On 10 Apr 2013, at 10:48, Deepak Shenoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Ingrid Srinath > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Deepak, >> >> Here are a couple of devil's advocate scenarios: >> >> Charity J: Spends virtually nothing on donor acquisition, brand building, >> policy advocacy, professional staff, technology or monitoring and >> evaluation. Deploys virtually the entirety of the small sums they collect to >> feed starving children. Saves their lives but does nothing to expand the >> number of lives they can save or to prevent more children from being reduced >> to starvation. >> >> Charity Q: Spends about 50% of their revenues on expanding their donor base, >> auditing programmes to improve effectiveness/efficiency, building knowledge >> on causes of and remedies to poverty. Consequently, reaches greater numbers >> of children with greater effectiveness each year, changes policies that >> cause poverty or prevent its reduction, develops programme innovations that >> are widely replicated by other charities and governments. >> >> Which would you choose to support? Would it be the latter subject to say, a >> 30% cap on 'overheads'? > > But that's what I call the problem with overheads per se. You have to > get more detailed. I have seen brochures from large NGOs and annual > reports printed on very expensive paper. I've seen NGO seniors travel > "J" class on flights, billed to the NGO (non international, in the > late 90s). One of the "building knowledge" pieces involved a sojourn > to Goa for a large number of people in Fort Aguada or some such > resort. This is not great ways to spend money; you might actually > reach more people this way, but it is at a substantially higher cost, > and it might be more efficient forme to find 10s of Charity J's to > spend on. > > I would say that Charity Q is doing a disservice by not substantially > optimizing costs to stay under 20%/30% ranges, or plan to do so in the > near term. I would like to see more efficient spending by them, > instead of just attempting to make the programs they sponsor more > effective. I mean that if you have 10 people in Fort Aguada for a week > at 10K per person per night, to make a program that costs Rs. 50 lakh > more efficient by 10%, you might as well ditch the Aguada trip and > give them the Rs. 6 lakh extra. I'm sure there are NGOS that live extravagantly and waste donor money. Just one caveat on arriving at conclusions on this. The charity I worked for was once offered the use of a fancy beach resort for a workshop at no cost. Random passers by may well have concluded that we were living large at their expense. :) As Deepa says we need more transparency. Fortunately there are no some good initiatives in that direction. These 3 for instance: http://www.giveindia.org/ http://www.guidestarindia.org/About.aspx http://www.credibilityalliance.org/home/accredited_organisations.php as well as organisations like CRY and Dasra which specialise in identifying grassroots NGOs doing the best work and helping them achieve scale. > >> By the way, one simple way to help a charity lower its fundraising costs is >> to pledge long-term support. > > Agreed. Thats why Payroll giving works so well (in the west at least). > There's also a theory that instead of doign the spray and pray you > should find one cause and give enough to do it justice. Like building > one school, funding one old age home etc. >
