Is the trust in us or is it in the system we are creating?

We have now been approached by other donors and people within Give and it seems that it is actually the CMI that people trust and the diligence that we provide. This is understandable. We expected that both NGOs and donors would initially use this framework because they trusted us or Give and our personal connections. We must remember to move from this by educating both why they need to seek certain types of information and report certain things. So long as we push this, I think both will come to appreciate the new and open communication they will share and increased effectiveness of the group and the donor’s money.

Domestic Support for CMI's Reports

As many know, Give supports the Mumbai Marathon and helps connect runners to charities to raise a great deal of money. One of the runners looking to donate substantial funding has come to us for advice and we instructed him on the Keystone framework. He passed this on to another runner and now we have our first two sizeable donations.

What is important is what we learned about the reports. We tried a modified memo and then the report we will provide for each group. As we suspected, our report is much more valuable and donors seem to appreciate the diligence and advice it reflects. They see the benefit of the Keystone methodology, but only after we explain it to them and show them why it is meaningful and more useful then other things available.

We will track donor engagement and use of these metrics to see if they truly appreciate the method or rather are more interested in the diligence we provide.

Need for Central Forums

Some of the groups we have met with have noted the desire to create central forums so that they can discuss what they are doing and learning with similar groups throughout India Some areas have this – certain types of education, child labor (essentially the hot topics). But many specialized groups could benefit from this. This would allow for not only a sharing of ideas, but also create ways to exchange people between organizations, foster community outreaches, and many other things. Importantly, it would also serve as a way to centralize facts and statistics, which vary greatly in almost every field in which the NGOS we have visited work. This would allow for better planning and donor confidence and just about everything else that goes with reliable information. Of course, the government should be doing a lot of this, but as with many third sector obligations, it doesn’t happen in India.

Step by Step Growth

We are working with an HNI who is contemplating a large donation to help an organization that works on rural education to expand nationally. I’d like to point out this group’s model because it is relatively simple but allows them to maximize their resources. They start by implementing proposed projects in schools and centers near them. That way they can be directly involved to the extent necessary, travel to the sites, and gain the school’s (teachers, students, and children) confidence. After monitoring the success of those programs for 3 to 5 years, they will scale them up to take them to other areas of the state. They partner up with various groups to teach them how to do these types of activities. They are now contemplating expanding certain programs nationally and this where the donor’s money and connections will help.

I like this model because it allows for careful reflection, study, and constant input at a manageable level for 3 to 5 years and then slowly grows. Each step allows for discussion with the relevant stakeholders, requires reevaluation of goals and aims and strategic planning.

Statistics Given by NGOs

As I am filling out some reports for various NGOs it becomes increasingly clear that NGOs – at least the ones we are working with and have met – do not have accurate records of the numbers of people they have helped or with whom they are working. The numbers they give will vary each time they are asked to provide the information and will vary significantly based on how the questions/requests are framed. This is problematic not only for putting reports together, but also raises questions about how responsive these NGOs are to their beneficiaries when they are not sure how many of them there are. Of course, I am slightly overstating the concern, but it is something NGOs need to track better so that they can make more accurate self-evaluations.

Difficulty with Mumbai

This entry adds little to NGO learning, but for future people coming to Mumbai the major things we would like to pass on are: (1) everything takes longer than you think and is slower than you planned for; (2) commuting is exhausting and will take half your day so live close to work; (3) you need to stay on people’s back to get responses. That being said, it is the easiest city in India to run this type of venture in because of the technological assistance, abundance of support, and dynamic and open NGOs.

Defining "NGO"

The term "NGO", or "non-government organization", is a misleading term -- it's meaning depends entirely on who you ask. The literal meaning (i.e., not part of a government) offers little guidance and may even suggest that NGOs are prohibited from working with government. But NGOs are often most effective when they coordinate their efforts with governments.

Because of this ambiguity, The Charitable Measurement Initiative has developed it's own definition of NGO, which is carefully tailored to our work, but we believe it can be applied on a broader scale:

“NGO means any organization, entirely or largely independent of government, formed to provide services or to advocate a public policy, with primarily humanitarian or cooperative rather than commercial objectives, and does not include organizations whose resources support political parties or religious groups."

Organizations that advocate a particular religious view should not be considered "NGOs". To illustrate this point, consider an organization operating a free school for disadvantaged children in a predominantly Hindu region. If that school actively promotes the Christian faith (or other faith) to its students, it should not be considered an NGO. To maintain their humanitarian component, NGOs must listen to their beneficiaries. If there were no "strings attached" to the education in the above example, the young students (the beneficiaries) would not ask to be converted.