On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Ingrid Srinath <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 22 Mar 2013, at 17:46, Pranesh Prakash <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 6:56 AM, Ingrid SrinathThanks, Pranesh. > > Tax exemption aside, the expectation that an organisation can be viable > and grow to scale when it's not permitted to: > > accumulate reserves > incur debt > invest in people, technology, marketing > or take risks > > especially when these organisations exist to tackle the nasty, intractable > problems that both state and market have failed at, seems to me > unreasonable. > > But then how different are you from the market if you end up being a for-profit organization ? I dont know what the point of the video is, maybe my perspective is skewed ... since such for-profit corporations already exist in the charity sector in a massive scale. For e.g. the way USAID funded projects are implemented in developing countries is via large framework contracts which get awarded to for-profit companies. EuropeAID has been moving towards this model too ... (you don't have to look beyond companies like chemonics, european dynamics, c.t.g global etc ... ). In conflict / post-conflict zones such companies make huge killings ... I saw this first hand in the congo ... and more recently take Somalia where everything from security infrastructure (think armored cars ) to IT services (think email ) is contracted to one party by the United Nations... so you end up in ridiculous situations where the contracted company insists everyone has to use an armored car to move from point A to point B (since it gets billed $1500 / hour ) - and they use local handlers to operate the security apparatus (who are militia themselves ! ) > OTOH, the reductionist overhead:revenue ratio as a metric of > 'deservingness' is, I believe, as much a consequence of the sector's > failure to provide plausible alternatives, and its willingness to play the > ratio game, as it is of the need for a one-size-fits-all comparator. > > Is there a good norm, for instance, on remuneration or incentives? > Benchmarking to private or public sector equivalents, seems to me to, at > best, set limits. Current practice limits entry to those who can afford it, > either because they have other sources of income/support or are willing to > make some stark lifestyle choices for themselves and their families. > > The perverse donor logic that success must be penalised by favouring > organisations that are smaller, less 'savvy' is another bugbear. > > Most critically, as regular citizens, how do we propose to sustain an > independent public sphere - media, civil society, regulation - free from > the control of state and market and/or dependence on the whims of big > philanthropy? Especially when it is clear that poor governance is at the > root of most, if not all, our current crises? > > The growing trend towards crowdfunding privileges the short-term, easily > measured, simply communicated, emotional appeal over the boring, unsexy, > long-term work that yields systemic or structural change. > > Recent developments - media regulation in the UK, the new constraints of > India's proposed direct tax code, the debate around mandatory CSR, and the > ongoing battle for freedoms of expression, assembly and association around > the world - make these questions more urgent than ever. > > - Ingrid > > > >
