Preamble: Interestingly after writing this piece, while at a VANI summit, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia - Dy. Chairman- Planning commission in his keynote address said that NGOs need to become more efficient with money management and should move towards earning their own resources rather than just relying on Government and international Aid and Grants. We agree in part with him as NGOs should become self sustainable and efficient after an initial seed funding grant. NGOs should not make it a business just to make proposals to get grants throughout. NGOs also have a responsibility of involving the citizen as supporters to address the social issues and this is where fundraising from citizens becomes pivotal. Fundraising is not just about money. In fact money is just an incidental. Fundraising is about sensitizing citizens about social involvement and creating a just, caring, humane and responsible citizen community who believe in leading the change by understanding social, issues and getting involved.

NGOs may approach Government and international aid agencies for initial seed grants but grants should not be taken for granted.  NGOs should use initial grants to build long term sustainability by building community involvement and support. The citizen community supporters from amongst the great and burgeoning Indian middle class should be the overall lobby in the long term that drives accountability and transparency even with Government. It’s a simple process. Build an individual supporter base and get government and international aid agencies to match the social investments made by the citizens thus ensuring that citizens drive the accountability not only with NGOs but also with the money we pay as taxpayers which should be used for community welfare. Thus when we heard the Dy. Chairman, we were glad that there is potential synergy as although NGOs should not just rely on Government grants, Government also needs to take steps in the right direction as after all it is the citizens money for community welfare and the citizens should know how its being used well by influencing a policy for matching grants based on citizens social investment through charities for causes thus building what we have termed as a proactive PUBLIC PRIVATE PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP (PPPP) as all money Government spends is the peoples money and is meant to be used for people’s welfare so accountability and transparency to the people is paramount and imperative.

The real situation in the NGO sector: There are over 1.2 million registered NGOs in India. Most of these are paper tigers or NGOs that are only registered on paper and not doing any commendable work for community development or the larger common good. These are NGOs that are registered purely with motives and the mission of siphoning huge government funding and foreign aid that has to come in through State Governments. There is a huge Government NGO nexus and most of the funds never get used for the agenda that the funds are to be used for. The ministry of Social justice and empowerment disburses around 240 crores every year. In a light hearted way bureaucrats with integrity in the ministry say that every minister in the ministry has 10-15 NGOs that are in the names of family members and even the peons in the ministry have 4-5 NGOs. Most ministers and MPs/ MLAs in various states/ cities also have 1 crore given to them that is earmarked purely for development.

However this fund gets used for all other purposes but development. Foreign Aid that comes in through government is huge. For example the big players and bilateral agencies like DFID, USAID, and ECHO come in with millions of GB Pounds, US Dollars and Euros and most of this gets lost in the Government – NGO nexus where no one knows how the grants and funds are being used as there is no accountability. With the kind of aid that has come in over the years poverty in India should have been history years ago but the it only seems to be growing and poverty has become a business for various NGOs/charities. There are agencies now who specialise in mobilising Government grants (and these agencies write to NGOs asking them to use their services for a fee and a kickback to the government officials. This is also happening with people in international aid agencies so its not just GOI bureaucrats who are doing this but also people in the employ of international agencies) as they know people in Government and Aid agencies who will give grants if some paperwork is existing and kickbacks are paid. Various NGOs that have the proviso for giving 100% tax exemption through 35 AC and 35 1 & 2, misuse this proviso for money laundering and tax evasion in collusion with various corporate businesses. There are companies who call NGOs with promises of huge funds (absurd amounts of 100 crores upwards) in exchange for a 100% tax receipt and 50-60% of the moneys to be returned after tax clearance. There are big brand NGOs and charities who are also indulging in this malpractice with creative accounting provided by the big accounting firms who do the audits. The TIMES NOW expose in 2006 showed that more than 1/4th of the NGOs registered in UP were not doing any development work at all but just registered on paper to siphon funds and this holds good for other States in India.

Various research studies have thrown up that just probably 3-5% (Skeptics and the conscientious NGO leaders even feel that this is a high figure and its probably just around 1%) of the registered 1.2 million NGOs are probably doing good work on the ground. These include very few big brand international and national NGOs but mostly includes low profile grass root NGOs that are working with communities directly on the ground that people who want to give have never heard or know of. Research also shows that big brand NGOs have poor efficiency in fund management and administration and marketing cost of donors’ moneys go up to 85- 90% thus depriving the communities of the funds truly donated by compassionate supporters as they receive only 10- 15% (This also happened with the international make poverty history campaign) or lesser than the donated amount and donors are misinformed about the fund deployment with creative accounting and well created reporting that sometimes send pictures of 1 child to over 50 child sponsors. There is a need to address this and that is where ICONGO (CONFEDERATION OF NGOS) steps in.

ICONGO’s mission in a nutshell is to create a collective infrastructure for the 3-5% of NGOs doing good work for community development and other causes. ICONGO as first in the world does not raise funds for itself but raises funds as a facilitator and an advisor only for member NGOs that are pre screened and have to adhere to a credibility rating system. ICONGO is formed by NGOs and is a membership driven institution for the NGO sector like FICCI, CII, NASSCOM or any other apex bodies. ICONGO as a first of its kind positioning in the world does not retain any percentage of funds raised for member’s organisations from individual donors. ICONGO’s focus is to expand the individual donor base for social causes in India which today stands at a dismal 400,000 people compared to the 5 crore tax paying universe. The people who become supporters through ICONGO shall in the long term become the lobby to drive best practices within the NGO sector and also to make government and foreign funding accountable. In Europe and USA all individual donations are matched by government funds thus enabling the individual donor to hold the state accountable along with the charities they have donated to. ICONGO aspires to promote this practice in India. However to do so and introduce a NGO rating system ICONGO needs to give some advantages, benefits and recognition to the NGOs and that’s exactly what we are doing with the collective infrastructure that we are creating and also with the certification program we are creating for NGOs, Corporates and SMEs.

Recognition and the hallmark of trust is very important and the idea is like ISO called TOR- THE OMEGA RATING- to make this certification and recognition very coveted with a transparent process of screening and audit. This would work well for all citizens and donors who want to extend support to social causes as they would now know where they may make their social investments as they do not know which charity is trustworthy and works efficiently with low administration costs.

As a FIRST step we decided that we should do this multi laterally with involvement from various sectors and not just as ICONGO unilaterally. Thus we have created an alliance that would promote this rating and certification program with partners like the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Industry associations like Bombay Chambers of Commerce & Industry, PHD Chambers of Commerce & industry, Retailers Association of India, NASSCOM Foundation and North East Chambers of Commerce & Industry, , FISME (apex body of the SME sector), AIESEC (international student body), CMS, TISS, OpenSpace, National Trust (autonomous body under the patronage of the Ministry of Social justice & Empowerment as knowledge partners. ICONGO with all these multi sectoral coalition partners shall create the process for the rating and certification and promote the same under the aegis of the Ministry. We have brought in 2 international management houses MERCER and GRANT THORNTON and an Indian firm called PROGNOSIS as the external process and validation partners. We would announce this entire program on January 28th 2006 with the conclave and awards.

The GROUND ZERO SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ACTION CONCLAVE KARMAVEER PURASKAR (NATIONAL AWARDS for SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ACTION) shall take place at Delhi on 28th, 29th and 30th of January 2006. We are planning to have the who’s who from India Inc, Government and the Indian Development sector as speakers, VIKRAM AKULA  speaking on community empowerment with sustainable livelihood, students taking on the quota system, NITA AMBANI speaking on holistic school education for children from marginalised communities, AMALA speaking on Animal welfare and cruelty to animals, MIKE PANDEY on wildlife issues, MALLIKA SARABHAI, NAFISA ALI, ARUN MAIRA, ALYQUE PADAMSEE, PROF. ASHOK JHUNJHUNWALA,  ANU AGA and HARSH MANDER talking on a just, humane and responsible society, C K Prahalad talking over a video conference on the base of the pyramid, Dr. Deepak Chopra through video conference on Humanity being the highest religion and various other powerful speakers who shall sensitise people with stimulating thought process and ideas for citizen social action.

We have associated with NDTV as our Official TV partners. BIG FM is our Radio Partner. We also plan to have Asian Age, Business Standard, Indian Express and Tehelka as our print partner and Business world, Outlook, Dataquest, Education World, First Option and Agri as our Official magazines. We have associated with NDTV as our official TV partner. This would be a high profile media event and with this we shall announce the NGO certification program and implement the same before the next conclave and awards in November 2007. This whole initiative would have been impossible without the support and solidarity of Uday Khemka from THE NAND and JEET KHEMKA FOUNDATION who provided all strength to make this vision happen.