman Singh, Consultant, Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Delhi. Chair : Mr Vijay Sardana, Former CEO, Aga Khan Foundation, Delhi. Mr Sanjay Aggarwal and Ms Daman Singh clarified the concepts of corpus and endowment funding, and discussed their applicability in the Indian context. Mr Sanjay Aggarwal defined the terms ‘Corpus’ and ‘Endowment,’ and distinguished between them. He further elaborated on the elements to be kept in mind when creating a corpus, especially in the Indian context, as we do not have a direct law dealing with Corpus’ and Endowments. He then detailed the process of setting up both these financial mechanisms, the legal requirements necessary, the accounting procedures required, the control mechanisms to be developed and the income tax implications. He then discussed the feasibility of both these, and its application in the Indian context. Corpus and Endowment were a way for an individual to get rid of one’s wealth; they made more sense in the US due to the taxation structure of that country. He suggested- l NGOs frame a spending policy, and nurture it’s corpus to its maintain real value. l The voluntary sector should look at different options in terms of investments. l NGOs should educate themselves in financial management, and evolve a framework to deal with financial issues. Elaborating on the purpose of endowments, Ms Daman Singh said endowments really make a difference when one is making a grant to enable an organization to be stable and grow. The essence of an endowment grant is that it is long term, flexible and the organization gets a chance to establish a long-term agenda. These are high-risk grants and donors have no control over how the money is used. Endowments involve large sums of money, and not too many donors in India want to pass over that kind of money. The value of the endowment gets eroded over time, and there is really no way to measure output. These grey areas discourage Endowment Grant Management. Ms Daman Singh presented guidelines for practices in making endowment grants. She stressed the importance of making long-term commitments, and making large grants. These kinds of grants made have to be progressively refined, and made more sensitive to the kind of work being done. She advised donors to interact with the Board, and have a positive and interactive relationship with the donee organisation. The grants should be made in stages and the foundation must insist that the organisation augment these funds. She cautioned donors against trying to control utilization of funds, and suggested that they should instead insist on an endowment-utilisation policy and jointly identify performance parameters. She concluded by emphasising that Endowment is an alternative instrument to be used selectively, and program grants should be the primary instrument. DISCUSSION POINTS l Many participants felt that an Endowment was not beneficial to organizations, as the value of the endowment decreases with inflation and the organizations have to pool in their own resources to augment this shortfall, and maintain the purpose of the endowment. l Some participants suggested that the endowment be invested in such a manner that the interest would cover the inflation costs. l Medium sized foundations should not make endowments, but program grants with long-term commitments. l Participants also agreed that it was important to educate trustees so as to evolve strategies for future endowment grant making. SESSION V COLLABORATION FOR SYNERGY Resource Person : Mr Vijay Sardana, Former CEO, Aga Khan Foundation, Delhi. Chair : Ms Pushpa Sundar, Executive Director, SICP, Delhi. Defining collaboration, Mr Vijay Sardana spoke briefly on the different aspects of collaboration. Elaborating on the prerequisites for collaboration, he said that for effective collaboration it was important that organisations have- 1. Role clarity and reduction/ elimination of overlaps 2. Mechanism for co-ordination and 3. Mutual accountability He shared the example of the National Foundation for India’s Innovation Fund for which 3 organisations- CIVA, OXFAM and NFI collaborated. But he regretted that many a times collaboration was deterred or failed due to factors like- 1. Ego 2. Competition and 3. ‘I’ > (We or They) DISCUSSION l Participants raised the issue of trisectoral collaboration- Corporate + NGO/Implementing Agency + Government. l Participants shared experiences of collaboration. Mr Arun Bhende of the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation shared his foundations experience of collaborating with Harkisondas Hospital in Mumbai, and Mr Saraf shared Bombay Public Community Trust’s experience of working on a project with the Government of Maharashtra, and the HDFC Bank. l Participants felt that collaborators not only use each other’s strength but also learn of each other’s strengths. l Participants also expressed the desire to meet in smaller regional groups according to regions to identify areas for further collaboration. PRE-DINNER SESSION Guest Speaker: Shiv Khera, Founder, Qualified Learning systems, New Jersey
Mr. Khera opened his address sharing his gratitude, for being invited to address the participants. I know of you, I feel you are people making a big contribution to society and with genuineness. Speaking of his mission in the social sector, Mr Khera said while some people worked with alleviating the deprivation and misery of the suffering masses, he wanted to challenge those who caused these conditions of deprivation and misery. It was for this reason that he opened an office in India five years ago. If you don’t discourage wrong things, you are encouraging them. He reminded the participants that it is never the activity of rascals that destroys society, rather it is the inactivity of good people. Making a distinction between partners in crime and victims of crime, he said he believed that 99% of Indians fell in the latter category, and he had returned to India to change the system which had made the average Indian a victim of crime. Charity is important, but we need to plug the causes that make charity so necessary. He explained why he had started the social message campaign. The goal was to reach people in the nook and corner of the country, and media and technology has made it easier. 10 crore people are reading these messages daily. But memories are very short; therefore it is important to repeat these messages until they register. This is the reason we started these 38 messages and we are not going to stop. Stating that he wanted to meet people who are part of the solution, and not the problem, he ended his presentation. DAY II - 17th April, 2001 SESSION I
Resource Persons : Mr Venkat Krishnan, Director, Give Foundation, Ahmedabad. Mr Rahul Nainwal, ICICI Communities, Pune. Chair : Ms Pushpa Sundar, Executive Director, SICP, New Delhi. Venkat Krishnan gave an overview of how IT had aided the efforts of the NGO sector so far, internationally and nationally. He cited examples of the International Red Cross Society, ICICI Communities and the GIVE Foundation (which raised a crore within a span of 2 months during the Gujarat earthquake.) Focusing his discussion on the ‘Information’ aspect of IT, he stated that one needed to look at the donor as an investor. Drawing parallels between an investor and the donor, he detailed the information needs of the investor in the for profit and non-profit sector.
While the investor in the for profit sector has his/her information needs satisfied, today the donor, as an investor in the not for profit sector, has access to none of this information. Stressing the importance of using technology to harness good quality and credible information that would set standards for accountability and transparency for the social sector, he requested the participants to start recording information about the NGO’s they supported, and analysing performance and financial data. He appealed to them to network, share information and to use international standards and benchmarks, modifying them for their activities. He exhorted the participants to build SICP as a CII equivalent- strong, capable of representing, supporting, advocating and lobbying effectively. Defining development as a ‘process to help people making informed choices,’ Rahul Nainwal gave an overview of the growth of the Internet. IT or the Internet can be used for various issues by the NGOs to access information, manpower, funding sources and markets for their products and services, in a manner that is faster, cost effective and scalable. He presented the ICICI Communities experience. Their aim is to build capacities of NGO’s in the country to become completely self-sustaining, by using the Internet. Most donors refrain from donating because they are never sure their contribution will reach those in need, they lack confidence in transacting over the Internet using credit cards and they lack empathy for a cause. The ICICI communities’ portal guarantees l 100% of the money will reach the non profit organization l 100% feedback on how donation is used l 100% security of payment, whatever the mode of payment l 100% of the money will be used for the activity you choose l 100% underwriting of all transaction costs by ICICI In the aftermath of the Gujarat earthquake, the portal raised 2.5 million for the Janpath Citizen’s Initiative and 7.3 million for the GIVE Earthquake Rehabilitation Fund. He spoke of the other channels on ICICI Communities l News Online that will bridge the information gap by putting NGO news online. l Resource Centers that will hold issue specific listings and information. l Shop Online an Internet based shopping mall for goods produced by communities. l Volunteer online that will help organizations source human resources through the Internet. l Careers, which will provide students interested in building a career in the non profit sector, guidance and training opportunities. DISCUSSION l Participants raised the issues of the digital divide, how it has created an information elite. l They also discussed the marginalisation of local languages due to the dominance of English l They emphasized the need to develop user-friendly technology, and culturally relevant content in local languages. l The first test in applying IT interventions should be- is it related to people’s immediate concern’s? Does it make a difference to their lives? l Participants decried the neglect of arts by all development portals l How does one measure impact in the non-profit sector vis-a-vis impact in the for profit sector? l They agreed that there was a need to start a process to bring together people with experience to evolve standards and set benchmarks for the non-profit sector. l Participants expressed the need for a peer group led forum that provided space for putting forth strategic ideas, offered organizational services and facilitated organizational learning and suggested that SICP could play this role. SESSION II STRATEGY PLANNING & PROGRAMMING Resource Persons : Dr Prasanta Tripathy, Director Programs, ActionAid India. Dr Doris Capistrano, Deputy Representative, Ford Foundation. Chair : Mr Anmol Vellani, Executive Director, India Foundation for Arts. Opening the session, Dr. Capistrano said that the discussion of strategy was very closely linked with impact. Usually the combination of strategy and impact leads to planning processes that analyse the opportunities, the comparative advantages, the constraints and the tools at our disposal to reach a target group, and therefore demonstrate particular impact. The assumption and experience is that if we have gone through the steps, the impact will be great. Therefore the value of strategic planning is to make sure that these assumptions are adhered to, and shared by all. She added that once the impact is demonstrated, there must be a cultural celebration, as that will add motivation for further success. Still a review of strategic planning shows that strategic planning hasn’t always succeeded. Evidence suggests that what has worked are flexible responses. What has been important is the process of strategic planning, that provides opportunities to put forward new ways of thinking. But the key to effective response, to dynamic conditions have tended to be flexible, institutionalised responses. What is required, therefore, is adaptive management; surveying external conditions, assessing changes promptly, returning to reformulate and going back out again. A major element of this is strategic learning, and implicit in this is the process of unlearning. Strategic planning also runs the risk of being directive or co-opting grantees goals and objectives. In philanthropy, we operate in a very unbalanced environment. It cannot be an equal relationship, unless there are forums where the risks are mitigated, where ideas can really have fair play. Unless various stakeholders are brought together so that the power of numbers and collective thinking balances the power of foundations, the power of the foundations will not be mitigated. This is where networks and forums become good tools to check reality. They provide neutral space to share ideas. Sharing the lessons learnt in Ford Foundations experience, she said effective grant making required: l Strategic interventions l Long term commitment l Flexibility Dr Prasanta Tripathy decided to focus his presentation on the processes involved in the reworking of strategies by an established donor organisation, rather than get into the details of grant making processes. He said that often the problem lay with the profile of the board members of most of the organisations; they have grand ideas and high expectations of realising these in a very short time frame. In effect, there are a lot of things that they want to achieve in a short time frame. But first the organisations must make a decision on the issues they would like to focus on. Besides, the issues being so multifaceted and complex, they need to decide the specific aspects of different issues they would like to focus on. Only then, can we maximise returns on our investments. Secondly, we must study the other players in the field; their strengths, their limitations. We need to ask the questions; whom did we want to reach? How do we seek out the people we want to reach? This is important because the community we want to reach has been rendered invisible. What was the impact we were aiming at? But most critical, he added, before we work out the strategy was clarity on the organisational values. He spoke of the vision, mission and values of ActionAid India, and shared statistics to illustrate the spread of poverty in India. l One-third of the world’s poor in India. l There are more poor in India than the Sub-Saharan Africa. l 2 out of 3 people in India are undernourished Sharing the ACTIONAID experience while drafting the 2000- 2005 Country Strategy Paper, he said that they invited outsiders- people they knew and respected, to take stock of their work. What clearly came out was our ‘our talks don’t walk.’ The review pointed out that we had learnt the right way to articulate; the right way to work but on the field, there was a big gap. He underlined the importance of employing the same values applied at the field level, to the organizations themselves. Donors needed to pursue the principles of upward and downward accountability, community accountability in earnest to reduce their own role of policing. An essential aspect of this, is training to unlearn. We must believe in the agency of the people, and this raises the issue of capacity building- who builds whose capacity? We need to work out ways to help the community get out of its false consciousness. What is required is to empower them to build their own plans, so that they can monitor their own activities. And finally, Dr. Tripathy reiterated, one must remember that lexibility in response, and processes are as important as the product, if not more. DISCUSSION l Participants contended that learning by individual organizations must be shared in the public domain. l Some participants felt foundations should have different approaches to make resources available to the community. l They were unanimous that process is as important as the product. l They deliberated on deciding the cut off point of withdrawing support to the implementing NGO. l Some participants raised the issue of risk taking inherent in grant making. SESSION III MAKING COMMON CAUSE: COMMUNICATING WITH THE GOVERNMENT Resource Persons : Mr. Mathew Cherian, Director Charities Aid Foundation- India, Delhi. Mr. Ajay Mehta, General Secretary, (Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development) AVARD, Delhi. Chair : Dr. V. Subramanian, Honorary Director, Jamnalal Bajaj Foundations. Mr. Ajay Mehta started his presentation on a very optimistic note. He said his own feeling was that in the recent years, the policy battles with the government had been won by civil society. If one looked at the policy in the social sector in the last two decades and especially now with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, you cant ask for more. But the unfortunate thing is that if you look at what is happening on the ground, we haven’t achieved much. The condition of the poor is no better than it was two decades ago, but it could be worse. I would like to suggest that the cause, as it were, is much more difficult than we had imagined it to be. People’s participation is not as simple as it is made out to be. He sought to explain why we had not made much headway, despite having a consensus on state policy actually being able to solve problems, in the context of his experience at Sewa Mandir. Sewa Mandir was well positioned to take advantage of the changing times that favoured NGO’s, due to its experience of three decades, and the resources at its disposal. He shared the example of Sewa Mandir’s partnership with the National Regional Development Board, set up by the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to address the environmental crisis facing the country. We had planned to build a peoples movement. In the first 2 years, we planted 2 million trees in a patch of land. After three- four years, we discovered we had not built any people’s movement. We realized people were so poor that they had to migrate in search of work, and couldn’t nurture the samplings. We thought we could achieve on common land, what we couldn’t realise on private land when the Joint Forest Management policy was enacted. But here too, we failed for two reasons. One being, the government did not implement the whole policy on joint forest management. Secondly, the villagers themselves were not interested in this programme, as over the past few decades the government had taken a soft position on encroachment of public land. Therefore, the local community members- rich, middle and small peasants encroached upon most common land. We were unable to generate proposals on part of the community to make claims on the state, against a policy that declared they had legal access. This is a critical and generic issue. The social base for cooperative and collective action amongst the deprived is in disarray at this point. The deprivation in our country is leading to fragmentation, disempowerment and patron-client relationships. We need to provide incentives to facilitate cooperation within the community; we will not get readymade solidarity. There are the no given, natural solidarities that automatically kick in the moment you come up with a good policy. This presumption that the poor are given to solidarity and we just have to teach them a little bit of resistance and they will do the rest, can get all of us- government, NGOs and donors, off the hook. But it is not like that. The poor have been implicated in a battle of governance that is pre planned, has vitiated their solidarity and prevents them from coming together and taking responsibility. The second issue is the inability to motivate our own staff to stick it out in the field. We had recruited young people from the best institutions in the country, paying them salaries that were more than that of others in the organizations. But despite their idealism, their outstanding professional training they could not stick it out for more than three to four years. The rhythm of work and change in remote tribal areas was so slow, that it wore out the middle class, western educated youth. Another class of people could stick it out in the field. These were the local people who had joined Sewa Mandir, not because they were interested in the local issues of poverty, but because they were local and needed a job. Initially, they were receptive to the Sewa Mandir ideology. But after six or seven years, as they got established in the hierarchy and began wielding authority, they stared having an interest in taking the short cut that appeared to be taken in the government. They had this question; why should they take the hard path? Mr Mehta reminded the participants, that while we critique government at its inability to motivate its workers, we must also look at ourselves. Even reasonably sized NGOs with a reasonable amount of resources find it difficult to motivate workers. One way to overcome this, he suggested, was to motivate workers when they are at a point in their career when they are in doubt about the value of the work they are doing. This can be done by making them feel part of the long-term effort, upgrading their skills, making them feel valued within the community of development, particularly the organization they belong to. A lot of people internalise the values that we want them too, if they are provided these kinds of support at the right time. Mr. Mehta emphasised that if we were serious about making this paradigm shift, and wanted development to be based on peoples participation, decentralization and democratisation, then all of us- government, NGOs, Donors, have to address these structural issues of l Building a social base among the deprived and l Developing the civic consciousness. We need to build a social base for an egalitarian and democratic agenda. Foundations, government, donors need to look at these issues as long term structural issues, and get out of the project cycle of support and funding. It is only when we create this social base, that some of the good policies of the government can be rooted. What is disquieting about the discourse on development vis-à-vis the voluntary sector, he added, is that the government and donors are buying into quick fix solutions. They will take a success in one village and say that now we have found a generic solution to the problem of watershed development. But these niche successes have no lessons for the more generic issue of how they motivated the large numbers of people, how they unravelled the property relations. Speaking of AVARD’s activities, Mr Mehta reiterated that although there were historical reasons for this like the establishment of the Kudal Commission by Ms Gandhi, the deeper reason for us- the voluntary sector, not being heard is because we don’t have a strong social base. DISCUSSION l What are the problems of creating solidarity; the approaches adopted, pitfalls faced and lessons learnt. It was important to incentivise cooperation, make common property resources productive; to demonstrate to the community that collective entitlement was more beneficial than hanging on to unsecured tenures of encroached land. We also need to inculcate in the people the habit of managing this new resource, the processes of which will create new solidarity. l Do networks have any value in the contemporary scenario? The voluntary sector has a huge amount of experience that it needs to share with each other, the public and the policymakers. Networks can discuss what is not working out, how do we motivate people to do this kind of work. They can document problems, talk to donors and government about principles and strategies that are effective in the Indian context and advocate for supportive policy. Networks could play the role of intermediaries to make linkages to get the voice of the deprived to policy marks. l Voluntary organisations must get away from the pressure of creating ‘successes.’ l Was collective action in local communities, culturally in place historically and eroded over time or did it never exist? What was important was the nature of civil society needed to deal with contemporary issues of modern society. l Gender- We cannot have solidarity for women without addressing issues of poverty. Mr. Cherian began his presentation on ‘Tax Issues in India’ elaborating on crisis faced by NGO0s in the last century. He spoke of the experience of the Kudal Commission set up by Ms Gandhi, and reminded participants that the FCRA was passed during the emergency days when the government was against the NGO sector. Even today, some of the policy makers seemed to be more interested in regulating the sector. This could be because in the government’s viewpoint, some organizations are not committed to full disclosure. Secondly, they do not pay taxes and the government is always looking for ways to widen the tax net. We have been trying to look at some of the ways to get the government to liberalize the FCRA regime. We have been communicating with the government at various forums, and what is coming out is a common threat; you NGOs do not disclose enough and there is nowhere in the public domain that we can find any information on NGOs. He spoke of the government process of blacklisting NGOs. Currently, even organisations that have not submitted utilisation certificates, find themselves on this list which is put on the website. That too without any enquiry, any show cause notice. Mr Cherian informed the participants of the validation process initiated by CAF. We will put this information on the Internet or any other public domain, so that there is a common area where people can get information on NGOs. Elaborating on the validation project, he emphasised that this process did not set a criteria for good or bad. The aim was to get a range of parameters that will be across the board and work for all NGOs. The process of validation focuses mainly on three areas: 1. Disclosure 2. Verification of information provided by NGOs 3. Dissemination We have created an index called DIGI index, in which we will look at four aspects- i. Documents ii. Income and Financial profile iii. Governance and iv. Impact Our collaborating partner in this project, the Planning Commission has committed to disseminating the results to a wide range of government departments, and asking them to follow the procedure of validation before blacklisting organisations. So far we have covered 2000 NGO’s, including Foundations, and we hope that this project will be the harbinger for better sources of information on NGOs in public domain. We also hope that at some time this will lead to 100% tax exemption so that there is an incentive to participate in the process of validation.
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Phone : + 91-11-2689 9368, Telefax : + 91-11-2612 1917 E-mail : icp@ndb.vsnl.net.in / info@sampradaan.org Web : www.sampradaan.org | ||
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