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2016-07-30T13:08:24Z

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2016-06-30T13:42:05Z

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Educational Rehabilitation of Children of Farm Suicides by BJS

2015-11-16T12:32:14Z

"The emerging farmer suicide capital of India" isn't a qualifier which any region in the world would ever want to allude to itself. Sadly Marathwada, a historically backward region of Maharashtra has been a helpless witness, falling prey to a yet another vicious phenomenon of farmer suicides over last few years. It is no wonder then that Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS), a leading nonprofit organization with an extensive experience in disaster response has felt the urge to extend its maximum contribution to alleviate the woes of the bereaved families. The rapidly spreading problem of farmer suicides is nothing short of a disaster and BJS aims to address a potentially bigger problem emanating from this scenario in a manner which holds the promise of having a long lasting impact on the lives of the survivors of the suicide victims.

The loss of a loved one and especially an earning member always deals a cruel blow to the kith and kin of the victim. Matters become worse for the impoverished and the marginalized sections of the society; the economic impact of the tragedy gets compounded by the psychological impact on the traumatized family members. At such times children belonging to such families become the most vulnerable of the lot and nothing can prepare them enough for the multitude of challenges that come in the wake of such a tragedy. It is extremely crucial to provide a conducive psychosocial environment to such children in order to prevent them from succumbing to cycles of trauma, depression and loss of purpose in their early lives. The hard hitting reality of the loss of income and life often leaves very little choice for the surviving elders in the family, but to go out and work (especially for sugarcane cutting as in Marathwada)to keep the hearth running. Very often the children are left alone at home to fend for themselves. In the absence of proper care and timely attention to such children, myriad social problems could surface in the long run for them. Thus it is critical to constructively engage them and channelize their minds in the proper direction when tragedy strikes. Education is by far, the only means to shape the lives of such children and keep them from going astray.

It is with this intent and after looking at the grim picture of the Marathwada region, that the project of the educational rehabilitation of the children (boys and girls) from the households of farmers who have committed suicides across Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts has been undertaken by BJS. BJS would do so by relocating the children, identified through a planned mechanism and moving them to its state-of-the-art Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC) in Pune. WERC is a facility established by BJS specifically for such purpose since the 1993 Latur earthquake. BJS has a successful history and a proven track record of rehabilitating over 3000 disaster affected children since then.

BJS believes that for a crisis so acute, the intervention has to be long term and is therefore ready to invest close to a decade on every child who will thus be brought to WERC. This project will entail that the responsibility of the holistic education, food, accommodation, daily needs, counseling, healthcare and nutrition of all these children would be entirely borne by BJS from Std V- XII. We are hopeful that this project will bring a ray of hope in the lives of the families of these children as much as it will be a life changing experience for the children themselves.

About WERC

The Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC), a sprawling 10 acre campus had been established to cater to the educational, psychological, social and other needs of around 1000 earthquake- hit children from Latur & Osmanabad in 1993. Over the years this facility has grown to be a learning ground for thousands of children from other disaster affected areas and also from the malnourished tribal belts of Melghat and Dahanu in Maharashtra. The vision is to integrate these children with the mainstream social scenario so that they are capable of contributing to the nation building process in future. This infrastructure consists of a residential facility along with a school from Std V-XII affiliated to the State Board and a senior college affiliated to the University of Pune. The premises also house the hostel staff quarters, a huge dining area, playground and sports facilities and a 24X7 medical centre.

Project Scope:

a) The children currently studying from Std V onwards would be moved to WERC. The reason behind this is that the WERC co-education school in Pune currently operates from Std V-XII.

b) The households that have been identified for this project belong to the districts of Beed, Latur and Osmanabad where suicides have occured between 1st Jan 2015-31st Oct 2015. These districts have been chosen primarily for the following reasons:

Latur & Osmanabad- BJS has a record of successful educational rehabilitation of 1000 earthquake affected children of Latur and Osmanabad who were brought to WERC, Pune in 1993 and went on to complete their schooling and higher education before settling down comfortably in their professional lives. These WERC alumni from Latur and Osmananbad, now regularly volunteer in several disaster response initiatives of BJS. Hence they would also serve as a strong guiding force for the new students being brought in from these districts and help boost the morale of the families.

Beed- BJS also commands a goodwill in Beed as it has been running a values education program 'Mulyavardhan' in around 350 Zilla Parishad schools of Beed district with the help of its own staff of 180 local teachers since 2009. Familiarity with the demographic landscape of Beed and a functional active local staff were important grounds for consideration of Beed as a project area.

BJS was also instrumental in the restoration of 115 water bodies within a span of one month from May-June 2013, one of the worst drought years in the history of Maharashtra. 20 lakh cubic meters of the fertile silt was excavated and spread over 2500 acres of farmlands to increase their productivity. As a part of that project, BJS had undertaken a detailed survey of the topography and the demography of the Beed district. This information was an added advantage during the planning of the current project.

Project Objectives

The project has been envisaged with multiple objectives in mind which cater to some immediate as well as several long term needs of the families of the victims:

providing a conducive psycho social environment to the children from the affected households through a well developed curriculum of WERC
sharing the responsibility with the affected families of the education and wellbeing of their children
nurturing attitudes and life skills in these children for creating productive and responsible members of the society
empowering children to be the change agents for bettering the socio-economic prospects of their own families by availing and leveraging the opportunities that good education can provide

Project Plan and Management

Against the prevailing backdrop, Shri Shantilal Muttha- founder BJS, conceptualized the entire project and a decision to go ahead was collectively taken by the BJS Prabandh Samiti on 25th October 2015. Moving with great alacrity in view of the growing urgency of the situation, a project management team was formed headed by BJS district office bearers in the respective districts and senior staff from Pune WERC as follows:

Pune WERC- Shri Ashok Pawar and Shri Salunkhe
Beed district- Shri Rajendra Munot and Shri Kishor Pagariya
Latur district- Shri Sunil Kocheta and Shri Kishor Jain
Osmanabad district-Shri Vijay Bedmuttha and Shri Sunil Dungerwal

That was followed by the formation of survey teams who were to conduct a detailed survey of the affected households. For the first time female surveyors were being sent out to be able to easily establish an emotional connect with the women survivors from the affected households who had lost their male member. 13 such teams were formed with each comprising a female teacher from the BJS Wagholi or Pimpri school, a local female Mulyavardhan teacher and 2-3 local BJS volunteers to assist in the logistic arrangements. A comprehensive training of the surveyor teams was held on 30th Oct at the BJS Head Office, Pune. The actual survey of around 450 households across the three districts culminated on 3rd November, the findings of which have been presented later. The children from Std V-Std XII will be brought to Pune on 21st November and their classes will commence on 23rd Nov.

After processing the formalities of school and hostel admissions by seeking the necessary permissions from the concerned authorities, the children will be provided specialized care in several ways for which the WERC school and hostel staff will be specially trained. Proper records of the health (physical and psychological) of every child will be maintained after a thorough check up followed by counseling sessions by seasoned psychologists and diet plans drawn up by nutritionists for the children. At WERC the children will also undergo a baseline assessment to gauge their academic levels and a remedial support will be provided for the children to catch up on the academic front.

All for Smiles

For the causes behind this agrarian crisis to cease to exist, it will take a concerted effort from a legislative, executive and social standpoint. However given the status quo, with this project BJS hopes to be the silver lining for every dark cloud that has descended upon these families. It is a determined attempt to save and secure the future of an entire generation in these villages for which a conscious effort is being made to provide a long term support to the children. For all those children who stand at the threshold of a new horizon BJS is eager to embrace them with open arms.

UNOS CUANTOS EUROS PARA EL PRESUPUESTO DIARIO

2015-09-04T20:56:30Z

La solucion SIGNIFICA dinero, Financiera lebertad, descanzo, salud, ayuda solidaria; Otros párr Poder SIGNIFICA, grandeza, medio de conquista, etc., sin Sé lo que SIGNIFICA para ti, Lo Que Si Estoy Seguro De que Para Toda persona de la USO sano de la razon, el dinero es Necesario Para El Desempeño diario, es por Eso que invito a todos Los Que inclinarse this text Que evaluen Una muy buena oportunidad Que le presento de CONSEGUIR Un poco de euros diario, OPORTUNIDAD this Ya Viene aportandole Un poco de euros Cientos de Personas Que creyeron en this project, es Realmente Lo Que mejor me this resultando y para mi alegria, es algo Que Viene respondiendo Positivamente from Hacen dos años y Lo Que va of this 2.015.

TE INVITO A QUE PARTICIPE TU TAMBIEN , para ello solo tienes que inscribirte en el enlace que te dejo al final de este articulo. CONSIGUE AQUI UN POCO DE EUROS DIARIO

An Eye On The Sector

2013-05-23T10:24:20Z

Etienne Eichenberger, Executive Director of WISE, sat down with The Global Journal to discuss his views on the NGO sector.

What is your interest in NGOs?

I have worked with civil society for the last 15 years. In the past I collaborated with the Avina Foundation in Latin America in the field of social entrepreneurship, and supported the Schwab Foundation while at the World Economic Forum. Today, I am the co-founder of a leading boutique philanthropy consultancy. We advise a range of clients in fulfilling their philanthropic aspirations. I am also Vice President of Sustainable Finance Geneva and a board member of several foundations. Many paths lead me to NGOs as you can see.

What do you see as the biggest trend in the sector over the last 1-2 years?

There are more long-term underlying trends that remain key, such as accountability and related issues of transparency. However, another interesting trend is the fact that social innovations in transition countries – or so-called ‘poor’ countries – have begun to be replicated in developed economies. Let me give two examples. One of your Top 100 NGOs of last year, Friends International, has been asked to test a model – developed originally in South East Asia – in the United States. Their approach to working with disadvantaged youth is seen as standard-setting. Another example is the ‘Fight for Peace’ model developed in Brazil being exported to prisons in the United Kingdom.

Have you observed any challenges for NGOs linked to the financial crisis?

NGOs have grown more professional due to numerous factors, though the influence of limited financial resources is certainly one key element. This has been caused by the diminished performance of foundations, and the financial constraints imposed on public funding. At the same time, the financial crisis has also brought new ideas and talent into the sector. In a certain way, the crisis has provided an opportunity to rethink our status quo.

What is the most innovative NGO you have worked with?

I often think we fool ourselves by equating social innovation with technical innovation. At the last European Venture Philanthropy Association meeting in Dublin, a speaker suggested “social innovation is not what is new, but what works better.” I like this quote because it helps us to move beyond the paradigm that only new is better. I think, however, that Arc en-Ciel in Lebanon is a very innovative model in its context – it is very interesting to see how an organization can create great value in a tense environment. Arc-en-Ciel began operations after the civil war with wheel chairs, but today pursues six development streams, including medical waste management and eco-agriculture. Its founders have seen a weak state as an opportunity to create social value.

What do you think is the NGO model of the future?

NGOs, like businesses, are all about diversity – from small and medium size enterprises to global corporations. Their respective challenges are hardly the same, and neither are their models. Future models will depend on numerous factors, driven by an NGO’s mission. For instance, an advocacy NGO will need to further strengthen its independence, an NGO focused on service delivery will need to continue to innovate with regard to generating revenues. But both small and large NGOs will need to be more accountable in terms of impact and the quality of their delivery. The time when NGOs had a blank check to “do the right thing” is gone.

Photo © DR

When Profit Meets Purpose

2013-05-13T10:11:35Z

As the first Internet stock bubble neared its popping point in 1999, IBM chief executive Lou Gerstner famously dismissed the dot-com start-ups of his day as “fireflies before the storm—all stirred up, throwing off sparks.” The Internet would truly achieve its disruptive potential, Gerstner argued, when thousands of big institutions around the world started using the new communication and technology platform to transform themselves. He was right. Although many of the dot-com players did not survive the 2000 market crash in technology stocks, they were indeed harbingers of a coming business revolution.

Nearly 15 years later, we see a new set of fireflies before a different storm. This time, an explosion of creativity in social entrepreneurship has unfolded against the backdrop of a crisis in global capitalism. Barely half of Americans polled in 2010 by GlobeScan said they believed in the free-market system, down from 80 percent in 2002. A large majority had lost trust in government. The most recent Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust in business has been below 50 percent for 8 of the past 12 years. Throughout Europe, only small minorities said they believed in free-market capitalism.

Meanwhile, social entrepreneurs are developing innovative business models that blend traditional capitalism with solutions that address the long-term needs of our planet. They are tackling chronic social problems, ranging from healthcare delivery in sub-Saharan Africa to agricultural transformation in East Asia and public-school funding in the United States. Social entrepreneurs are working in close collaboration with local communities, incubating groundbreaking (and often lifesaving) innovations; modeling synergistic partnerships with governments, companies, and traditional charities; and building business models that deploy technology and enable networking to create wins for investors and clients alike. “Social entrepreneurs are mad scientists in the lab,” says Pamela Hartigan, director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University. “They’re harbingers of new ways of doing business.”

We believe this collaborative approach offers intriguing hints about how enterprises of all sizes can deliver value for themselves and society. Below we suggest four ways in which social entrepreneurs are showing the way forward.

Using profit to fund purpose

Many of today’s leading social entrepreneurs have created organizations that are neither businesses nor charities, but rather hybrid entities that generate revenue in pursuit of social goals. While not entirely new (the Girl Scouts have been selling cookies for many years), this desire to blend purpose with profit has more recently been formalized in structures such as the US “benefit corporation” (B Corp), a corporate entity legally required to create benefit for society as well as its shareholders.

While B Corps are still rare, many nonprofit organizations generate revenue to advance the parent organization’s social goals. VisionSpring, for example, is a social venture that provides eye tests and glasses to lower-income customers in more than 20 countries, including Bangladesh, El Salvador, India, and South Africa. Initially, VisionSpring distributed its eyeglasses through a dedicated sales force of microentrepreneurs. Like many business owners before him, founder Jordan Kassalow soon learned that pushing a limited range of products through a single sales channel was a tough way to make a living. “There wasn’t enough money coming in to support our operations,” he says. “We realized we could either be a really nice, perpetually subsidized nongovernmental organization, or—better yet—change our business model so we wouldn’t need subsidies.”

Today VisionSpring operates vision stores that generate income via programs in which higher profit margins on more expensive glasses subsidize basic eyewear for the poorest customers. Kassalow also distributes eyeglasses and vision testing through large organizations like BRAC, a philanthropy in Bangladesh with a huge existing network for distributing healthcare services. VisionSpring calculates that one pair of its glasses increases the average recipient’s labor productivity by 35 percent, which works out to $216 in additional income over two years—a 20 percent rise. Kassalow plans to continue operating on a nonprofit basis while working toward profitability in every country where VisionSpring operates. (All profits are poured back into the organization.) His El Salvador unit is already profitable, and he expects VisionSpring’s India operations to achieve profitability by 2015.

Kassalow’s blended approach to value creation is increasingly common. Living Goods, for example, is a US-based nonprofit that sells essential products such as fortified foods, pharmaceuticals, and high-efficiency cookstoves through an Avon-like network of microfranchisees in Uganda. According to founder Chuck Slaughter, this model provides a modest income to the franchisees while helping to fund his operating costs. “Avon has five million agents,” he says. “My thought was if you can make that kind of money selling discretionary stuff, imagine what you can do selling absolutely essential, life-changing goods.”

Similarly, Riders for Health is a UK-based organization that sells logistical services to health ministries in seven African countries. It runs a fleet of some 1,500 vehicles that deliver medical services to between 11 million and 12 million rural Africans. The organization funds its operating expenses in part by charging local health ministries a cost per kilometer that covers fuel, maintenance, replacement parts, and logistical costs. Originally founded to service health-ministry motorcycles in Lesotho, Riders for Health now operates in several African countries and has added a slew of logistical services to its product mix. The organization maintains ambulances and hospital generators, transports medical samples from rural clinics to labs for analysis, and manages compliance programs for patients taking medication. “We don’t charge profit of any kind,” says cofounder Andrea Coleman. “But from the beginning, our mission has been to earn as much money as possible from different income streams.”

Delivering individualized products that marry need and want

Successful social ventures leverage their small scale and intense customer focus to create products and distribution models that precisely match the needs and desires of the communities they serve. In this sense they are modeling a much broader economic trend. In a 2010 McKinsey Quarterly article, Shoshana Zuboff argued that the capitalist mode of production was going through a historic transition from mass consumption to the wants of individuals, a phenomenon that she called “distributed capitalism.” Obvious examples include various personalized shopping experiences enabled by interactive technology, also known as mass customization.

While we often associate distributed capitalism with digitized consumer transactions, the concept has broader application in the world of social entrepreneurship. Caerus Associates, for example, is a small consultancy that uses a combination of big-data analytics and local community knowledge to assess development trends, often in societies suffering from violent conflict. In an article that appeared last year in McKinsey’s special volume on social innovation, Caerus founder David Kilcullen explained how his social venture advises governments, corporations, and local communities on what he calls “designing for development.” The main idea here is that development programs must be designed with input from local actors because they call the shots on the ground.

Education delivery is another area where we can see the principles of distributed capitalism at work. In Bangladesh, a social entrepreneur named Mohammed Rezwan operates a fleet of solar-powered floating schools that provide mobile education to rural schoolchildren who are often isolated during the monsoon floods. Rather than building a school and asking children to show up, Rezwan brings school to the children, when and where they need it. Similarly, Pakistan’s Pehli Kiran School System is a network of schools for the children of impoverished migrant workers living in illegal settlements, or katchi abadis. Local authorities frequently raid and dismantle these settlements, forcing the families to move. Pehli Kiran schools move right along with them, with the goal of ensuring that students can continue their education no matter what happens to their homes.

Or consider how two social entrepreneurs have managed to customize the delivery of agricultural-development services in rural Myanmar. Jim Taylor and his partner Debbie Aung Din operate Proximity Designs, a social venture that develops innovative, low-cost products designed to raise agricultural productivity. Proximity Designs employs ethnographers and product designers who work closely with subsistence farmers in the countryside to develop products like solar-lighting systems and foot-operated irrigation pumps.

Proximity Designs funds its operations in part by selling the products through a network of for-profit agricultural supply dealers in small towns in Myanmar. To ensure that farmers can afford to buy its goods, Proximity Designs also developed a financing program that advances small loans at modest rates. “We look through the lens of what impact we can have,” says Taylor. “One farmer I met had piglets that were like children—they wouldn’t sleep at night unless the lights were on. He used to stay up all night with a lit candle because he was worried about burning the house down. Now that the farmer has our solar lights; the pigs are happy and he gets to sleep.”

It would be difficult to gather such granular insight from a product design lab in, say, California. By virtue of their small size and engagement with the communities they serve, social ventures like Proximity Designs are well positioned to deliver products that meet both the needs and the wants of their clients.

Crowdsourcing the solution

In a 2008 article, communications scholar Daren C. Brabham defined crowdsourcing as “an online, distributed problem-solving and production model.” Today we see crowdsourcing applications in many different realms, from open-source software development to financial-prediction markets and funding for creative projects through Kickstarter and similar sites. Crowdsourcing has been a particular boon to social entrepreneurs, who can use it to create disproportionate impact with modest resources.

Charles Best is the founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, a Web-based platform that raises money to fund class projects in American public schools. Individual donors contribute an average of $50 apiece to projects that typically cost about $500. DonorsChoose.org vets every project, pays all project costs directly, and makes sure that the teachers write thank-you letters to every donor. Best covers his operating costs by charging each donor an optional 15 percent administrative fee. “We’re one of the few charities that doesn’t go hat in hand seeking donations,” he says.

Best crowdsources quality control as well as fund-raising. He used to hire college students to vet all the projects, which he says was costly and often ineffective. Today he uses a network of trusted teachers who have already received DonorsChoose grants and volunteer their time to make sure that all new projects deserve funding. This year, DonorsChoose expects to receive at least 150,000 project submissions from public schools all over the United States, and it plans to disburse about $50 million in grants, 85 percent of them to teachers working in high-poverty schools. Best’s organization has been entirely self-sustaining since 2010. Since inception, a total of 145,000 teachers at nearly half the public schools in America have received grants through the site.

In recent years, we’ve also seen a boom in prize competitions that crowdsource solutions to difficult social problems. Information technology and social media now enable cheap and easy collaboration. For social ventures, this dramatically expands the pool of potential problem solvers and lowers the cost of developing solutions. Ashoka’s Changemakers initiative, for instance, is an idea factory that encourages social entrepreneurs to develop concepts that transcend the competition itself, essentially building a marketplace for innovation in an issue area in just a few months. Changemakers judges are also potential investors. By requiring participants to post their ideas and selecting a relatively large pool of finalists, Changemakers and similar competitions can help match competitors to new funding.

Working themselves out of a job

One important test of any social venture is whether it can create sustainable impact beyond its own projects. Some of today’s most farsighted social entrepreneurs have created business models that allow them to effectively work themselves out of a job by creating sustainable, lasting change in the communities that they serve.

I-DEV International, for example, is a New York–based impact investment firm that’s in the business of what it calls “market-based sustainable development.” In Peru, I-DEV helped impoverished farmers build an international business out of tara, a native tree species whose fruit had historically been consumed locally for medicinal purposes. However, plant researchers had developed new applications for tara in the global food, pharmaceutical, leather, and pet-food industries. I-DEV helped some 200 Peruvian farmers to organize a farming co-op that today is the largest and most successful supplier of unprocessed tara in Peru.

The co-op generates nearly $4 million a year in revenue for its members. I-DEV is currently gathering investors to help the farmers build a tara processing plant. Managing director Jason Spindler says the deal will be structured as a joint venture in which the farmers take the majority stake while I-DEV and equity participants are minority shareholders. “Nothing we do is for charity,” he says.

Other social ventures scale innovation by partnering with local governments. Ned Breslin is the CEO of Water For People, an international nonprofit that works with local communities to install water pipes, latrines, and other sanitation infrastructure in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. His goal is to ensure that nobody in a district where Water for People works will ever need sanitation assistance from another international development organization.

To do that, Water for People mobilizes local authorities from the community level all the way up to the national government. It insists that all levels of government invest their own money alongside Water for People. The local communities are also asked to participate as investors, and their contributions must take the form of cash rather than sweat equity. Breslin maintains a low public profile for his organization, with the goal of ensuring that communities and local governments get the credit for improving sanitation and therefore feel ownership in the programs. “What we’re really challenging is the endless project-by-project approach of philanthropy,” he says. “The point of our investment is not to do another project. It’s to get the water flowing at scale so they never need another project.”

Social entrepreneurs and capitalism

Despite their early successes, social ventures in this new generation are still entrepreneurial start-ups. Some may survive and grow into major organizations. Others may disappear. Regardless of their individual fates, we believe these organizations demonstrate a way forward for the capitalist mode of production, one in which economic and social value creation are no longer seen as antithetical.

Social entrepreneurs are part of a broader conversation about the relationship between business and society that has been gathering steam since the Great Recession. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, McKinsey global managing director Dominic Barton argued that global capitalism was at a turning point. “We can reform capitalism, or we can let capitalism be reformed for us, through political measures and the pressures of an angry public,” he writes. Barton suggests that capitalism should return to the values of its founding philosopher Adam Smith, who believed that business and society were profoundly interdependent.

Similarly, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter argues that capitalism has betrayed its promise by focusing on the narrow equation of value with short-term economic returns. Porter urges companies to think in terms of “shared value,” which involves generating economic value while at the same time creating value for society by addressing its needs and challenges.

Meanwhile, the author and consultant Dov Seidman makes a business case for ethical capitalism. Globalization, he argues, has made it increasingly difficult for companies to offer unique value propositions based on their products and services alone. At the same time, the ubiquity of electronic communication and the rise of social media have created a transparent business world in which bad behavior is more difficult to hide than ever before. As a result, ethical behavior has become a point of competitive differentiation. Companies that “outbehave” their competitors will eventually outperform them as well.

We can cite many examples of large organizations that are already putting these principles into practice. Elsewhere in this volume, leaders from The Coca-Cola Company, Hindustan Unilever, and Royal DSM explain how their companies blend profit and social purpose by deploying advanced supply-chain technologies that deliver lifesaving goods and services to some of the world’s poorest people. Meanwhile, the social ventures that we have profiled in this essay are testing many ideas about the proper relationship between business and society, some of which may eventually scale up and become standard practice for organizations of all sizes. While the solutions are diverse, most are based on the working assumption that profit and purpose need not conflict.

Social ventures that create new value chains while generating profit in pursuit of social goals are a direct challenge to Milton Friedman’s dictum that the social purpose of a business is to generate profit for its shareholders. With public cynicism about business at record levels, we may well see more organizations following their lead.

The article originally appeared in McKinsey's online publication Voices on Society

The article was co-authored by Danielle Sachs, Director of Social Impact for McKinsey & Company, and Richard McGill Murphy, the managing editor of Voices on Society a print and online publication from McKinsey & Company.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

Photo © DR

How To ... Select NGO Board Members

2013-05-08T10:33:11Z

Diversity is not about quotas but fair representation. Following on from her previous analysis of NGO boards, Fairouz El Tom lays out the considerations NGOs should keep in mind when appointing board members.

An executive board is the supreme governing body of a non-governmental organisation (NGO). Its decisions determine the organisation's direction and policies, and eventually its impact on the people it serves. Board membership is therefore vitally important.

Almost all NGOs recognise that diversity and inclusion are key values. However, the board membership does not appear to reflect this. Too many are demographically and ideologically homogeneous, and reproduce established gender, class and ethnic hierarchies. Too few adequately reflect the experience and diversity of those they seek to serve.

Clearly, men can individually contest the unequal status of women. Individuals of European origin can oppose the exclusion and marginalisation that many people of different ethnic origins experience. And highly educated persons can choose to figure out how the world appears to those with little or no education.

Nevertheless, governance systems that primarily rely on personal empathy and imagination are fundamentally unsatisfactory. The truth is, where governing bodies have a different social composition from the populations they seek to serve, they will imperfectly understand those populations and will not represent them or their interests adequately, and their decision-making will suffer as a result.

Homogeneous boards are also likely to be blind to certain social realities, as responses to a recent survey on NGO boards revealed. A number simply did not record the ethnicity of board members, refusing in effect to take account of the influence of power and privilege on exclusion and disadvantage — issues that in many instances are central to their mandates and values. Many also failed to perceive the implications of their links to the arms, tobacco and finance industries and arguably failed in their duty of due diligence.

In the end, how an organisation governs itself is a choice. However, organisations whose declared objective is to improve the lives of poor or disadvantaged groups cannot afford to ignore attitudes or behaviour, in their own conduct or in society at large, that shore up illegitimate, unjust social structures. NGOs that de facto exclude those they are meant to serve from the most powerful positions in their organisations, or appoint individuals who serve industries that oppose or hinder their mandates, must expect to be challenged.

So what should an NGO keep in mind if it wants to appoint a board that is sound and appropriate? Four considerations spring to mind. Taken as a whole, its membership should:

• Include a sufficient number of individuals who are recognised and trusted by the (principle) communities it serves.

• Possess enough relevant professional and operational expertise (governance, finance, technical skills, etc associated with the NGO's mandate).

• Include a range of voices to ensure that the board maintains oversight and standards of due diligence, and brings a sufficiently broad ethical perspective to its deliberations.

• Be consistent with the organisation's mandate and values (with respect to diversity, social objectives, etc).

Achieving a balanced board is challenging, and the more activities and audiences an organisation has, the harder it is to represent them adequately on a board of normal size. Nevertheless, the effort is necessary on ethical grounds, for reasons of efficiency, and to manage risk. It is certainly less difficult for most organisations to appoint a sound board than to achieve their mandate.

At the same time, one must tread carefully. Boards exclusively composed of western-educated African or Asian women will be as limited in their worldview as those dominated by heterosexual, middle-aged men of European descent. The same can be said of gender-balanced boards whose ethnically diverse members all belong to elites in their respective societies. Meaningful diversity is not about quotas but equitable representation. To take account of different ways of communicating and experiencing life, it is necessary to balance fundamental values and a variety of specific concerns.

According to Robert Jensen, if we want to meaningfully change the world, "the first step is to tell the truth. Not just the truth we can bear, but all of the truth. Part of that truth is our own complicity."

NGOs should accept that, to act more authentically, they need to be transparent about, and accountable for, the choices they make. If boards themselves are usually responsible for their composition, most participants in NGOs have a role to play in this. Staff can choose which NGOs they work for and can ask their managers and boards to address diversity and inclusion. Members can place these issues on the agenda of their organisations, and elect members accordingly. Donors can take diversity and inclusion into account when they select whom they fund.

With that in mind, here is a non-exhaustive list of additional questions that NGOs might ask when they appoint members.

• How is she connected to the problems we are trying to solve?

• Does his experience hinder him from understanding the reality of those we seek to serve?

• Does she bring a different and relevant experience to the table?

• How do some of her life experiences compare to those of others on the board?

• Are his professional affiliations in line with our objectives?

• Do his actions match his words?

• How does she relate to 'difference'?

• What world does this person aspire to?

Clearly, there is no one or easy way to achieve social change. NGOs should think, speak and act coherently, and question their beliefs and standpoints more strongly. Failing that they are likely, as Arundhati Roy cautions, to "unwittingly reinforce racist stereotypes and re-affirm the achievements, the comforts, and the compassion (the tough love) of western civilisation", acting as "secular missionaries of the modern world".

If we do not explore with open minds the richness and variety of human experience, we will be unable to imagine concretely the new world we say we want to create.

Opinions voiced by Global Minds do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Global Journal.

The article was originally published on The Guardian - Global Development Professional Network.

Related articles: Diversity And Inclusion On NGO Boards

Are Start-ups Solving Problems?

2013-04-17T11:33:29Z

The late 1990’s witnessed the growth of Internet-based companies. Start-up companies became the next big thing for venture capitalists to invest in. Silicon Valley was the hub for technological innovation and the home of most of Internet start-ups. Start-ups like Facebook, Pinterest, Zynga and Groupon have gained great momentum and have not disappointed their investors. There is a lot of hype surrounding the start-up culture but are they doing more than just creating games and apps to pass the time? Social networking sites allow people around the world to connect but can they do more than just bring old friends back together? Can start-ups address issues like poverty, inequality, access to education and medical care?

This week will be the fourth session of the Power Sessions, a joint venture by Apex Communications and VentureVillage. A series of workshops have been held in Berlin for the tech community since December 2012 and the most recent one will be on April 17 answering the question “Are Start-ups Really Solving Problems?”

What actually constitutes a start-up company? Not every new business can be classified as a start-up company. What sets it apart is the growth rate. Although there can be start-up companies that are not primarily focused on technology, the last two decades that the term has gained momentum has shown that technological innovation is a big part of it. A start-up company is intended to grow fast. As Ari Stein, Co-founder of Apex Communications also says “The term has become synonymous with the tech scene. When you mention the word start-up, it works within the technology ecosystem.” This ecosystem has found a new home in Berlin.

Still in its infancy, the Berlin start-up scene has started to grow, attracting young entrepreneurs. Stein commented that Berlin was “listed in the start-up genome top twenty start-up cities in the world. The city itself is a start-up because it came out of the Berlin Wall coming down and had to reset itself and start building from scratch. The start-up scene is very creative, exciting and experimental. Every day there are new meetups and interactions going on and new ideas being worked on. The reason we’re doing these events is we want to kick off a maturation process in the Berlin start-up scene. For this specific event we want to make people aware that there is more to the start-up scene than ‘exit’ strategies and finding the latest and greatest IOS developer to work on something that’s a little bit more trivial.”

Are great minds really just working to solve problems of a more trivial nature? Millions of apps have been created just to provide an escape from boredom and very few start-ups have actually attempted to solve real world issues. What if the brilliant young minds of the tech community actually started asking real questions and contemplating how their start-up could better society in some way? The percentage of start-ups that are socially aware and addressing critical issues is very low and here are a few that are on the right track, the start-ups that are actually solving problems.

Political participation and social engagement constitute the agenda for Purpose, a company that creates “21st century movements.” Established in 2009, by Jeremy Heimans, Andre Banks and David Madden, Purpose connects people, consumers, companies and organizations to launch movements that will have social or political impact. One such movement created by Purpose is The Rules, addressing issues of poverty and inequality around the world. Funded by Purpose itself, the New Venture Fund and crowd-funding, The Rules aims to create campaigns to change the policies and practices to serve the interests of the majority instead of the minority. Purpose has also launched movements like the LiveStrong Action and Meu Rio.

Addressing the problems in education is a United States company founded by Stanford computer science professors; Coursera is collaborating with a group of top universities to offer courses online. Working together with more than 60 universities, Coursera’s courses are provided to anyone, anywhere, for free. In February, the company expanded its reach and added lectures in French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese. Although Coursera does not offer college degrees it provides education from top universities, mainly from the US, to those who previously did not have any access. It is set up as a for-profit company that has focused its attention on a real problem we face; access to education.

Betterplace.org and knowable.org are two other start-ups that address real problems and provide innovative solutions. Till Behnke founded betterplace.org in 2007, which is a crowd funding platform. Currently there are over 5000 projects on its database and it aims to increase donations to the social sector by making it easier to donate and reducing costs on donations. It is a more effective way to engage with the social sector and citizen organizations around the world. Knowable.org focuses on providing step-by-step guides for DIY projects. Founded in Berlin, knowable.org solves everyday problems through collaboration between crafters and makers.

The amount of start-ups that address social issues and are socially aware are far too small when compared with the total amount of start-ups out there. Start-ups need to start thinking of ways to make their businesses more socially and environmentally aware, because in the end it is the opinion of the consumer that will determine the rate of success or failure and consumers have enough games to pass the time. Now they need real innovation and change.

Founded by Ari Stein and Jordan Michaeli, the Power Sessions aiming to “take the hot air out of the Berlin start-up scene,” addresses the issue of socially aware start-ups in its fourth session. The German capital is witnessing the growth of a vibrant start-up scene and the Power Sessions are there to provide a platform for open discussion on issues that are relevant. Talks will be given by the Co-founder and Managing Director of Purpose Europe Simon Willis, the European Co-leader and Director of Ashoka Germany Felix Oldenburg and the founder of betterplace.org Till Behnke. The sessions will be held at the newly opened Google HQ in Berlin.

For more information about Power Sessions click here.

Photo © DR

How To Do Good (Better): The Future Of Philanthropy

2013-01-23T07:01:43Z

It used to be easier. You would come home, open the mailbox and find an anonymous looking envelope. Inside, you would find a card with despondent children, or cute tiger cubs, and a prefilled check. Alternatively, you could always count on your sister’s crochet friend to ask you for money for the local group distributing meals to the homeless. And finally, you would leave a bequest in your will to a couple of charities, usually an animal shelter or some organization you had heard about throughout your life but had never had the chance to really investigate. Formany, philanthropy would be just that. Although it would be wrong to suggest this sort of giving is pointless, it does end up being relatively ineffective in achieving transformative impact.

But times are changing in the world of private philanthropy. Over the last few years, there has been much talk of ‘philanthropy 2.0,’ and buzzwords like ‘venture philanthropy,’ ‘strategic philanthropy,’ ‘Silicon Valley philanthropy’ and ‘philanthrocapitalism’ are becoming ever more common. Despite certain nuances, all refer to the same widespread phenomenon: even if you are not planning to give millions, philanthropy has become a considerably more thorough, professional and transparent process, which does not end with having your name carved on a brass plate in a hallowed university courtyard, or on the hand-painted sign of a rural hospital in Ethiopia.

We are moving away from responsive, opportunistic charity, and increasingly towards a thought-out, engaged and proactive form of giving, which is aimed at accelerating the pace of social change. Donors tend to give at a younger age, to be personally involved in the causes they support, and often in conjunction with friends and family. They wish to understand, to learn and to see the results of their giving. Finally, they are ready to experiment, to try out new approaches and to bring more than just their money to the table. Because of this shift, there are a number of changes that are starting to appear in the philanthropic ecosystem – all of which will become vital in the years ahead.

The first trend, which has actually been slowly taking off in the last decade or so, is a growing pressure on those at the receiving end of donor funds to become more professional, accountable, transparent, and ultimately, more efficient. Donors want to know how their money is being spent, and what impact it is having. Of course, there are certain downsides. Beneficiary organizations often complain about devoting too much time – and too many resources – to writing proposals, filing reports and auditing accounts. While it is true that answering the growing demands of donors means an additional investment, in a world of shrinking philanthropic capital, the adapt or die rule applies. This may be a hurtful process, but it is also an inevitable evolution, which is ultimately more positive than negative. Sadly, however, standards of reporting remain too low – a fact just as true of larger, more established organizations as for smaller, volunteer-based groups.

As always, there is a balance to be struck: if you are giving $200,000 to an organization, the sophistication of reporting you should expect as a donor is correspondingly more than for a oneoff contribution of $200. In either case, however, the donor is entitled to know how the money was used, and what the grant helped to achieve. On the other hand, donors – even enlightened ones – still fail to grasp the importance of funding the operational costs of their beneficiaries. Clearly, this conflicts with demands for professional standards of administration and governance. Slowly but surely, donors will have to understand that in order for an organization to blossom, grow, professionalize and achieve its full potential, it will have to invest in qualified and talented staff, as well as smart fundraising, marketing and capacity building. On average, organizations dedicate approximately 15 percent of their resources for such operational expenses. While this means a portion of donor funds do not always flow directly to a specific project, it ultimately helps to enhance the overall efficiency of the organization, thus allowing for even greater impact.

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by Martina Castro

Clicks and Bricks: Preparing for Continuous Change

2012-11-14T19:29:08Z

What is the new game in town? Out of competing theories and views, there tends to emerge a certain winner, a dominant argument that shapes the entire new paradigm. In a world of diversity and disparate values and social systems, its not always easy to know what this emerging paradigm is. A lot of the times our views on who the winner might be are shaped by our own context and where we live.

What world do you live in? The world has probably always been as varied and multifarious as we find it now. Its population always separated by distance, context and perspective. There always were, and perhaps always will be, technologically advanced and not so advanced societies that co-exist. The crisis of our time though is somewhat different. It almost seems as if post-modernity has only just arrived in its truest sense. Choices about careers, investments, politics and social systems are all a lot more difficult.

As the world transitions towards multi-polarity, the shortcomings of all systems come sharply into focus. As the speed of technological innovation accelerates, skills, careers and products of today will become very rapidly obsolete tomorrow. As capital is attracted to a large spread of commercial centers across the world, and as start-ups and innovations drive economic growth, the world is growing much more competitive. This is probably an era of a million renaissances. As the worldwide web forged a global market, increasing numbers of people began selling their arts, skills, crafts, cultures and products to individuals all over the world, breathing life into many otherwise marginalized or unknown communities.

Despite the incredible variety in the lifestyles of the 7 billion people living on earth, there are at times some seminal events or discoveries that seem to reach across these vast differences and affect the lives of nearly all of us. It isn’t, however, always easy to spot such events in their early stages or to predict what their subsequent effects may be. As an increasing number of people gains access to information and research across the world, several different interpretations are brought to bear on these events. Post-modernity, perhaps by definition, implies a certain ambiguity and plurality of perspective embedded in context specific interpretations of the world, rather than a single monolithic understanding of it.

There are still, however, writers, thinkers and theorists whose views seem to envelop a large swathe of human understanding. Clay Shirky’s views, for instance, on collective human action through enabling technologies better known as ‘crowd sourcing’ is one area that is now seeing incredible growth and activity. Kick Starter – the start-up platform that ‘crowd funds’ creative projects and innovations of aspiring entrepreneurs and originated in the US in 2009 – has already funded US $350 Million in projects as of October 2012, and just launched in the UK last month. ‘Unbound’, a UK-based publishing house, aims to crowd source book publishing by taking away the middleman. Several such projects and start-ups are beginning to render the intermediary actors in entire sectors redundant.

The words and actions of such leading thinkers point to a very significant and rapid change in the way society functions. Yet in the midst of revolutionary ideas and innovations from people such as Paul Graham and Steven Pinker, you still, however, observe the old world views centered in geographic identities and ‘war of civilizations’ type mentalities fighting for survival in the writings of the likes of Niall Ferguson. Nonetheless, the inevitability of change is bound to creep into all our lives and it behooves us to listen and adapt to these changes as individuals, communities and as a society at large.

Happily enough, the developments we are observing are for the better, pointing to a more exciting and promising time ahead. With the corruption and inefficiencies in banking and other leading industries of the 20th century spilling out, the new breed of open-source and crowd sourced businesses is taking over, increasing transparency and leveling the playing field. The online shift of the world economy has opened avenues for growth to those who adapted fastest. However, the next generation of change is already upon us, and a new set of technologies are again on the anvil. We have already transitioned web-based business to mobile platforms resulting in incredible innovations in telephony. But there is a different class of innovations now taking shape.

The inventor Marcin Jacobowski built a tractor in just six days, and made the designs available to everyone. He is now creating a ‘starter kit for civilization,’ which includes simple designs for 50 machines he considers important for modern life. All of these are being made available open-source to unleash the potential for others. He is not alone, however, with this open source philosophy and idea sharing spreading far and wide. Marcin is also not alone in focusing on manufacturing. Time magazine’s best inventions list for 2012 featured, alongside his tractor, a motion-activated screwdriver, solar water distiller, a ‘liquislide’ compound material for aiding fluid flow that can be used in anything ranging from ketchup bottles to airplane wings, self inflating tires, a new space suit design, and James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger Submarine. In sum, the list includes a host of objects that represent innovations in design of physical space. There is an unmistakable trend towards manufacturing and hardware after a burst of software and web-enabled innovations. These developments are transformative and will realign industries and economic power.

According to Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief at Wired and best-selling author, the next significant development will be linked to the democratization of the tools of creation and distribution. At his talk in London for Intelligence Squared, Anderson singled out 3D printing as the next major revolutionary step, which will impact and drive manufacturing over the coming decades. According to Anderson, ten years ago businessmen from developed western countries had to travel half way across the globe to China, network with local officials and obtain permits to have their products manufactured in cheap local factories. Now the same transaction takes a couple of clicks on the Internet through online payment and data sharing services.

The methods of production and the mechanics of doing business internationally have changed dramatically. The global supply chain or ‘factory in the cloud,’ has not only made it easier for Chinese factories to secure overseas contracts, but has also empowered inventors in the West to become entrepreneurs by helping them convert their designs into products, reducing barriers to entry. But that too is now fast becoming par for the course. According to Anderson the game is already set to change once again with the advent of 3D printing, which essentially enables users to print ‘things’ instead of documents at home from their computer. That is, providing the means for individuals to design their own product and ‘manufacture’ it in on their own 3D printer.

While still nascent, the potential impact of this technology on how we consume products, design our physical space and personalize our world is significant. For instance, 3D printing could be a challenge to Chinese dominance of production processes. If spread widely enough, people might design and tailor their products to their own taste and build them at home rather than buying mass-produced goods off a factory floor. In this vein, Anderson wrote in his earlier books Long Tail and Free about the revival of barter and exchange of value over the net, resulting in new rules for finance and economics in the information age. All these developments rupture existing structures, creating space for new ideas and systems.

How far economies go in internalizing these concepts and developments into their social fabric and their culture is pivotal in marking out the main beneficiaries of such developments. While this notion of adapting to the latest technology is not new, the extraordinary rate of progress now is itself a major game changer. Slow moving, entrenched and rigid structures, large corporations and monopolies will find themselves less and less competitive in a world of crowd-sourced solutions, networked start-ups and rapid technological advances. The shifts in global politics, the shifting of economic power, rapid and irresistible technological changes and evolving social and cultural paradigms mean that nimble-footed and adaptive institutions and individuals will lead the way and benefit most from coming changes.

Smaller start-ups and flexible networks rather than large companies, and adaptive individuals rather than commoditized, unresponsive workers are destined to survive better. Flexibility, the ability to start afresh and continuously innovate is the new normal. Given this new set of rules, creating industries that are adaptive and systems that are responsive is the order of the day. It is perhaps not a war of civilizations anymore, but a competition between networks: the wider, broader and nimbler the network, the better the chances of surviving to the next hurdle. Societies that are able to look beyond political and religious identities towards more collaborative and result-oriented associations across the globe will lead the way. That, really, is the new game in town.