Al Hammond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is correct when he observes: > Vickram Crishna offers interesting insights--and I accept that the world > is more complicated and that boundaries are often blurred in practice. > ...[text deleted].. Nonetheless, until recently, few socially-minded > entrepreneurs were starting for-profit businesses aimed at serving the > poor, and few large companies consciously adopted strategies aimed at > low-income markets, and now it is distinctly more than a few--we are > looking, potentially, at a paradigm shift here.
We are on a slippery slope here. In one direction we slide into generalities about what could be. In the other direction we slide into danger. At the core of this discussion is the helping relationship, or more bluntly, the gifting relationship. At the core we are talking about how the "haves" help the "have nots" to reduce the quality of life gap that divides them. The world has a long history of gifting relationships, most built within communities and ranging -in practice- from simple giving to more sensitive joint efforts with all those desirable partnership properties we are so keen to identify as essential. The world has a long history of good (and bad) corporate participation in such efforts, some carried on as charitable "gifting" and some carried on as social entrepreneur efforts. It comes as no surprise that within an era where entrepreneurship is touted, that we have the emergence of NGOs looking to carry out socially progressive business and focus on "social capital" schemes. The driver at the heart of this is no different than that which has been at the heart of utopian community efforts across time. Can we work together and can we do better? There is nothing wrong with the motive, the WHY. The challenges come with the WHAT and HOW. The corporate sector may just want to "Do good", it may be looking to "More markets", or it may be trying to blend both. That is obvious and efforts can be judged as they unfold. What is less obvious but more slippery is the roles for NGOs here. For most NGOs the WHY motive is laudable. The problems arrise with the WHAT and HOW. The core problem for most NGOs is access to resources. The solution, in most cases, is to seek resources from the "haves" to help/work with the "have not's". There are only three ways for NGOs to get resources: 1) seek them as donations; 2) seek them as contracted program/project funds; or 3) act like a business and "grow" them from revenues. The risk here is that the HOW drives the WHAT. This is the problem of what I call "The NGO dance". Simply put, the problem for the NGO is either "Who do you dance with?" or "Who do you dance for?" Dancing WITH and dancing FOR are long recognized as two very different kinds of dance activity. It is worth looking at recent history here. When the United States, addressing the United Nations, identified NGOs as partners in the US effort in Iraq, a noticable shutter went through the NGO community. This, as well as the use of contracted companies for "reconstruction" work in IRAQ, blurred the line between NGOs and others in that tragic situation. There are other factors at work of course, but the safe space for NGO work has been diminished. Blurring the lines is not always useful. Likewise, those NGOs who decide to dance to their own music, by growing revenues from a business model, run the risk of the HOW perverting both the WHAT and the WHY? Sometimes the appropriate reponse to an offer of a helping hand, or a novel internal business strategy, is to say "Thanks but no Thanks." This is frequently the appropriate response for the have nots of the world, and may be the response that NGOs should consider if they wish to remain true to their vision and their mission. Better to be small and part of the solution than to be large and part of the problem. Enter the dance with caution. Sam Lanfranco Distributed Knowledge Project York University ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
