Tag: Non Profits

Non Profits as Innovation Incubators

Fund Raising is the common concern of start ups and nonprofits. I guess Innovation should be another core strand in that aesthetic. Any venture which is innovative, is not in alignment with the existing structures of commerce and social constructs. Aggregators have clicked because of the convenience it renders to the consumer. They are connectors, and when they started, they were innovative, now they are the status quo, an important characteristic of the status quo is when even the established business class, the traditional mercantile groups globally whether it is the baniya or the east coast jew, or the west coast VC jump in not to solve issues via disruption, as no one does disruption or innovation out of the blue. The vexed matters such as urban homelessness have been around for decades, no one has seen money being made easily. The aggregators have a proof of concept. Lets make sanitation sexy as Jack Sim says. Or let’s make the difficult classy. Innovation works on many hierarchies. Innovation, does not pay upfront, as there is no market. That market has to be curated.

Non Profits are true incubators of disruptive ideas, start ups have a valuation imperative. Non Profit start ups, have funding issues, but they can be a grant magnet very easily once they have built the correct platform. Prasoon Kumar whom i am working with has a great innovative product for the urban homeless, is right up the alley for creating a ripple.

 

Scale or Intellectual Independence: the funding holy grail for non profits

It is a well known fact that non profits and policy thinks alike generate funding from corporate sources to influence the discourse on ideas rather than the normative objective of independent research, which is often spewed about with zero conviction. Nothing is independent if the staffer bills are not paid and the rentals are due. Both the stakeholders are cannot claim to hold the moral ground than consultants and lobbyists.

The reputational capital is compromised; so why maintain the charade?

Fund raising always has strings attached. ‘Please read the T&C carefully’ one does not have to read The New York Times reportage  to be aware of this funder- grantee conflict of interest tangle. Just read out a grant call aloud to understand the politics of development. Oh yes, a grant needs to be filed to study it right?

The only way to retain independence is to self generate revenue or be self funded. The scale is then impacted. Impact should be an outcome and not an indicator. The moral entrepreneurs are no better than the real estate agent around your block.

Trans-national Advocacy Actors: Time to return to core competency?

Recently, there were media reports last month criticizing the Greenpeace Executive who was flying between Brussels and another EU Capital for work every week whereas the commute could be done via a carbon effective route. So, much positive press for being environmentally aggressive on the high seas of the Arctic that Greenpeace is so known for. Last year, the esteemed UK based Charity Oxfam had advertised for an employment position for its Head of Communications with a price-tag of 75K Pounds. Staggering I would contend for a non-profit. But as the tribe of global, corporatized non-profits would retort they need to pay top pound for the best talent in the house. Partially true, but it would certainly not buy sympathy from a college going kid, donating his pocket money to satiate his green conscious. An industry executive whom I to spoke last week was point blank direct in labeling Greenpeace as ‘extortionist’ and questioned about the fuel bills and mobilization costs for the much publicized arctic expeditions. Genuine question indeed raised; which doubts the credibility of the moral entrepreneurship of Greenpeace.
Media Reports of Non Profit Training Seminars in Star Hotels where folks bleed their heart out on poverty while sipping chardonnay is simply not done. Well, one does not have to behave like an acetic, though this does not bring good press to the sector which depends on reputational capital and funder sympathy. Poverty porn creates cynicism and ultimately donor fatigue. In the effort to create ‘Shared-Value’, the non-profit movement has sold its soul to the devil that they so love to mock. The Social Entrepreneurship set-up is commercially not sustainable as there is too little real impact rather than fashionable fluff. They are good souls, but they tend to lose out in the crowd of wannabe do-gooders.
The lack of accountability and transparency in funding as informed by the leaked Indian Governments internal intelligence department report on foreign funding of Activist Non Profits that almost undermined so called developmental progress such as the nuclear power plant in power hungry Tamil Nadu. After Fukushima, the paradigm of risk and nuclear capitalism came to fore and a lot of activists rode the wave against nuclear power. A freshly churned MSF report on developmental interventions in crisis areas indicts non-profits as gunning for funding rather than concentrating on delivering the goods: creating an impact where state actors have failed.
It is time that Non Profits return to their core competence of creating impact, rather than rhetoric and function as true Force Du Resistance in empowering communities to realize their potential.