What took you so long features - Making philanthropy easy, essential and effective

Written by Neha Mal, Fixer/Mover for the  What Took You So Long Foundation, neha@whattookyousolong.org

Encouraging Philanthropy might be the way forward for NGO’s to secure funds in order to sustain on an organizational rather than simply a project based level. This thought provoking statement is what had us walking into The American Center (Mumbai) where we attended a workshop on how to make philanthropy easy, essential and effective. This event was co-organized by Samhita and The American Center Mumbai. Samhita had recently 
joined the Global India Fund to start up an online platform to encourage philanthropy by creating a credibility framework to verify and list nonprofits on the portal so as to make it easier for donors to identify organizations to support. This was done to fill up a gap, a missing platform of sorts, to connect donors to NGO’s. This talk allowed us to gain a new perspective about how to build new, as well as sustain old relationships between NGO’s and donors and it got us thinking about how this spirit of giving can be encouraged among those individuals who are not yet involved in this movement. The panel consisted of an interesting mix of people from both ends of the funding spectrum. Although the discussion was focused on India and Indians in the US yet we found the basic principles could be applied world over.

Upon sitting in our chairs we knew not what lay ahead of us, the point of discussion was massive and could have proceeded in a number of directions for this reason we were expecting to be overwhelmed with information. On the contrary we were faced with a discussion that was smooth and structured giving us a few of our very own light-bulb moments. The discussion started off with a focus on the donor-NGO relationship and moved onto a more generalized view of how to encourage philanthropy in the general population.

The panel begun by discussing what it is that donors look for when they provide funding to NGO’s. The question of the hour was interestingly approached by the panel members who unanimously agreed that when applying for funding there is no “one size fits all” policy. Most of the speakers strongly advised NGO’s to understand their potential donors and to most importantly check whether donor interests match that of the organizations’. NGO’s often approach individual donors who have the financial ability to provide donations but at a personal level it is very crucial to understand the issues close to the persons heart. For organizational donors from the private sector interests might lie in supporting unique causes, as they may be more concerned with the PR perspective, in this case NGO’s should approach organizations more likely to fund particular projects.

Another deciding factor, which the panel ranked high up in the donors criteria for supporting an organization, was the potential impact that a donors contribution will have. Mr. Noshir Dadrawala (Chief Executive, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy) summed this up in a simplistic and comprehensible manner using the starfish example. In this example Mr. Dadrawala spoke of a boy in Miami who in an effort to save the starfish brought to shore by tides and left to die due to dehydration, walks the shore of Miami every morning picking up and throwing the starfish back to sea. The boy did this every morning only to be noticed one day by a rational scientist who asked the boy what difference were his actions making given that there were millions of starfish to which the boy responded by throwing one in the water and saying see I made a difference. Just as this boy knew what his impact was on saving the starfish so individuals like to know where their hard earned money is being put to use and what impact they are making. Apart from their individual impact donors may also want to know what the organizations’ impact is on a wider scale and thus open communication between organizations and donors is of utmost importance.

By this time we were thinking all this knowledge might be new to some and not so new to others but the next question on our minds was – its all well and good to know how to identify the donors but how to begin approaching them?  Akhil Shahani’s (Director, Kaizen Private Equity) response to this was very informative as he said, “The best way to reach out to a donor is to ask for his advise first, make him your guru and then let him decide to make a donation,” He said that when you approach an individual for money if you go and say I need an x amount of money you might scare him/her away but if you get your foot in the door by asking them for something free namely “advise” (gyan- knowledge) they will be very happy to give you some. Because lets face it who wouldn’t want to be a guru! The purpose of this is according to us is pure genius as in the process you can introduce your cause to the donor in a subtle way.

Another option to approaching donors given by Mr. Noshir Dadrawala was likening fund raising to friend raising. He put forth this concept and said that one should make friends that could be potential donors and get to know them at a personal level thus understanding their interests as well as broadening the funding base rather than restricting it to a few donors. It was interesting to see that broadening the funding base could be understood in terms of–number of donors, as well as quality where funding is not looked at as a one time prospect which funds a single project in a particular point in time but rather as something that keeps the lights on after a project is over so that another project can be started and the organization can sustain.

The discussion about relationships between donors and NGO’s evoked a very interesting question from the audience which was about encouraging collaborations among NGO’s working on similar issues. One of the options discussed was about taking a top down approach as in the case of compulsory Corporate Social Responsibility. This idea was immediately dimmed by the fact that collaborations between NGO’s just like philanthropy from donors needs to be completely voluntary at a personal level. Panel members, some of who were donors themselves agreed that a possible way forward could be for donors to provide incentives for collaboration projects by NGO’s.

There came a point in the discussion when once the core issues of donor-NGO relationships had been discussed, the floor was open to panel members to discuss how to encourage a spirit of philanthropy among individuals and organizations that are not already involved in this movement. The best way recommended by Rajiv Agarwal ( Advertising Consultant) was to promote philanthropy through media such as radio and television and to encourage the spirit of giving . Rajiv said 
“Media has a very important role to make giving cool and essential. Few years ago being green was unheard of but now it is very cool,”.

All in all this was a discussion which helped us wrap our heads around how to build relationships with donors and how to manage donor expectations. It also informed NGO’s about how to have widespread funding sources so that funding moves from the traditional project basis to a more sustainable organizational basis.  The discussion was concluded by an audience member who said the title of this talk definitely showed us that Philanthropy is essential and can be made effective but it is not easy and this was an inspiring note to end on as we know we need to work towards encouraging this very spirit of giving which is what makes us human. We left the talk inspired, informed and ready to make things happen!