There is an entirely different and unavoidable set of overheads for policy groups - conference travel, research for which they need to hire lawyers and economists rather than well meaning college kids (or perhaps, in addition to well meaning college kids..)
My comment was more on service delivery related NGOs - I have yet to see too many corporations funding NGOs to the extent that Google does, but then they have a very active outreach program to organizations that share their policy goals. --srs (iPad) On 10-Apr-2013, at 12:17, Ingrid Srinath <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 10 Apr 2013, at 10:12, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Oh, it depends. There is a tipping point beyond which a charity does need >> to focus on grassroots work rather than on management and logistics. >> >> And before that tipping point is reached, just ramping up staff, processes >> etc to the level where they need sophisticated management and marketing in >> place in order to maintain their current activities, let alone expand, will >> cost them significantly and possibly even distract from the activity they >> are meant to be performing .. service. > > While most charities do focus on service delivery at the grassroots, there > are, of course, those that provide research, training, policy analysis and > such. My experience suggests the best overall impact comes from policy > advocacy by mobilised communities informed by grassroots experience. In > practice that could mean, for instance, supplementing absent or dysfunctional > schools, organising to get state schools to function adequately, using the > data from such interventions to advocate for policy change. In my opinion, > most donors are willing to support the first link in that sequence, not those > that follow, since that's where the feel-good factor is highest. The > subsequent activities are, however, more cost-effective in terms of the scale > of impact. >
