The social sector's biggest secret - Support Groups

26.6.2007

The Social Sector’s Biggest Secret

Support Groups -- the Props of NGOs in the Future

By Vishal Talreja

25 yr old Milind has a brilliant idea that will transform access to livelihood opportunities for the poor but is facing difficulty figuring out how to form an organization.

Jan Jagriti is a 6-yr old organization; its Director feels that there is a need for an external agency to facilitate the otherwise chaotic process of reviewing its vision and re- strategizing its goals.

Prayavasam is looking for new board members and needs answers for the questions where, who and how.

Unlike the corporate sector that uses support services whenever available, the citizen sector is still grappling with this idea that a lot of their work, especially support services can be outsourced and in the long-run will ensure tremendous cost-savings. Services like accounting, legal structures, fund raising, volunteer management, program delivery and many others can and should be outsourced to support service providers.

Support service providers have existed in India for time immemorial but their importance and need is gaining renewed popularity among the citizen sector. At Dream A Dream, Murray Culshaw Consulting has helped us restructure our board and more recently with helping us expand our Board. Likewise, Institute for Leadership and Institutional Development (ILID) has helped us review our vision and formulate a 3-yr strategic goal for the organization. I Think I Have A Solution (ITIHAS) has helped us with a fundraising campaign and GIVE India has enabled us to reach out to online donors across the world.

Many such support service providers do not come free and charge for their services. However, it has been our experience over the years that the returns for the investment made are far far higher in the long-run. Moreover, it’s like a huge burden taken away from us so we can focus on our core work.

Let’s admit we are not experts at everything that is needed to run an organization. Hence, we in the citizen sector need to learn to outsource and more critically learn to identify areas that can be outsourced.

A successful organization can only be built when it seeks partners. There is a clear management practice required to run an organization in the citizen sector and the earlier we realize this, the faster will we move with our times and embrace large-scale unprecedented success with our work in making this world a better place to live in.