For Johar, who drives an innovative primary healthcare programme in 50 villages of Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, SPNM exposed her to radical new thinking and to the challenges — and allures — of scaling. She came away impressed with a new financing mechanism — social impact bonds — that is gaining currency in the West. "The peer conversations were also quite enriching," she says.
Johar was part of a small group of NGO leaders who were at this HBS course courtesy Dasra, a Mumbaibased strategic philanthropy foundation, and Amit Chandra, managing director of Bain Capital Advisors and a philanthropist. "Building abilities to scale is core to our interventions," says Deval Sanghavi of Dasra.
Chandra picked up the entire programme tab and he wants to make it an annual event. It fits into his new giving journey of focusing exclusively on capacities of NGOs after having funded numerous projects in healthcare, education and skills for over a decade. His years of exposure to the Indian social sector have left him with the belief that the sector can reach the next level only if a sustained effort in supporting NGO capacities is made. The development challenges in India are huge. All along we have had a few deeply passionate individuals trying to make a difference on the back of their charisma and some capabilities. This, he says, is not enough.
Capacity Depletion
The trigger for him to set his sights on capacities was the new Companies Act, which mandates companies of a certain size spend 2% of their net profit on corporate social responsibility activities. The impediments are many. Where are the social-sector vehicles to address issues on scale? Do our NGOs even have the mindsets, organisational structures or human capital to forge collaborations with government and corporates on developmental challenges?
Development experts say the situation is grim. "In fact, over the years, there has been a significant capacity depletion of NGOs," says Rajesh Tandon, president of the New Delhibased Participatory Research in Asia. "Capacity building is reduced and equated to mere training programmes." More often than not, the socalled capacities enabled by institutional donors, and even the government, are only about how to spend — keeping books, and adhering to monitoring and other needs of funders.
Support for real capacities, he says, are ignored. The capacity-building ecosystem has been distorted. Perhaps the involvement of professionals and philanthropists from the corporate world, with their hands-on feel of the fundamentals of capacities, may alter the scenario.
Understanding Capacity
The complex nature of capacity building has kept philanthropy away from this space all along. Donors would like their monies to be linked to measurable outputs: number of children in school, litres of water treated, skills and jobs provided, or medicines/services delivered. But how do you measure capacities? It rarely occurs to donors that unless the organisation itself is robust, it will struggle to deliver the goals sought of it. Lending inner strength to an NGO also requires money and support. Even institutional donors prefer to fund programmes and squirm if an NGO seeks money to spend on itself.
The 'invisibility' of capacity is quite galling to most. Answers to questions — is it a learning organisation; how does it relate to other actors; is it endowed with team spirit; is it resilient — can be quite elusive and difficult to pin down. Sometimes, experts say, it's not visible to the organisation itself, leave alone outsiders.
The intangible nature of capacity is implicit in one of the most acceptable definitions of capacity: the ability of a human system to perform, sustain itself and self-renew. Capacities can also be influenced by many factors, including local conditions, resources available, and even by leadership ambitions or the lack of it. "NGO leaders are often heavily constrained by the system and also their own imagination," says Chandra. "We have to break out of this."
Today, in India, there are millions of small NGOs slowly chipping away at huge developmental challenges. The multitude doesn't even have the capacity to absorb a budget above `10 crore. Even Bangladesh has a BRAC, a development organisation with an annual expenditure of $718 million in 2013 (about `4,000 crore) and reaching an estimated 135 million people. It is perhaps the largest NGO in the world. Tandon, though, attributes the growth of BRAC to the political economy typical to Bangladesh.
Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-07/news/54735900_1_ngos-hbs-harvard-business-school
Johar was part of a small group of NGO leaders who were at this HBS course courtesy Dasra, a Mumbaibased strategic philanthropy foundation, and Amit Chandra, managing director of Bain Capital Advisors and a philanthropist. "Building abilities to scale is core to our interventions," says Deval Sanghavi of Dasra.
Chandra picked up the entire programme tab and he wants to make it an annual event. It fits into his new giving journey of focusing exclusively on capacities of NGOs after having funded numerous projects in healthcare, education and skills for over a decade. His years of exposure to the Indian social sector have left him with the belief that the sector can reach the next level only if a sustained effort in supporting NGO capacities is made. The development challenges in India are huge. All along we have had a few deeply passionate individuals trying to make a difference on the back of their charisma and some capabilities. This, he says, is not enough.
Capacity Depletion
The trigger for him to set his sights on capacities was the new Companies Act, which mandates companies of a certain size spend 2% of their net profit on corporate social responsibility activities. The impediments are many. Where are the social-sector vehicles to address issues on scale? Do our NGOs even have the mindsets, organisational structures or human capital to forge collaborations with government and corporates on developmental challenges?
Development experts say the situation is grim. "In fact, over the years, there has been a significant capacity depletion of NGOs," says Rajesh Tandon, president of the New Delhibased Participatory Research in Asia. "Capacity building is reduced and equated to mere training programmes." More often than not, the socalled capacities enabled by institutional donors, and even the government, are only about how to spend — keeping books, and adhering to monitoring and other needs of funders.
Support for real capacities, he says, are ignored. The capacity-building ecosystem has been distorted. Perhaps the involvement of professionals and philanthropists from the corporate world, with their hands-on feel of the fundamentals of capacities, may alter the scenario.
Understanding Capacity
The complex nature of capacity building has kept philanthropy away from this space all along. Donors would like their monies to be linked to measurable outputs: number of children in school, litres of water treated, skills and jobs provided, or medicines/services delivered. But how do you measure capacities? It rarely occurs to donors that unless the organisation itself is robust, it will struggle to deliver the goals sought of it. Lending inner strength to an NGO also requires money and support. Even institutional donors prefer to fund programmes and squirm if an NGO seeks money to spend on itself.
The 'invisibility' of capacity is quite galling to most. Answers to questions — is it a learning organisation; how does it relate to other actors; is it endowed with team spirit; is it resilient — can be quite elusive and difficult to pin down. Sometimes, experts say, it's not visible to the organisation itself, leave alone outsiders.
The intangible nature of capacity is implicit in one of the most acceptable definitions of capacity: the ability of a human system to perform, sustain itself and self-renew. Capacities can also be influenced by many factors, including local conditions, resources available, and even by leadership ambitions or the lack of it. "NGO leaders are often heavily constrained by the system and also their own imagination," says Chandra. "We have to break out of this."
Today, in India, there are millions of small NGOs slowly chipping away at huge developmental challenges. The multitude doesn't even have the capacity to absorb a budget above `10 crore. Even Bangladesh has a BRAC, a development organisation with an annual expenditure of $718 million in 2013 (about `4,000 crore) and reaching an estimated 135 million people. It is perhaps the largest NGO in the world. Tandon, though, attributes the growth of BRAC to the political economy typical to Bangladesh.
Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-07/news/54735900_1_ngos-hbs-harvard-business-school
