Sports today has become very competitive. At the end, what matters is winning and winning at any cost. So much hype has destroed the very nature and purpose of sports.
If we look at the jingoism that cricket has trigered, one really feels sad. We Ranchites were ashamed that a group of young hooligan threw beer and whisky bottles at Shahid Albert Ekka's statue and damaging it. Came to know that at the final, people were saying after beating muslim sena, our Ran sena is going to beat Ravana sena! I found it utterly disgraceful.
The nature of the sports has changed totally. Is sports not supposed to bring countries, culture and people together? It's another matter that history repeated itslelf in winning the cup after 28 yrs! Its truly a joyous moment for the entire nation that has so little for the larger samaj to come together for a common cause! One understands, great divides and fractures in our society, accentuated by poverty, misery, injustice - such moments of fanatic exhilerations in this context, can be equated with the high that one derives from opium. Sports has therefore become like religion. If not appreciated and followed in its true spirit, it can make people as fanatic as religion!!!
It is important that we keep sports as sports and cricket as cricket, and not a weapon of spreading hatred and violence. It will be truly a great day when we learn to celebrate a win, howsoever great it might be and accept defeat even if its by the worst margin, equally gracefully. After all only one side can win, evn when there is kante ka takkar and there is no formula that someone's winning streak will continue for ever. There is joy in both winning and playing well but not winning.
4/1/11
Thinking About Social Change Philanthropy in India
Historical wealth has been created in the country in recent times. Burgeoing Indian middle class has attracted best MNCs to India, for hugely expanding their market for best global brands. Yet efforts in raising funds for social transformative work has not gone too far in India, despite the Indian tradition of philanthropic giving. There seems to be a dichotomy here. While it is commonly understood that wealth should serve larger purpose of social good, philanthropy has to self-driven, spontaneous and free flowing.
My thoughts are largely based on experiences of National Foundation for India (NFI) in trying to raise money from the corporate sector and the members of the public, specially high net worth individuals and the middle class for strengthening civil society by improvin social relations at the ground. NFI promotes long-term development initiatives at the grassroots, to address poverty and inequity. NFI's grants and fellowships are under seven thematic areas: elementary education, community health, livelihoods security, peace and justice, local governance, citizens and society and development journalism. In its work, NFI strives to follow four cross cutting principles namely, participation in development, gender equity and justice, institution building and knowledge building.
NFI is working for close to two decades mostly focusing in the poverty endemic eastern and northeastern states. NFI's approach of supporting long term social transformative work for addressing issues of poverty and inequity in the Indian society, even though at a small scale has a lot of value in the present Indian context where development agenda is overcharged by rights discourse. Whereas, there is no gainsaying that constitutionally guaranted entitlements is a necessary pre-condtion for socio-economic equity, provisionisng itself is not a sufficient condition. Evidence of failure of State driven scematic development in the country. While political rights have to an extent made or democracy run, structural inequities of Indian society has widened social and economic divide. Strengthening institutions of common people and through this catalyzing particpatory development could essentially provide the ground for a stronger social democracy and economic equity.
Apart from deriving income from a small corpus fund, NFI also tries and raises funds from donor institutions, individuals and corporate sector for its work. The strength of NFI's social transformative work also limits in some respect its options for raising money from the corporate sector and members of public, specially middle class and high net worth individuals (HNWs). CRY and Helpage like organizations, also raise money from individuals and the corporate sector with much stronger brand appeal. CRY is seen as an organization focused on child development and Helpage on the issues of old age. NFI on the other hand was created with a larger purpose to strengthen institutions of civil society on the ground for addressing structural issues, such as endemic poverty and social inequity with focus on disadvantaged and marginalized citizens such as women, schedule castes and tribe and minorities and simultaneously aspire to inform and shape public consciousness about such work.
Tangible part of NFI's work includes schooling projects for first generation school goers, building knowledge and understanding of women and marginalized on community health issues, improving their awareness to health and other development schemes meant for their welfare, it includes projects for strengthening livelihoods and so on and so forth. Realization of these outcomes require catalyzing a change process for empowering communities, through sustained dialogues and conversations, knowledge and resource sharing and by developing inclusive platforms or local institutions that could help communities to question inequity in social and gender relations, cutting corners for individual gains and also their spectatorship when community and social norms are violated. The efforts aim at enabling common people gain agency for transformative action. However, exact path and outcomes for such processes are context specific, complex and difficult to predict.
NFI's founders had felt that opening up of Indian economy and liberalization will create an environment wherein more and more people of our country, specially the high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and middle class will like to contribute for transformative work on the ground. Various experiences of NFI and others and studies suggest, in India where there is some tradition of philanthropy, the value of philanthropic giving for social change through professionally managed institutions such as NFI, has not yet developed. For a long time now, corporate sector in India is involved in the development of the disadvantaged in various ways, the most prominent among these, is giving donations through company owned and managed implementing agencies, which also compete for the same pool of funding as other voluntary development agencies.
Fewer examples of arm length corporate philanthropy that exists in India, are mostly marked by a strong techno-managerial approach, narrowly defined, tangible and short term agendas, which compromise the scope of grants in questioning and addressing deeper structural issues both at the community and discourse level. CAF’s model is an example, which has done well in facilitating corporate support for development projects on the ground, has not been able to persuade long-term and more holistic support.
NFI tried various ways of engaging with the middle class and HNWIs from the beginning. All efforts by NFI including efforts of its most eminent founders and Board members in raising money from Indian middle class, the HNWIs and corporate sector so far has not yielded significantly. NFI tried to raise money from public through campaigns like say no to poly bag and campaign against firecracker in its initail years and through the middle of the last decade. Money raised through such campaigns did not fully cover the costs of these campaigns, let alone creating a surplus. Dedicated fund raising officer worked with NFI team and external experts, however, very little programmatic funds could be generated from individuals and corporate sector.
The experience drove NFI to think of exploring other options for raising funds to grow a critical mass of work in accordance to its broader mandate of social change work. It was felt, presence of a body of work on the ground, would help to evoke larger public appeal. Initial efforts of raising programmatic funds were more opportunist but slowly as NFI’s work started taking deeper roots, it was able to convince institutional donors to give institutional grants in the areas of common interest, which over a period of time enhanced NFI’s visibility in the sector and among donors’ community. Despite the slump in 2007 and 08, it seems NFI is again riding the tide, as some institutional donors are showing confindence in its ability bility to catalyse development initaitives and nurture voluntary organizations in remote and far off parts of the country.
On a parallel track, NFI’s simultaneous efforts to create grounds for engaging middle class and HNWIs peaked in mid 2007 when NFI developed a strategic fundraising communication plan with professional help from fundraisng consultants. A major part of the exercise involved mapping different categories of donors, developing an active database across these categories and developing communication plan specific to each category. Although momentum built through these communication efforts have peaked, significant outcome in terms of actual money raised, is still awaited.
NFI also carried out an endowment feasibility study that allowed us to understand the giving climate in some big cities of the country, with a focus to understand perceptions of HNWIs, existing private philanthropists and institutional donors about giving endowment grants to institutions such as NFI. The study suggests that philanthropic giving for social change and in particular endowment giving in favor of NFI like institution is not an established phenomenon.
Often times, philanthropic giving by trusts and private philanthropists is shaped by personal considerations rather than professional understanding of development. Only very few well established large trusts apply rigours in grantmaking and have an understanding of the concept of endowment grants. Yet they would be very reluctant to give such grants even to an institutions which they know well though they gave such grants in recent past to many NGOs and institutions.
In recent past, we also developed 'friends of NFI' and tied up with restaurants for promoting individual giving. We took help of an agency with experience of advising corporate entities on their CSR, to package and sell photographs of our projects taken by a well established photojournalist. These photographs endorsed with short comments by some eminent personalities, such as Ratan Tata, Shyam Benegal, Mallika Sarabhai, Sharmila Tagore and the likes. Although contacts were made with about 100 corporate organizations we could sell only few photographs.
The biggest challenge therefore, for the voluntary social sector, in particular for an independent, national, professionally managed grant making body as NFI, is to find meaningful ways of engaging potential and established philanthropists. Howver, there is an opportunity for building environment for philanthropy with holistic social change work by going beyond techno-magerial frame of mind, with the help from philanthropic pionners of the likes of Rohini Nilekani and Ajim Premji. Veteran among private philanthropists, the Tatas reposnded meaningfully to a range of philanthropic possibilities by bringing professionalim, deep understanding of the country and a truly pioneering nation building vison. The tradition continues though the broadness of the vison has taken as setback with over emphasis on tencho managerial outocmes.
Philanthropy for social justice also needs to be studied as an academic disipline in development studies and managment isntitutions. A beginning can be made if NFI like orgnisation could take a lead in convening a series of round tables with emerging philanthropists in India with a purpose to share with them real experiences of development. Such efforts taken up nationally could go a ong way in connecting two ends of our civil society. At one end are those who have the wealth and at the other end of the spectrum, who are cut out from civil society and development discourse altogether.
My thoughts are largely based on experiences of National Foundation for India (NFI) in trying to raise money from the corporate sector and the members of the public, specially high net worth individuals and the middle class for strengthening civil society by improvin social relations at the ground. NFI promotes long-term development initiatives at the grassroots, to address poverty and inequity. NFI's grants and fellowships are under seven thematic areas: elementary education, community health, livelihoods security, peace and justice, local governance, citizens and society and development journalism. In its work, NFI strives to follow four cross cutting principles namely, participation in development, gender equity and justice, institution building and knowledge building.
NFI is working for close to two decades mostly focusing in the poverty endemic eastern and northeastern states. NFI's approach of supporting long term social transformative work for addressing issues of poverty and inequity in the Indian society, even though at a small scale has a lot of value in the present Indian context where development agenda is overcharged by rights discourse. Whereas, there is no gainsaying that constitutionally guaranted entitlements is a necessary pre-condtion for socio-economic equity, provisionisng itself is not a sufficient condition. Evidence of failure of State driven scematic development in the country. While political rights have to an extent made or democracy run, structural inequities of Indian society has widened social and economic divide. Strengthening institutions of common people and through this catalyzing particpatory development could essentially provide the ground for a stronger social democracy and economic equity.
Apart from deriving income from a small corpus fund, NFI also tries and raises funds from donor institutions, individuals and corporate sector for its work. The strength of NFI's social transformative work also limits in some respect its options for raising money from the corporate sector and members of public, specially middle class and high net worth individuals (HNWs). CRY and Helpage like organizations, also raise money from individuals and the corporate sector with much stronger brand appeal. CRY is seen as an organization focused on child development and Helpage on the issues of old age. NFI on the other hand was created with a larger purpose to strengthen institutions of civil society on the ground for addressing structural issues, such as endemic poverty and social inequity with focus on disadvantaged and marginalized citizens such as women, schedule castes and tribe and minorities and simultaneously aspire to inform and shape public consciousness about such work.
Tangible part of NFI's work includes schooling projects for first generation school goers, building knowledge and understanding of women and marginalized on community health issues, improving their awareness to health and other development schemes meant for their welfare, it includes projects for strengthening livelihoods and so on and so forth. Realization of these outcomes require catalyzing a change process for empowering communities, through sustained dialogues and conversations, knowledge and resource sharing and by developing inclusive platforms or local institutions that could help communities to question inequity in social and gender relations, cutting corners for individual gains and also their spectatorship when community and social norms are violated. The efforts aim at enabling common people gain agency for transformative action. However, exact path and outcomes for such processes are context specific, complex and difficult to predict.
NFI's founders had felt that opening up of Indian economy and liberalization will create an environment wherein more and more people of our country, specially the high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and middle class will like to contribute for transformative work on the ground. Various experiences of NFI and others and studies suggest, in India where there is some tradition of philanthropy, the value of philanthropic giving for social change through professionally managed institutions such as NFI, has not yet developed. For a long time now, corporate sector in India is involved in the development of the disadvantaged in various ways, the most prominent among these, is giving donations through company owned and managed implementing agencies, which also compete for the same pool of funding as other voluntary development agencies.
Fewer examples of arm length corporate philanthropy that exists in India, are mostly marked by a strong techno-managerial approach, narrowly defined, tangible and short term agendas, which compromise the scope of grants in questioning and addressing deeper structural issues both at the community and discourse level. CAF’s model is an example, which has done well in facilitating corporate support for development projects on the ground, has not been able to persuade long-term and more holistic support.
NFI tried various ways of engaging with the middle class and HNWIs from the beginning. All efforts by NFI including efforts of its most eminent founders and Board members in raising money from Indian middle class, the HNWIs and corporate sector so far has not yielded significantly. NFI tried to raise money from public through campaigns like say no to poly bag and campaign against firecracker in its initail years and through the middle of the last decade. Money raised through such campaigns did not fully cover the costs of these campaigns, let alone creating a surplus. Dedicated fund raising officer worked with NFI team and external experts, however, very little programmatic funds could be generated from individuals and corporate sector.
The experience drove NFI to think of exploring other options for raising funds to grow a critical mass of work in accordance to its broader mandate of social change work. It was felt, presence of a body of work on the ground, would help to evoke larger public appeal. Initial efforts of raising programmatic funds were more opportunist but slowly as NFI’s work started taking deeper roots, it was able to convince institutional donors to give institutional grants in the areas of common interest, which over a period of time enhanced NFI’s visibility in the sector and among donors’ community. Despite the slump in 2007 and 08, it seems NFI is again riding the tide, as some institutional donors are showing confindence in its ability bility to catalyse development initaitives and nurture voluntary organizations in remote and far off parts of the country.
On a parallel track, NFI’s simultaneous efforts to create grounds for engaging middle class and HNWIs peaked in mid 2007 when NFI developed a strategic fundraising communication plan with professional help from fundraisng consultants. A major part of the exercise involved mapping different categories of donors, developing an active database across these categories and developing communication plan specific to each category. Although momentum built through these communication efforts have peaked, significant outcome in terms of actual money raised, is still awaited.
NFI also carried out an endowment feasibility study that allowed us to understand the giving climate in some big cities of the country, with a focus to understand perceptions of HNWIs, existing private philanthropists and institutional donors about giving endowment grants to institutions such as NFI. The study suggests that philanthropic giving for social change and in particular endowment giving in favor of NFI like institution is not an established phenomenon.
Often times, philanthropic giving by trusts and private philanthropists is shaped by personal considerations rather than professional understanding of development. Only very few well established large trusts apply rigours in grantmaking and have an understanding of the concept of endowment grants. Yet they would be very reluctant to give such grants even to an institutions which they know well though they gave such grants in recent past to many NGOs and institutions.
In recent past, we also developed 'friends of NFI' and tied up with restaurants for promoting individual giving. We took help of an agency with experience of advising corporate entities on their CSR, to package and sell photographs of our projects taken by a well established photojournalist. These photographs endorsed with short comments by some eminent personalities, such as Ratan Tata, Shyam Benegal, Mallika Sarabhai, Sharmila Tagore and the likes. Although contacts were made with about 100 corporate organizations we could sell only few photographs.
The biggest challenge therefore, for the voluntary social sector, in particular for an independent, national, professionally managed grant making body as NFI, is to find meaningful ways of engaging potential and established philanthropists. Howver, there is an opportunity for building environment for philanthropy with holistic social change work by going beyond techno-magerial frame of mind, with the help from philanthropic pionners of the likes of Rohini Nilekani and Ajim Premji. Veteran among private philanthropists, the Tatas reposnded meaningfully to a range of philanthropic possibilities by bringing professionalim, deep understanding of the country and a truly pioneering nation building vison. The tradition continues though the broadness of the vison has taken as setback with over emphasis on tencho managerial outocmes.
Philanthropy for social justice also needs to be studied as an academic disipline in development studies and managment isntitutions. A beginning can be made if NFI like orgnisation could take a lead in convening a series of round tables with emerging philanthropists in India with a purpose to share with them real experiences of development. Such efforts taken up nationally could go a ong way in connecting two ends of our civil society. At one end are those who have the wealth and at the other end of the spectrum, who are cut out from civil society and development discourse altogether.
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