Pros and Cons of Government Involvement for Sustainable Development

Indian law requires certain types of aid to pass through the government instead of private organizations. This is most apparent when one looks at UNICEF or World Bank funding, especially for education/child care. I’ve been struggling to determine whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand you have a completely different model in Bangladesh. There the majority of funds pass through to private groups. The result is that private development organizations are extremely powerful in Bangladesh and do not have to be reliant on government as much. I’ve read conflicting stories on whether this lessens the sting of corruption, but one could see how it does.

Also, in a country where the government would not otherwise get involved and does not develop some sort of expertise, it is probably better to turn to private organizations.

But in India, where the government has taken the time to care about addressing social issues and has developed a certain amount of expertise (though many would dispute this), the partnership with government is probably very helpful – especially for sustainable development. Lots of the problems that India faces are not regional. They occur throughout the country. But most of the groups tend to focus on regional concerns and try to solve issues regionally before expanding outwards. In such a case, the government has an important role in sharing information and providing a platform to discuss issues. Also, where large scale problems are being tackled – education, trafficking, poverty – without government involvement it is virtually impossible to make large scale meaningful change.

What I need to find out now is what portion of aid is lost in overhead costs by going through the government and what benefit is gained by having the government involved. If the overall waste is large then I may rethink my position, but as it stands now, I think that it is probably a very good thing that the government is actively involved.

Wrong About Strategies vs. Prerequisites

After doing a few more workshops, I think that my initial position on the strategy vs. prerequisites distinction was wrong. It is important to make a distinction between the two because strategies will change. They may not be successful in bringing about the necessary outcome or may have to be changed for various other reasons (e.g., resources, time, change in law). So, if a group lists a strategy instead of a prerequisite, then the map of the theory of change risks having to be changed more frequently than necessary. While the map is supposed to be a “living” document and should change, it should strive to remain as consistent as possible so that all stakeholders understand the larger picture.

Running an NGO is not your escape route from your current job...

What I am finding is that the best NGO leaders do tend to have some private/business experience before entering civil society. The difference between the good NGO leaders and the mediocre/bad ones, is that the good ones are extremely good. They were not just skilled bankers, financiers, etc., they were likely near the top of whatever organization they were at before. This makes sense – running an NGO is much harder than most private business. Not only does the NGO head have to be the organizations visionary and force it to stay consistent to its goals, he or she is often called on to give advice in everyday problems. As a result, he or she needs to manage macro and micro problems. He or she needs to be a macro-level manager, while providing micro-level input. And if the NGO is really successful, he or she will likely be called on by other NGOs to help solve their problems – which, given how much all of the NGOs need each other to tackle larger issues, means he or she can’t say no to any requests for help. If this wasn’t enough, often that NGO leader will be the only one in his or her organization that is even remotely capable to taking on this much responsibility. So, my point is that just because a person is a successful student or businessperson, does not mean he or she will be a successful NGO manager…to be one you probably need to have been an exceptional student and a phenomenal businessperson.

Business Schools in India

I’ve had several discussions with people writing articles on “new philanthropy’s” focus on bringing market ideas to NGOs and civil society in general. While I agree with many of those ideas – like transparency, disclosure of risks and key information, public reports – I am wary that emphasizing market concepts can thwart younger groups from going through the “inefficient” nascent stages of their development.

It is particularly important that people start voicing these types of concerns in India because the larger business culture is very strong here. The day that CAT (business school exam) was administered in India, it was the top story in all the papers and magazines and on TV. In fact, it was the top story for several days. That combined with this idolization of business icons, the prestige attached to conspicuous consumption, and generally all things market and growth oriented could be very dangerous. Not only are the problems I mentioned above a concern, but as NGOs do operate more like businesses and their public/annual reports more closely resemble capital market disclosures, there is a possibility that donors will grow to think that because they have significant business experience it will be valuable for them to opine about the day to day practices of the NGOs they support. While active interest is crucial, I think it is important to remember that the organizations will more often than not know what’s best.

I’ve heard some anecdotal evidence to support this but will track it during the donor-engagement stages to see if it is true – especially for Indian donors.

Cost of Living

The overall theme of our portfolio seems to slowly be coming together – education and care for those children that fall outside India’s prosperity bubble. While India is experiencing a booming economy, it is not filtering to everyone. It is exaggerating the disparity in income and makes the gap larger and larger. What is worse is that in the cities experiencing the most economic growth – Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Chandigarh, and Kolkata – the growth hurts those that don’t benefit even more. This was striking in Bangalore, where the IT boom has pushed housing, transportation, food, entertainment, and just about every other cost significantly up. While people making Western salaries and inflated Indian salaries can cope with this, the majority – who do not benefit from this boom at all – are left much worse off because now they have to pay much higher costs with the same salary they had years ago – before the boom. As a result, the fall further and further down the leader and are unlikely to come up – all of which exaggerates the disparity even more.

In our group of NGOs, we have several education and care charities for children who are not able to participate in the elite or better Indian private school. So we have groups trying to reform the public school, creating private schools for slum children, schooling and training disabled children, working with street children, providing care for the orphaned and abused. There are some more that fall outside this group but for the pilot this seems to be the unifying theme.

Audits in India

We have met with a couple of NGOs that have already gone through their own audits before meeting with us. As would be expected some are more useful than others. Most audits are hybrids, but roughly, there seem to be three general types of audits in India.

The first – and most common -- type of audit is a “Financial Audit”. It aims to see that resources are properly accounted for and are used accurately. If the NGO has a limited number of accounts, these generally tend to be good. But if the NGO has multiple accounts and multiple ledgers – as many tend to have – the audits are too superficial to be meaningful. There needs to be a more thorough effort in many of these audits to compare expenditures and revenues across the accounts to ensure that there are not abuses (such as debiting one expense several times or paying salaries multiple times).

The second type is an “Organizational Review” – it tends to summarize what the NGO does and then tries to categories that information into categories so that the NGO can best see how to proceed, use resources, and what activities to more actively pursue. The primary use of this model is that it helps give context to a complicated organization’s operations. It does little, however, to help the NGO reflect on why it is doing something or how it fits into its overall objectives.

The third type is the “Strategic Review.” This audit tries to capture a mission statement and then look at what the group does and project a three or five year plan. While some effort is made at trying to identify the overall outcome the NGO wishes to achieve, it is not usually captured in terms of what is generally achievable. It is often too lofty. As a result, the three and five year plans sound great but are more often over ambitious proclamations than real strategies. They also tend to focus on scaling up without true thought on whether this it is in the organization’s best interest (or if it is, then if scaling up is done in an appropriate time frame or scope) and on increasing fundraising. In fact, almost every one of these “Strategic Reviews” has a sizeable section on increased fundraising.

What I think is the benefit of our process is that it offers very little in terms of advice on what changes need to be made or how to make necessary changes. Instead, it works as an organizational tool by helping NGOs see exactly what they want to achieve and what they will have to do to reach that (practically achievable) result.

This is supplemented by the reporting template Alex and I are developing. The report forces NGOs to identify their main activities, how successful these activities are and the evidence for these results, their overall strategy are following. This helps the NGO see what activities might not fit into their overall goals and where to focus resources. Further, by making sure that the NGOs clarify the overall environment and context in which they are operating, they are forced to make sure there activities are practical. Additionally, we require NGOs to explain and examine their finances more clearly. This works in combination with the organizational reporting sections to make NGOs consider whether they are using resources adequately. Once the report is completed, the NGO not only has a roadmap of how to achieve results it wishes to achieve, but also can see whether its current activities are helping it to reach those results. While we function as a sounding board, we leave the ultimate decision on how to make necessary changes in practices or strategy to the NGO (which best understands how to solve the problem). By doing so, we also avoid some of the really ridiculous solutions we have seen proposed by some outside auditors.

Interesting Article on Non-Profit Marketplaces

This is an interesting article on social investment marketplaces.

http://www.onphilanthropy.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7283&s_oo=pOCReJ0tTPleBINxFyKyOw..