Leveraging Social Entrepreneurship for Development: Strategies to Promote Innovation and Leadership
Posted on 19 March 2010 | 1 response
The next session of the NGOs & Development study group will meet Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 4:00pm in Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1) at the Harvard Kennedy School. This discussion, entitled “Leveraging Social Entrepreneurship for Development: Strategies to Promote Innovation and Leadership”, will be led by Nishith Acharya, Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation.
Humanitarian Horizons: A Practitioners’ Guide to the Future
Posted on 10 March 2010 | No responses
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Vastly more people needing help, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in the slums of the world’s poorest cities. More climate crises, both slow-moving and abrupt. More military involvement in humanitarian work. More political crises of conscience for humanitarian organizations.
More of everything, really – except donors, as population growth stagnates in the wealthy countries that fund most of the world’s humanitarian efforts.
Such is the long-term forecast in Humanitarian Horizons: A Practitioners Guide to the Future. This was a project of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University and the Humanitarian Futures Programme at King’s College, London. It was commissioned by Catholic Relief Services, the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps and other leading NGOs in an attempt to identify trends that might help predict an otherwise unknowable future.
“We’re constantly focusing on the here and now, and delivering assistance today, and we very rarely look up from the workplace to see where we’re going,” says Peter Walker, director of Tufts’ Feinstein International Center and one of the creators of the Practitioners’ Guide.
Navigating Effectiveness
Posted on 9 March 2010 | No responses
In response to this blog’s March 7 invitation of a variety of views on Charity Navigator’s decision to change its rating system (to reflect accountability and outcomes measures in addition to financial metrics like overhead), George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz share their perspective.
George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz
Charity Navigator, the most popular online NGO watchdog agency, is moving ahead with plans to overhaul how it evaluates nonprofits, following persistent criticism of its exclusive reliance on financial ratios like overhead to rate organizations.
Since websites like Charity Navigator influence billions of dollars in charitable giving annually, this will have a significant impact on the not-for profit sector in the United States. While Charity Navigator claims on its website that it is “shining lights on truly effective organizations,” the focus on overhead ratios provides little insight into the actual impact of organizations and creates incentives for nonprofits to misreport financial information rather than improve the effectiveness of their programs.
Research published by the Urban Institute and the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University have shown how rating agencies create incentives for nonprofits to lower and hide overhead costs, which may actually reduce organizational effectiveness by starving organizations of the infrastructure they need to effectively deliver services.
Is Charity Navigator About To Veer Off Course?
Posted on 8 March 2010 | 5 responses
By Steven Lawry
In response to this blog’s invitation of a variety of views on Charity Navigator’s decision to change its rating system (to reflect accountability and outcomes measures in addition to financial metrics like overhead),Steven Lawry provides his perspective on where this move might lead.
Charity Navigator is one of the best known and widely used charity rating services available in the US today. Its current rating system is based on the simple notion that charities committing a greater portion of their budgets to program activities as opposed to fund-raising and administrative costs are likely to have greater impact than those that don’t. As such these charities are judged more deserving of donor support and rated accordingly.
On December 1, 2009, Charity Navigator’s CEO Ken Berger announced plans to expand Charity Navigator’s ratings system to include two additional measures of organizational performance: accountability and outcomes. Is this cause for celebration? Creation of a fair and meaningful ratings system for accountability strikes me as achievable and desirable. But a simple system for rating outcomes is not, in my view, achievable. I worry that Charity Navigator is about to embark on an endeavor that has the potential to over-simplify complex questions of outcome assessment. Questions of financial management and accountability, though they present their own measurement and assessment difficulties, speak more directly to what can realistically be known about the prospects for a charity to be effective and successful.
Charity Navigator’s Proposed Rating System: Thoughts, Anyone?
Posted on 7 March 2010 | 6 responses
By Sherine Jayawickrama
For the past year or so, Charity Navigator (the major US charity rating agency which rates nonprofit organizations on a scale of zero to four stars) has been in the process of overhauling their rating system. After Ken Berger became CEO of Charity Navigator in 2008, he took to heart the criticism that the organization’s rating system did not provide a full and meaningful measure of the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations.
Charity Navigator’s rating system was heavily weighted toward financial measures like overhead and program-to-fundraising expenditures, and it provided no assessment of an organization’s accountability or effectiveness. Especially when it came to nonprofit organizations working in international development and humanitarian relief, this rating system was seriously flawed. However, NGOs realized how much private donors had come to be influenced by the four-star rating system. So most NGOs worked hard – sometimes begrudgingly – to obtain a good rating. NGOs often displayed Charity Navigator’s rating in prominent places on their marketing and fundraising material.
Under Ken Berger’s leadership, Charity Navigator has undertaken a process by which this narrow rating system will be expanded to include measures that seek to provide an assessment of each nonprofit organizaiton’s accountability and transparency systems as well as their effectiveness in terms of program outcomes. The changes underway are explained in this interesting podcast.
Ask What You Can Do: The NGO Path of Public Service
Posted on 6 March 2010 | No responses
By Lakshmi Iyer
Thinking of starting an NGO? Grappling with sustaining an NGO? A discussion with five fellow Kennedy School students who have started NGOs across countries explores lessons learned.
“Ask what you can do…” is the Harvard Kennedy School motto, and most of us at this school have chosen the path of public service after asking ourselves this soul-searching question at some stage in our personal or professional lives.
A handful of us have had the determination, gut and passion to start social initiatives ourselves while some of us have been deliberating the same path. On February 25, I had an opportunity to meet five such passionate Kennedy School students who have started NGOs in countries including India, Brazil, Uganda and Zimbabwe. These five students led the discussion at the NGOs & Development Study Group session on “Establishing and Sustaining an NGO: Successes, Dilemmas and Lessons Learned.”
The four NGOs were in different stages of maturity and had different missions which gave broader perspectives on the topic. Ramaswami Balasubramaniam, a physician who founded the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) as a young medical student 25 years ago, was President and CEO of SVYM which now reaches nearly 5 million people through health, education and community development projects in Karnataka, India. By starting Forgotten Voices International, Ryan Keith helps church leaders in southern Africa to meet physical and spiritual needs of HIV/AIDS orphans through education, home-based care and skill development. Carolina Larriera started up and ran the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI) in Rio de Janeiro which did drug research & development to develop new treatments for neglected diseases. The young Paul Wang and Esther Hsu helped establish TamTam, an NGO that distributes free bednets to help prevent malaria in a cost-effective, evidence-based manner, and conducts operational research to improve the use of bednets worldwide.
So what can a soon-to-be NGO initiator learn from their experiences?
While insatiable passion and a clear mission are critical, there were four highlights that emerged from these diverse experiences:
- Effective internal management is a must. As a founder, you might end up delving into everything from making photo-copies to developing strategic relationships in addition to serving your beneficiaries. Be prepared for that.
- Hiring the right people is vital. Investing time for this process is what all the speakers felt was a must, especially when what you require is a balance of technical skills and human skills. Having the right people is what will give continuity to your organization, in addition to scale.
- You will get better at managing donors with time. Almost all the panelists agreed that when you are starting up, the power imbalances with donors are quite high. On the bright side, as your organization expands, your work speaks for itself, leading to an equal partnership. After all, even the donors want to associate themselves with a credible organization!
- Relationships with other NGOs is essential for larger societal good. Other NGOs with similar missions might seem like competitors for the funding space. However, it is important to keep the passion alive, and develop strong partnerships to avoid duplication of services and promote collaboration to achieve similar goals.
The interactive discussion gave a real picture of what it takes to start and sustain an NGO. It was not only inspiring for those of us who have been thinking of starting NGOs to solve social problems, but also gave us a reality check.
Lakshmi Iyer is a first-year Masters in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Managing Strategy in NGOs: Experiences, Challenges and Useful Tools
Posted on 5 March 2010 | 1 response
The next session of the NGOs & Development study group will meet Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 4:00pm in Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1) at the Harvard Kennedy School. This discussion, entitled “Managing Strategy in NGOs: Experiences, Challenges and Useful Tools”, will be led by Eric Dupree-Walker, Senior Advisor for Strategy and Organizational Development at Plan USA, and George Veth, an expert in corporate performance management.
Eric Dupree-Walker has led strategy and organizational development at Plan USA for two years, and coordinated strategic planning at CARE USA for the previous ten years. She has also served in leadership roles for Habitat for Humanity as well as the Harvard Law School.
George Veth has worked in the corporate performance management field for sixteen years, advising Fortune 500 corporations on management processes and business intelligence tools to support, enhance, and measure the execution of corporate strategy. He is currently pursuing his Mid-career Masters of Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School.
More About the Study Group
The Study Group on NGOs and Development meets biweekly to consider, discuss and debate issues related to emerging paradigms in development, evolving roles of NGOs, and specific management, leadership and governance challenges. The study group brings together interested students, practitioners dealing with these questions in real time, and academics investigating similar questions. The goal is to create a climate for genuine discussion and lively exchange, in which all participants come to the table with a commitment to share, listen and reflect. The study group is a space for building relationships, exchanging ideas and connecting real-world challenges to scholarly study of NGOs and their role in development. Guests will serve as resource people and catalysts of discussion.
To join the study group, contact Balu at ramaswami_balasubramaniam@hks10.harvard.edu .
A Conversation with Peter Eigen, Founder of Transparency International
Posted on 2 March 2010 | No responses
Peter Eigen, Founder of Transparency International from Hauser Center at Harvard on Vimeo.
Interviewed by Balu Balasubramaniam, Mid-Career Fellow at the Hauser Center
for the Humanitarian & Development NGOs Domain of the Hauser Center
Establishing and Sustaining an NGO: Successes, Dilemmas and Lessons Learned
Posted on 19 February 2010 | No responses
The next session of the NGOs & Development Study Group will meet at 4 pm on Thursday, February 25 at Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1). The topic of discussion will be “Establishing and Sustaining an NGO: Successes, Dilemmas and Lessons Learned.”
The session will be an open conversation with five Harvard Kennedy School students who have started up NGOs in countries including India, Brazil, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Ramaswami Balasubramaniam is a physician who founded the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) as a young medical student and became its President and CEO. Twenty five years later, SVYM implements some 60 projects in health, education and community development and reaches nearly 5 million people in the state of Karnataka.
Ryan Keith established Forgotten Voices International to help church leaders in southern Africa to meet the physical and spiritual needs of HIV/AIDS orphans in their communities. Ryan serves as the President of the organization, which focuses on education, home-based care and skill development.
Carolina Larriera started up and ran the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI) in Rio de Janeiro. DNDI is a Swiss-registered NGO which is an offspring of Medicins San Frontieres; it is a nonprofit drug research & development organization focused on developing new treatments for neglected diseases.
Paul Wang and Esther Hsu helped establish TamTam, an NGO that distributes free bednets to help prevent malaria in a cost-effective, evidence-based manner, and conducts operational research to improve the use of bednets worldwide.
This will be a moderated session that will provide each study group attendee a chance to ask about or share their views on: the experience of starting up an NGO and what it takes to sustain different types of NGOs. The study group will focus on discussion and exchange, rather than presentation.
Exploring NGO Legitimacy and Accountability with Professor L. David Brown
Posted on 17 February 2010 | No responses
By George Veth
On February 9, Professor L. David Brown joined the NGOs & Development study group, convened by the Hauser Center, where he led a discussion on “NGOs and the Puzzle of Legitimacy and Accountability”.
To tee up the discussion, he started by pointing out the recent failure of several supposed bastions of trustworthiness in our world. Among others, he noted the controversial hanging chads in U.S. elections and the Catholic priest sex abuse scandals. I would add the UN Oil for Food Programme as another well publicized example of abuse in the world of transnational institutions. Each of these controversies has provoked increased skepticism of the trustworthiness of traditional public institutions (findings supported by Globescan surveys). And NGOs, with their “do good” missions, have not escaped the scrutiny. The question was then posed, “How do NGOs reestablish their place of legitimacy? How do they reinforce a sterling standard of public accountability?” These key questions were the focus of the study group discussion.
Without belaboring the point, a simple definition of both legitimacy and accountability were shared by Professor Brown. He supplied the following basic definitions as a backdrop for the discussion.
Legitimacy – existence and activities recognized as justified and appropriate by wider publics
Accountability – answering for performance results to specific stakeholders
It was an interesting presentation and good questions were posed and discussed. Several thoughts might serve as key takeaways for further online discussion. First, NGOs need to answer to multiple constituencies: donors, Boards, customers, employees, partners, etc Each of these stakeholders demands the organization’s consideration and a negotiated set of performance expectations. Second, a key source of legitimacy comes from shared and upheld values. In addition, civil society organizations get their energy from their stated values and mission. Somehow, these standards need to become a source of accountability between NGOs and their constituents. The idea of industry wide coalitions with common charters and shared accountability measures were highlighted by Professor Brown via a couple of case studies. Third, and not discussed very much because our time ran short, performance measurement systems need to be put in place to bring transparency and dialogue to shared performance expectations. If organizations want legitimacy, they need to maintain an evidence-based dialogue with their constituents. The narrative is vital so that context remains intact to complement quantitative information.
It was a good group meeting but, honestly, it only scratched the surface of a topic that warrants a weeklong conference! Feel free to join the dialogue by responding to this blog or by joining the next study group discussion on Thursday, February 25 at 4.00 pm.
George Veth is a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration (MPA) candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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