India is severely hit by Covid's second
wave. The sudden and unforeseen nature of this man-made disaster has exposed
the gaps in the governance process especially in the health sector. The bureaucracy
which lacks socio-technical imagination and innovation has failed in ensuring
efficient use of resources in these tough times. As the crisis deepens and
governance structure collapse due to overload, today India stands on two
often-ignored pillars of soft power to fight the Virus. These pillars are Civil
society network at home and NRI-citizenry abroad. Civil society at home has the
ground network to extend support to the needy people, whereas NRI citizenry has
deep pockets to fund this extension and can mobilize international resources.
As a result, many Indian institutions, alumni networks, and informal groups
have come forward to collaborate with friends abroad in raising funds and using
them to extend help to the needy. As an estimate, there are more than 200 fundraising
campaigns are being run to support this informal collaboration.
Fundraising
is an exercise of crowdsourcing resources through voluntary, and charitable
contributions for a specific cause. The fundraising campaign is a marketing,
and public outreach exercise. However, raising funds is a small step in the
process. The larger issues like how to consume, where to consume etc need clear
answers for effective management of the campaign. I was fortunate
to witness a fundraiser and draw some lessons from it. Below I list some of my
lessons.
1.
Team: No man can run the whole orchestra alone. One needs a team. First, the
team should be of the people who strongly believe in the social cause.
Otherwise, campaign fatigue may result in attrition. Second, the team should
have a strong networking capacity so that maximum impact outreach could happen.
Third, the team should set a common code/norms about campaign pitch, how, what,
and where of fund usage. The absence of a common code of conduct and
ethical-operational value statement will certainly result in internal
bickering. Fourth, the team should have a clear understanding of the roles
and responsibilities of each person. For instance, who is going to be the face
of the campaign is often a flashpoint of ego conflicts.
2.
Campaign pitch: Donors often contribute to the campaign for three reasons.
First, Donors believe in the social cause. This leads to the question of why
should they contribute to this campaign? Second, Donors believe in the fundraising
team. This is a prominent reason for small fundraisers which has less media and
marketing coverage. Third. Donors believe in the ethical end-use of money. For
this, donors need to be told about the complete plan of fundraising and consumption.
Hence, the fundraising team should decide beforehand about the complete
operational process of consumption of resources to the last detail and should
provide regular updates to the donors. Else there is a big question on
leadership, accountability, and transparency. Even from a donor perspective,
mere donation of the money is a lame approach to help. The real fight is
against the governance breakdown hence, establishing accountability for the
donated money is essential.
3.
End-use: The criteria of a successful campaign is not about how much money was
raised and how beautiful was the pitch. Rather it is about how effectively
funds were used. How well the funds helped in addressing the problem at the grassroots.
In this perspective, the idea of where and how to use the fund is critical for
evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign. Three principles help here.
First, one should know the precedence of duty. The foremost duty of a fundraiser
is to the social cause, then to the donors, and lastly to the needy. Everyone
else is immaterial. Second, Fundraisers should know the key problem they are
trying to solve and how is it going to help in the crisis. For instance, in
Covid, the crisis is of Governance of resources and not of money. Hence giving
away money to last-mile connectivity providers may not be as effective as
setting up your own channel of Governance. Third, on basis of a common
understanding and common cause, people should devise clear broad criteria about
the usage of funds. Any such criteria listing should leave scope for last-mile
variations. This outlining the criteria for end-use and process of governance
of funds should happen before pitching to donors. Fourth, transparency,
accountability and last-mile use of funds should be clearly visible to the
donors as well as fundraisers. This is what brings the true joy, satisfaction,
and feeling that "we made the difference".
Hence
in summary.
Do's
1.
Have a team that believes in the social cause.
2.
Have a common code of conduct, do's and don't, and broader contours of the
campaign.
3.
Be transparent and accountable to the donors.
4.
Know about the end-use and full operation of funds before starting the
campaign.
5.
Know the answer to "why my campaign"?
6.
Assign each person's roles and clearly communicate it
7.
Have a vision and intent towards the cause.
8.
Know the terms and conditions of usage beforehand.
9.
Keep people with high EQ and SQ in the team, people who understand the
grassroots.
10.
Know the process of decision-making. Have mentors, neutral people with no
vested interest, and larger-than-life vision.
11.
Be a leader, know the conflict points in advance, work collectively to diffuse
them, build trust and avoid groupism.
Don't
1.
Do not be whimsical and authoritative in the use of funds. When in conflict,
refer to the code.
2.
Do not let secondary motives supersede your primary motives. In case of
conflicts, either leave the campaign or leave the secondary motive. Some people
have secondary motives like testing their network strength, increasing their
PR, benefitting their own organization, fame, and recognition, finding business
out of it.
3.
Do not bring your personal biases, prejudices and lack of understanding come in
between.
4.
Do not mix the need of immediate social cause with post-crisis plans. This
delays the deployment of resources and golden hour intervention. Understand the
crisis.
5.
Do not hurry up. Fundraising is not the only way to help people.
6.
Do not confuse leadership as authoritarianism or a one-man army.
7.
Do not consider one task as supreme to the other. Like fundraising as supreme
to procurement etc. Do not demean anyone's contribution.
8.
Do not consider fund management as a corporate management exercise. Understand
the social perspective.
9.
Do not play politics.
In
the event of a conflict
1.
Ask yourself why did you join? The answer can not be abstract. It has to be
detailed to know the hidden unconscious motives. If such secondary
motives are there, then better accept them and be open about them.
2.
When in doubt, go back to donors. There is no shame. If not everyone then at
least some of them.
3.
Evaluate things in the social context with deeper social understanding. For
instance, as soon as the money hits the account, people start treating the
seeker organizations as a subject. Campaign team often forgets that they hold
the money in a fiduciary capacity.
4.
If you can't use the money then better return it.
5.
Respect the last mile connectivity providers and take their views into account.
6.
Most importantly, Trust. Most people donated money to campaign out of trust. So
when the campaign sub-loan the funds, trust the smaller organization or
the needy.
7.
Dig within. Know the limits of rationality.
8.
Evaluate everything on the ethical benchmark of transparency and accountability
of fund usage.
9.
Accept the fact that some wastage, irrational use, etc are bound to
occur.
10.
Never say no to anyone seeking funds as long as they are not making a profit
out of it. Division of chunk should be decided as per the pre-agreed
criteria.
Goodbye.
