Do you know? Take a guess

Most of you probably make some kind of charitable donation in a year, maybe online, maybe as a response to a direct mail appeal or sometimes at the request of a friend who supports that cause. And probably, as with other services you use, you don't really stop and think "How much is this costing me? Wait a minute...costing?? I thought I was making a donation so what's this COST all about!?"

What donors don't realise is that many NGOs (non-profits), including GiveIndia, are intermediaries. We connect people who want to donate, to NGOs and projects that need support.

GiveIndia incurs expenses in our efforts to raise money for NGOs and projects in need, and so does every other fundraising intermediary. Costs for people, for technology, for office space; costs just like any other business, though on a much more frugal level.

Now that you've digested this fact, can you guess what the average cost of fundraising as a percentage is? Basically, how many Rupees does an organisation spend to get a Rs.100 donation?

It is our hope that each one of you reading this, takes a guess by voting on the poll. Do also leave your comments on the blog so that we have an interesting dialogue on this important topic. After all the comments are in, GiveIndia will post a follow-up giving you the inside story on fundraising costs.

So go ahead and take a guess now.

On Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, most of you reading this will do something nice for your mom-- maybe a card, maybe a phone call, perhaps a meal together.

But what will the millions of mothers living in poverty get?

Published in time to commemorate Mother's Day, the Save the Children eighth annual State of the World's Mothers report paints a grim picture of children and mothers in developing nations.  High maternal mortality rates, lack of trained birthing attendants, and the absence of basic medical interventions all add up to 28,000 children under the age of five dying every day.

Amongst the report's five recommendations was the simple but powerful number 2:

Invest in basic, low-cost solutions to save children's lives

How low cost?  Well, for example, the cost of basic antenatal care for 10 women is just Rs. 3140 (US$77).  Or the cost of the delivery of a baby in a clinic is only Rs. 625 (US$15).

GiveIndia offers dozens of ways to help children and the adults who care for them.  We're sure your mother would approve of us and our transparent and efficient ways.  So celebrate your mother by making a gift donation in her name -- your mom's happy and you've changed a life.  It's a win-win idea!

6 doctors for every 10,000 Indians

A recent article by Simon Robinson in TIME magazine highlights the abysmally poor state of health care in India today.

Some alarming statistics from the article:

*  just 43.5% of young children in India are fully immunized

*  only 1 in 10 Indians has any form of health insurance

*  20 million people in India fall below the poverty line every year due to debt from medical expenses

*  there are 6 doctors and 8 nurses for every 10,000 Indians

As Robinson points out, the lack of basic infrastructure in India is heavily contributing to the situation.  Unclean drinking water, no toilets and sewers and substandard housing are major factors in millions of Indians contracting common but deadly diseases.

However, as GiveIndia knows all too well, even a small intervention can greatly change the quality of life for those living in these conditions.  One of our NGOs that works in West Bengal provides low cost sanitary latrines for families living in poverty.  For just Rs 4,800 (US$120) a family can have a clean, safe facility that can make a big difference to their health, not to mention their dignity.

Common materials and Rs 400 (US$10) worth of labour is all it takes to build one of these latrines. The Barman family of eight had a latrine installed in their house and is happy that diarrhea and other gastro-intestinal diseases are no longer frequent visitors to their home.

It may be years or even decades before the massive problems in health care will be resolved. However, some of the big changes may come when all Indians have access to basic sanitation and clean drinking water.  And each one of us can help make that a reality.

Rs50 lac EVERY month!

It's a BIG milestone in a long journey!  But we've made it...the GiveIndia Payroll Giving programme, that we run in partnership with the top companies of India, is now raising Rs50 lac ($125,000) per month !! 

Who are all these Payroll Givers?

Your banker because most of the leading banks are part of the programme

Your customer care executive because most of the leading BPOs are part of the programme

Your news provider because three leading television networks are part of the programme

This list could go on and on because close to 25,000 employees all over India are taking part in this movement to make India better.  Each one, recognising their good fortune, and deciding to share a little bit of that every month to help those with less.

And the movement marches on!

Malnutrition -- quietly destroying the future

John Holmes, the U.N.'s top humanitarian aid official has released a statement saying that global food shortages and higher prices are more likely to cause malnutrition than outright famine, at least in the near term.

"People, particularly those on the lowest incomes, will be eating less and less well," he told a news conference in Geneva.

While it seems like good news that there will not be widespread famine and starvation deaths, malnutrition is as dangerous a problem, one that is silently crippling children.

A report on children and nutrition by UNICEF states:

* Malnourished children are much more likely to die as a result of a common childhood disease than those who are adequately nourished

* In young children, malnutrition dulls motivation and curiosity and reduces play and exploratory activities. These effects, in turn, impair mental and cognitive development by reducing the amount of interaction children have both with their environment, and with those who provide care.

* Robbed of their mental as well as physical potential, malnourished children who live past childhood face diminished futures. They will become adults with lower physical and intellectual abilities, lower levels of productivity and higher levels of chronic illness and disability, often in societies with little economic capacity for even minimal therapeutic and rehabilitative measures.

In a nutshell, children who don’t get the right food at the right age stand the risk of paying for that their WHOLE lives.

Agreed that everyone is feeling the pinch but for more fortunate people, it means sacrificing non-essential expenses to meet the rising cost of essential items. For the poverty stricken, it means not being able to give children the future they deserve.

Feedback reports - a GiveIndia promise to donors

GiveIndia promises donors who donate through us a detailed feedback report of how their money helped change a life. What many people don't realize is that this is a personalised report, as in every feedback features a different beneficiary. So, for example if you donated a cataract operation and your best friend donated a cataract operation, you both wouldn't get the same generic report of how the operation benefited a person in need. No, you would get the story of Mr. xyz and how this operation helped change his life and your best friend would get a feedback report featuring Mrs. abc and how the operation changed her life.

Our partner NGOs are responsible for collecting this information, in many cases along with a photograph of the beneficiary and sending it to GiveIndia. And then we forward it to the donor. In the 2007/8 financial year, the GiveIndia feedback team ensured that 14,000 feedback reports got sent to donors. Pretty amazing, huh?

From time to time we have situations where the NGO doesn't send us timely reports or is no longer partnered with us so doesn't keep their promise about old feedbacks that they still owe us. These "missing" feedbacks are a very small number, less than 1% but that doesn't make them less important to us. The feedback team at GiveIndia, in the last few months, has been conducting a MAJOR exercise to try and get all these overdue feedbacks squared away, and have been fairly successful at sending out dozens of overdue reports.

Just four days ago, Mr. Srikanth Kalisipudi, a donor who got his feedback long after it was due, emailed us. He said "Feedback was good and I really appreciate the team for that. Till now I was thinking the money donated has gone but now after 3 years I got a mail from you saying that the money was utilized for the cause."

So while it is obviously better to be on time than late (and that is what we strive for), it is also better to be late than never. If we didn't send him the report, Mr. Kalisipudi may have always had doubts about GiveIndia and maybe about donating to charitable causes. So, GiveIndia's promise to donors will never be taken lightly; we'll do everything we can to fulfill it.

Push for transparency

CEO of the Resource Alliance, Simon Collings recently gave an interview about NGOs and transparency. Read these excerpts:

Why is it important for NGOs to have accountability and transparency?

It's important for two reasons. First, an NGO looking for financial support is not going to succeed unless it shows evidence of the impact of its work. It has to explain use of funds to donors and funding agencies. A growing trend is that funding agencies are putting increasing pressure on NGOs to make their financial transactions and governance transparent. Second, NGOs exist because they address social problems and work for under-privileged groups. It's important to be accountable to those people too, who are the beneficiaries and will be the ultimate judge.

Why do you encourage NGOs to look for aid from local donors?

Foreign development funding is on the decline. The major focus of the G8 countries is Africa, not countries like India where there are laws and strategic governance in place. Also, if civil society is to become a major force in solving local problems, then local funding has to happen. It strengthens accountability, reduces corruption and increases impact of the development work. Many donors are not confident how their money is used, so here transparency helps gain public support.

You can read the whole interview on the Times of India site, where it first appeared on April 25, 2008.