Many
make up their mind to start a non-profit non-governmental organization (NPNGO)
with real social intention, while many other did with the intention to make
money with social intention which I think is the most common purpose. The later
does not mean a social entrepreneurship. Someone who doesn’t have any educational
background also makes up this mind for such ideas and gets registered an organisation
just by paying some ten times more than the actual charge of the registration to
someone, a mediator, who does it. This is not the case of only not-so-educated
peoples but even for those who have gained knowledge of social
work/developmental organisations. This happens in both rural and urban across
India and Bihar is not less than none, I guess. And these become uncountable
number of NPNGOs in the registry and around 10 per cent of this is dormant.
Every
organisation (NPNGO) cannot escape from showing annual work report and
financial report at the time of applying for any project fund to donors. For
the beginner organisations are Government, because everything fake and
fabricated is accepted in Government with bribe. I am not using the word
‘maintain’ in place of ‘show’ in the last line because it is not
maintained/kept in mind throughout the year in such an organisation which is
registered in the way mentioned above. They don’t know how to get registered an
NGO by themselves, then maintaining or writing such a work report and financial
report is just next to impossible. For this also they just pay out INR300 to
someone who does this regularly. This has also become a way of money making for
those who write such things- an end product of copy-and-paste. The person will
put something, some works in which every paragraph is one project. Everything has
to be done in fake because for the last couples of years they haven’t done
anything voluntarily for social benefit. There are two worst things which
should not be with any such organisation- they don’t know how to write/ do
documentation and they don’t have the true intention do something for the
benefit of society. These are the two reasons why NGOs of such kind remain as
name only. Some get some governmental projects through bribe or acquaintances.
Let’s assume they have got a project anyhow. This happens! Let’s see what’s next.
The
whole point I want to talk around is documentation. In rural NGOs writing down of
whatever they think and do or documentation, to use the term, is the weakest
point. This is not the case of only rural NGOs but many in urban also. I have
seen three types of NGOs- one which has realised that documentation is the
weakest point but don’t have the skills and knowledge and also understood that
overcoming of which the organisation will grow very fast; second is the one
which has not realised the importance of documentation, don’t have the skills
of documentation and hence don’t feel required so much and thus don’t realised
it as weakness; third is the one which realised the importance of documentation, have the knowledge and skills but not used to
do, may be because they do not taken it as weakness. I grossly take this as
inability to realise the importance and significance of documentation and hence
not the effort to overcome this challenge.
Let’s
talk little bit extensively on the significance of documentation at different
stages of a project. One guy approached me to discuss that his idea of giving
training to farmers for dairy farming. He is not literate but not educated. He
doesn’t have knowledge and skill of documentation. Even when I know well about
his weakness, I asked him to write down his ideas or concept in a piece of
paper in his own language. People conceive writing down is supposed to be done
in English, which is not necessary at all. I asked him to write in Hindi. I
told him to write down why he wants to do, who will directly benefit from the
training, what he want to achieve, what are the things that will required to
conduct the training, what are the cost at each and every task, what things
will tell you have achieved what you wanted to? Additionally I asked him to
write down the how the training is going to be-the model/module of the
training. This is a very simple and unstructured ex-ante project report. Although,
this would be enough for him who don’t have knowledge and skills of
documentation until the phase his project initiates on the ground.
Why I
told him to write down all these is that this will definitely give us a
depiction of the project. Just looking at this anyone can have an overall
concept of the project. Project Managers call this, ex-ante evaluation as Work
Breakdown Structure. This will enable us to see what is wrong, what is left out
and what is okay. You made up small ideas for big thing, these small ideas are
what you written down, otherwise you may forget. Ideas in the mind are always unstructured.
It comes to structure only when you write down. Things done without structure
look unauthentic and unreliable. To get ready a blueprint of the project is
always best idea before execution of the task. It is said that ‘easier said
than done’ so here also ‘easier thought than done’. We assume what we plan
anything in a room is alright, still we get lost in the field, is something not
uncommon.
This
document/write up /ex-ante report is the first phase of documentation. This is
a reference for the execution of the project. Whenever we get lost in field we
look back the blueprint and thus come to the track. This will be used for
monitoring and mid and final evaluation/impact assessment of the project. When
we use the term Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact assessment it is not to get
fear at all. It differs according the size of the project. By monitoring I just
want to mean how well the project is going in all aspect, and by Evaluation/Impact
Assessment (the two terms are not necessary similar) I just want to mean if the
project has achieved what we thought to achieve as written down in ex-ante
project report (/blueprint)? I have mentioned that writing of ex-ante
evaluation/planning of the project helps in writings after initiation of the
ground work and importantly, what really helpful is in final project report documentation.
Once the
project has initiated the objective of documentation is to write the success
stories, achievement case studies, Most Significant Change (MSC) stories. These
writings are the means to showcase the success of the project. These writings
will help to scale up the same project if donor satisfies the project, which is
mostly based on these said writings. Not only for the same project but also
these writings are definitely used to showcase the identity of the NGO. And
thus plays a determining factor of getting new project either in the same
sector or other. Many NGOs remain as it was because of the inability to write
these stuffs.
I have
seen organisations which have done good jobs/projects in the past life of the
organisation but they didn't document anything about the project(s). Now they
feel repentance that they should have done it. They forgot everything now when
they realised and when they need it now which they can use as effective
supporting documents for funding proposals. It is axiom that written document
is the only means of communication to external entities. There is no way escape
from this. Some organisations may get fund without these writing from
Government or other donors is because of bribe they pay or acquaintances they
have in the donor agency. Telling lies is not a sustainable approach of
survival of an organisation, which is quite common in many such organisations I
have been talking about at the beginning.
Once the
importance of documentation is internalised with the managers/owners of the
organisation they can start hunting for resources for documentation, may be
cost and human resource, which I think both are the biggest challenge in small
organisation. This challenge should be sorted out if you want to grow your organisation.
For the small organisation I have been talking about it is a challenge to have
quality staff who can do all these. Therefore, organisation can hire
consultants to do this job of writing/planning, which is only one time
investment. Consultant does not mean expensive highly technically expert
individuals. It differs according to the need and (or) size of the
organisation. By consultant I just want to mean here is the individual who will
just deliver job done in a specific period of time at a mutually agreed cost (/price
for the consultancy). This can be anyone who can do the job. Inviting students
as interns is one good option for these things get done at minimal cost.
I have
the strong believe that once the challenge of a honest documentation is
overcome your organisation will be one of the socially well accepted and socially
recognised, that will (is the reasons to) attract funds in several sectors and
sub-sectors and thus becomes a real change agent.
