Governance and resource mobilization - the missing link?

APPC’s mission is to promote philanthropy within and into the region, so why hold a conference on ‘Governance, Organizational Effectiveness and the Nonprofit Sector’? The answer lies in the link between good governance and finding resources. APPC Executive Director Rory Tolentino put it in very simple terms: if NGOs are well managed, they will get more resources.

But were the subjects covered really relevant to raising resources? If they were, the connections were rarely spelt out – though APPC board member Barnett Baron also framed the issues very clearly: ‘People give money to charity even in poor Asian countries, so why don’t they give more to NGOs? CBOs that make real contacts with communities and are respected and trusted have been successful in raising money. The test of success is not being able to get a grant from the Asia Foundation or the World Bank but donations from local people.’

Why accountability now?

The answers speakers gave to this question were mostly the standard ones: the growing visibility of NGOs and the huge volume of resources going into the sector; the crisis of legitimacy in other sectors; challenges to the prominent advocacy role some NGOs are adopting; misbehaviour on the part of a few.

Interestingly, no one at a breakout session I attended that looked at the drivers for improved NGO governance mentioned greater ability to raise funds, though greater efficiency and credibility, both of which might help with resource mobilization, were mentioned. Equally, the various steps suggested for improving non-profit governance might in practice have helped with resource mobilization, but the link was never made.

A speaker at another session did, however, talk of communities raising questions about NGO efficiency in delivering services, and yet another spoke of the need to become more effective and generate more financial support. These comments seem to lead straight to the issue of accounting for performance. The lack of explicit focus on resource mobilization perhaps explains why David Bonbright’s presentation of ACCESS, which he hopes will become ‘the world’s first global reporting standard for non-profit, public-benefit organizations seeking social investment’,[1] was never quite part of the conference mainstream, though received with great interest.

NGOs and the state

The role of NGOs vis-a-vis the state was a central theme of the conference. The topic for the opening plenary was ‘Contested Space: The Role of Civil Society’, while the first breakout sessions asked ‘Government: Friend or Foe?’ In a region where countries tend to be state-dominated, many governments are clearly threatened by the growing role of NGOs. Even in a country like Hong Kong, where civil society plays a huge role in welfare provision (CSOs provide 80 per cent of welfare spending, with 90 per cent of funding coming from government subventions), the government doesn’t fund advocacy NGOs.

But, one speaker asked, does an NGO whose mission is to provide health services necessarily have a right to campaign for better government services if the problem is ultimately political, ie a lack of revenue or a low priority given to health? Describing as ‘wonderfully NGO-centred’ the view that NGOs have the right to choose their own stakeholders, prioritize who they are accountable to, choose their own standards, Barnett Baron suggested that we need to pay more attention to the role of non-NGOs in defining NGO accountability.

In any case, should government be funding advocacy? This question was highlighted by Shahnaz Wazir Ali of Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy, who asked: ‘Are NGOs becoming too close to the powerful and moving too far from the powerless as they move to arenas of higher visibility in delivery of services, advocacy and influence on policy? Are they coming too close for comfort?’

What next?

APPC’s expectation is that participants will take ideas back from the conference and initiate discussions on how to improve governance of the sector. APPC itself sponsored five participants from each APPC country, chosen at least partly because of their capacity to catalyse change. Apparently, APPC has some resources to make available to NGOs to work at country level, possibly on advocacy with their own governments.

Did people need more concrete conclusions to take home? Given the breadth of the conference theme and the lack of hard focus on a narrow aspect of it such as its relevance to resource mobilization, it’s not surprising that discussions were wide-ranging and sometime diffuse. Does this matter? Those conversations ‘back home’ might have benefited from a more clearly defined set of issues to address, but there can be little doubt that everyone will go home with something of value.

A final question: if the real action is to happen at country level, what is APPC’s role to be? One thing it plans to do is produce a set of financial standards for non-profits in the Asia Pacific region. These will be sent out for consultation, and the process will end with a conference in India next year.

1 See Alliance, Vol 8, No 2, June 2003.

EVENT APPC Conference
Date 5-7 September
Theme Governance, Organizational Effectiveness and the Nonprofit Sector
Venue Makati City, Philippines