The lakes... where the youth of india go courting...most entertaining as this is most "unIndian" beahviour in public.
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thoughts, commentary and general drivel from my three months working in India for the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy
4 comments:
Hi Chris,
It doesn't look too bad, a bit basic but a least it is colourful and shiny and you have a toilet of your own - sheer luxury and not to be taken lightly!
I'd like to buy you a blow up matress and a battery/electrically powered inflator. If they don't have any camping shops I'll get them over here and send them to you. If you find different options, go for a flock lined one - not for any good reason other than everyone should own something flocked once in their life.
Also, pls post some photos of your shower head and associated pipework to it because I'm facinated and I'll see if I can come up with a solution to get something better than a dripple. Other photos of buildings and people are interesting, and whilst they look lovely and like picture postcards are just not quite as interesting as Indian plumbing.
Bye for now
Burty
Hi Chris
Had some thoughts that I'll throw at you and you can sift through them.
First, I thought that your problem isn't about finding the solutions, but to help them find their own, and do this by finding a few really good ones yourself to inspire them. Give a man a fish...teach a man to fish. So you could find someone or a pair of buddies in the organisation who you can show how to find the next ones.
Also, a way of testing an idea cheaply is needed (shed). My guess is that the IICP has limited resources, and ideas sometimes fail, so being able to test an idea cheaply to see if it flies would be helpful. It would be a disaster if a great idea came along, they sank money into it and then it didn't recover the investment, better to set up a thought process of "can we test this idea out by making someing from string and glue and puttting it out there.."
Raising funds: You are not the first to solve this problem for an NGO. All sorts of charities riase their own money, so we can look to them for inspiration and find/start building a network.
Money collection with tins is a stalwart, and the reason it works is because the person collecting gets their cut. When I've done it at uni, we were getting 18% of the cut. It was set so that you made above average money in a day and made up for poor days.
At xmas and holidays, we see lots of adverts to sponsor animals, give 2 pounds per month, only 1 pound can give a child antibiotics etc. I think the way this is successful is because it's collecting small comfortable amounts of cash from people and they have really low processing overheads. You could contact oxfam or similar to see if it is all done online and what it costs. Also, direct debit is the way forward because we all forget about it (I still have my Youth hostels subscription..) and when you do rememeber to cancel it it's because you've just had money taken from you.
Also, what is IICP better at doing than other organisations. Is it that they have better therapy, better education, can give respite care for carers etc - I'm thinking here of
- only 2 pounds a month means a child is educated and can....etc
- more well off families in india and abroad paying for the best care / education. If your child needs help, what can the IICP do for you in a week's visit with or without your child being there. Can a parent visit and learn some techniques that would transform home life and take some learning aids back with them.
I have to go, but here are some more ideas that I'll come back to..
Are there any foreign charities that might want to hook up with the IICP
Corporate sponsorship
World NGO organising - is there a way of tapping into money here
I heard that charities free airtime in the UK because of TV broadcasting licences - you could get Rita to check if this is true in other countries through brand / marketing contacts
bye for now
Hi, me again. You know me...I'll probably lose interest at some point, but at the moment this has captured my imagination.
Had a look at the IICP website and it's very professional and good at sharing information / offering help, Noticed a couple of things that might be worth thinking about if your approach heads in that direction.
1) When I google "cerebral palsy" they don't come up, but do when I include "India". Their website designer / promoter has done a good job for Indian searchers because they are on the first page but not so for UK. It could be that they do that to keep the costs down, but it could also be that they have not done the metatags (I think) broad enough.
2) Donations page.... It looks like the only way of sending money is cheque only, so not instant or easy enough. Their webdesigner might know how to add it, Scope website allows everything including yearly subscriptions so can always ask them, and if needed I can find out how we do it in one of our companies that uses paypal for Visa and Mastercard payments. (I googled paypal india and it takes about 4% commission on foreign payments)
What's needed?
On the business side, would they share with you the information you'd find on trading profit & loss and the balance sheets so that you can see:-
a) roughly what amount you need to generate to make a difference.
b) an area where help can be something other than money.
- Eg, if they spend a lot on anything we make then help could be to get these at wholesale cost. Also, Unilever is bigger than us in India and head of unilever is Paul Polman who was P&G, then Nestle for short period, then recently to Uni. There will be someone at P&G that has a way in with him to try.
c)if they are in profit, gradual decline or dropping off a cliff.
Another money idea:
You could look at getting donations from other orgs that are already successful in soliciting donations and simply allocate their cash to good causes...
eg
a) http://www.charitablegift.org/index.shtml is one I just found based in US,
b) In the UK the COOP is not for profit and allocates a lot of cash to charity. COOPs are sort of independant regional companies so each works differently. I can find out more about the Lincolnshire one if you want because my mum is on the commitee that allocates money. There must be an umbrella organisation for the country, and maybe other similar organisations.
c) Action Aid are a charity active all over the world and are present in India http://www.actionaid.org/india/index.aspx?PageID=2608 Can IICP become part of their nominated NGOs? I sponsor a child in brazil for 15 pounds a month and I know others that do similar. I think their success is using direct debit and keeping you interested with updates from the child, photos etc, letters etc. IICP would fit with this approach really well.
d) Foundations, eg Bill and Melinda Gates, though a quick look at their page suggests that IICP wouldn't fit any of todays priorities http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grantseeker/Pages/overview.aspx
This one http://www.cafonline.org/default.aspx?page=16781 has just done research in Sep 2008 on how many people give to charity in India and say .... "We are advising more and more individual donors and companies in the BRIC countries who want to support charities." Must be worth an email
e) other Cerebral Palsy organisations around the world. http://www.ucp.org/ is one in the US, SCOPE in the UK, etc. Not sure if this route would get you anything though other than a link on their webpage (which helps you get higher on google searches)
Open source help on a larger scale:
We'd need to ask the right people for support first or we'd get endless emails of "don't use company communication for this..", but I thought that P&G Askme or AG's corner would be a good place to post a question on NGO funding experience. Should be able to net something, even if it is just an email to someone who has worked on something similar. AG or the Askme sponsor would be the ones to ask.
Hope this helps,
Burty
Hi Chris
I've heard of blogs but this is a novel! I thought you went to find yourself and help unfortunates - did not realise it's one big holiday. Enjoy
Allan
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