Why does it take so long for my feedback?...

...is a question we're asked from time to time by our donors. And so in this post, we thought we'd share how the feedback system works.

Typically you can expect to receive your feedbacks within 6-8 months of having made the transaction. However, the feedback team strives to send you the feedback report of the utilisation of your donation as quickly as is possible.

Currently, the average time that we are taking to send a feedback is about within three months of a donation being made through GiveIndia.

We have given NGOs six months to get back to us for the following reasons:

1. The donation has to be utilised by the NGO for a beneficiary. NGOs may not have beneficiaries readily available at the time that they receive the donation.
2. Some donation options such as those relating to construction of wells, or planting for kitchen gardens require more time.

The process that GiveIndia follows is once a donation has been disbursed, the NGO send us the feedback as per what was committed by them.

These reports are further processed for accuracy, appropriateness , language and formatting. We are currently using a rural BPO for this part of the process.

We receive the formatted reports and then they get sent off to the donor.

We will continue to strive to reduce the time and have incorporated many systems and processes both at our end and the NGOs' that will make this more easily possible.

NGO in-depth | Ashadeep

Tarika Vaswani a GiveIndia team member is working with MoneyLIFE magazine on their Beyond Money column.

In this article, Tarika profiles Ashadeep, a NGO that works with mentally ill women in Assam. Ashadeep is compliant with GiveIndia’s rigorous due diligence and Credibility Alliance’s norms for NGOs.

Like many girls in India, Mitali was married as soon as she reached the legal age. But in a matter of six months, her marriage fell apart and she was divorced. With neither a roof over her head nor anyone to turn to for support, she lost all hope and attempted suicide - not once, but thrice. Soon after her three failed attempts, she started showing signs of abnormal behaviour. Doctors at the Guwahati-based non-profit organisation, Ashadeep, who checked her, realised that she was suffering from manic depression.

Ashadeep’s Day Care & Rehabilitation Centre caters to manic depressives and other mentally ill individuals. It offers counselling and conducts training in living & social skills, and vocational programmes for adults with mental disorders. The Centre acts as a natural rehabilitation space where individuals can regain the skills they had lost due to the devastating effects of mental illness. The focus is on therapy oriented towards re-socialising them, so that they are occupied meaningfully and are ensured a dignified life.

Mitali began to visit this one-of-a-kind day-care centre in North-East

India where she received extensive medical support and also learnt block-printing at the organisation’s sheltered workshop. Individuals in the final stages of rehabilitation learn life skills at this workshop to help them earn a living and regain their self-confidence. This generates income for individuals as well as for Ashadeep which produces pillows, cushions, block-printed clothing, file covers and

other products.

Ashadeep also provided family-level counselling to help Mitali overcome her mood fluctuations. All these efforts have paid off and Mitali leads an independent life today producing block-printed saris and sheets at the workshop and earning her living with dignity.

Ashadeep has been working in the field of mental health since 1996 with a focus on rehabilitating people suffering from mental illnesses. Mukul Goswami, its founder, was a banker until 2001. His traumatic but positive experiences of looking after and rehabilitating his sister suffering from schizophrenia led him to start the organisation. He realised that there were several families like his which needed support and guidance to take care of individuals with schizophrenia. He joined hands with other such families to set up Ashadeep to provide psycho-social rehabilitation to individuals. The organisation’s focus is not just on clinical intervention but in reducing the burden of mental disorders on the lives of patients and their families.

The organisation has grown over the years and now has 28 full-time and nine part-time staff and several volunteers to fulfil its mission. This has meant raising funds to meet its growth needs and to counter inflation. It spent Rs34 lakh in 2006-07. Its income fluctuates - it was Rs42 lakh in 2007 - a good year - and only Rs19 lakh in the previous year. So funds remain a key challenge.

How can you help?

Sponsor food and medicine for one woman for one month, for Rs1,305 or appx US$30

Sponsor a woman's rehabilitation process for Rs9,000 or appx US$215

Thanks to our AMAZING donors

Our last post was the letter from our Director, Venkat, that went out to all our donors and friends. The gist of the letter is that GiveIndia has begun taking an additional contribution of 9.1% for online donations. This contribution will help us meet our running costs and make us self sufficient in the long run.

Naturally there was a bit of trepidation on our part. How would our donors react? Wow is all we have to say! Venkat's letter resulted in close to Rs1 lac in donations and some very kind and supportive letters from our donors.

Read a sampling here:

"This is a great initiative. It ensures you are not overly dependent on any one org/person. Hope GiveIndia continues the good work."
Sourabh

"As a donor through payroll, I would like to increase my monthly contribution. Please let me know how can I do so."
Anil

"I deeply appreciate your efforts to keep constantly in touch, remind us to make the donation to charity of our choice and the following mail makes dealing with you so transparent. It has reinforced my trust in your organisation."
Sandeep

"It is really necessary for you to do so.For people who are going to donate I don't think that will really hamper.

But I did not know that when I planned to donate Rs1000. When i was about to finish, it showed me this message there is a 9.1% addition to that.

To be honest, a fraction of a second I hesitated- normally I dont think too much for Rs.100 but since I did not expect(may be I did not read the site properly) but now onwards I know."
Mahadevan 

"This is acceptable to me. I will continue to lend my support and co-operation to GiveIndia to support the noble cause of supporting the poor and deprived social groups.
Amalesh 

"Good wishes and warm greetings to you. Thanks for your mail. Mother and motherland these two are most precious in anybodys life. I can understand the pain of poor people as I have come through a hard way of life. I am also an Indian, from bangalore and now I have become NRI working at qatar for the past 1 month. I am also a simple middle class family man from Bangalore.

Sir, I will do my best possible help everymonth to GiveIndia. I am waiting for my salary that's all."
Narasimhamurthy

"Thanks very much for the information. It is quite understandable that as an organisation committed to ensuring a smooth and transparent transfer of funds to relevant NGOs, you do have to ensure that your own running costs are met."
Cyrus
 
"Any one associated with a cause will not doubt your intentions. To take it further any one associated with you has done the basic moral check of GiveIndia as an entity. Hence I trust any body participating with you in this cause shall remain with you."
Diwaker

"It feels very glad to be a apart of a dedicated NGO like GiveIndia. I sincerely feel its a very good job from your team."
Rashmi
 
"Keep the good work up. I ensure all my support to the best of my capabilities."
Vivek
 

A new GiveIndia site

The blog has been very quiet of late -- for two reasons -- the author was unavailable to post and GiveIndia has been busy working on a new site.

Way back in May, we asked you to take a guess about the cost of fundraising and conducted a little poll on our site.  More than 50% of the people who responded guessed that the cost of fundraising was between 10 - 20%.  GiveIndia is happy to report that our cost is 9.1%!! 

Read the letter below written by our Director to all our users explaining GiveIndia's costs and a change in how we will go about recovering them:

This mail is to share with you that GiveIndia has migrated to a new website yesterday. While no changes have been made to the look and feel of the site or the user experience, we have made a lot of changes in our backoffice processes to try and improve the quality of service we provide you.

The new site has been designed such that all online donors (except payroll givers), while donating, add a small contribution to help meet GiveIndia's own operating costs. This cost has been kept down to 9.1% of the gross donation (i.e., when you donate Rs110, Rs100 goes to the NGO and donation option you chose). For Payroll Givers using "My Account" as the mode of payment, your company continues to pay this amount to GiveIndia directly, so you don't need to pay this additionally.

This contribution of 9.1% of the donations will help us recover most (but not all) of our operating costs, thus helping GiveIndia get closer to self-sustainability, so that we can continue providing you the support to make your donations to trusted organisations. Do note that even after this, GiveIndia will continue to incur deficits that will be grant-funded. As and when our costs are lower than 9.1%, we are committed to reducing the percentage we retain for ourselves. GiveIndia's financial statements are available online. This includes transparent disclosures of our cost structures, so that you can make an informed judgement on our operations. Our financial statements for 2007-08, which are audited pro bono by Deloitte, are currently under preparation and will be available online by early August 2008.

We would also like to inform you that 9.1% is far below fundraising cost benchmarks anywhere. Most secular International and Indian fundraising agencies spend anywhere between 25-50% of the donation amount on fundraising and advocacy/ promotion. Even websites that offer only a "pure transfer" facility without offering any NGO due diligence/ assurance, or feedback reports on how the donations are used, charge anywhere between 5-15% of the donation amount. We are able to keep our costs relatively low, thanks to a highly committed team of staff that works at a fraction of their "market rates", a large band of very dedicated volunteers, zero outlay on Board members and our deep belief in the need to keep ourselves as "thin" an organisation as possible.

We have chosen to seek contributions for our own costs directly from you, our donors, rather than from some large funding agency. We believe that you, as a valued donor, will continue to "force" us to be as efficient as possible and set higher standards for us than funding agencies would, and we value that pressure.

We look forward to your continued and strong support in our endeavour to get more and more people to give back to society and to support the wonderful work of the organisations listed on our website, while keeping ourselves as thin, transparent, efficient and professional as possible. We need your help in strengthening the culture of "giving", and in providing opportunities to the less fortunate in an India where the gaps continue to widen at a frightening pace.

Please don't hesitate to write to us if you have any questions, doubts or suggestions.

regards
venkat

Venkat Krishnan N.
Director- GiveIndia