The Charitable Measurement Initiative: The Charity Commission Steal Money!

Welcome to the Charitable Measurement Initiative!

The Charitable Measurement Initiative is a collaboration of people and organizations that are deeply committed to the belief that social change organizations can mobilize significant new and better investment if they are able to implement a measurement reporting framework that credibly communicates their real impact to donors. The Initiative is directed by GiveIndia and calls on the resources of pilot program partners Keystone Accountability, Global Giving, and New Philanthropy Capital, as well as many other organizations committed to social welfare.

The process began when we decided to combine our previous experiences in humanitarian and charitable work with our current work as corporate lawyers. We sought to find a group in India that was looking to incorporate capital markets/securities concepts in reporting and analysis to create more valuable and transparent information.

Thankfully, we were put in touch with GiveIndia. Give discussed the idea of running a pilot program implementing the Keystone framework developed by Keystone Accountability to see if we could help organizations more clearly articulate the outcomes they wanted and better communicate their actual results to donors. This was exactly what we were hoping to do and gladly agreed to donate a year of time to making this work.

While we were in London, Give put us in touch with Keystone Accountability and New Philanthropy Capital. After many meetings throughout the spring and summer, we arrived at our joint creation – the Charitable Measurement Initiative – and a plan as to how we would seek to help NGOs in India become more transparent, responsive, and efficient, as well as help donors become more engaged and involved.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Charity Commission Steal Money!

The Charity Commission in Mumbai takes a 2% fee on all donations to Mumbai groups. The fee is supposed to cover the cost of the Commission, but seeing as it isn’t staffed with qualified people, there isn’t a computer in their offices, and it generally does nothing, I think this is my new least favorite thing about Mumbai’s government. They have many millions (if not billons) of rupees collected that are just sitting there. They should, at the least, return some of this money.

Thankfully, the NGOs have gotten together and made serious efforts to get rid of this fee, and it should be gone soon. A good site for more information on this issue (and NGOs generally) is karmayog.com.