Alliance Online - July 2006

Interview with Venkat Krishnan and Pushpa Singh
Creating a philanthropy exchange in India

Founded in 2000, GiveIndia is an Indian NGO dedicated to promoting giving and greater transparency and accountability in the voluntary sector. Five years on, GiveIndia has established a role as a broker between would-be donors and Indian NGOs, offering, among other things, an online donation facility and a payroll giving scheme. But there are changes under way at GiveIndia: changes in personnel, changes in emphasis, and a new partnership with GuideStar. Caroline Hartnell talked to GiveIndia's founder and director, Venkat Krishnan, and the new Chief Operating Officer, Pushpa Aman Singh, about the changes and what they will mean both for the organization and for the Indian voluntary sector.

CH: I gather that Pushpa is now Chief Operating Officer of GiveIndia. When did that happen?

VK: The transition is still happening and will probably take a few months to happen completely.

CH: Why is it such a long process? What does it involve and what will the end result be?

PAS: To a large extent the transition will be complete when I begin to devote all my time to this new role. I will focus on formalizing planning and review mechanisms, invest more in automation of processes, etc, to prepare us for growth at a faster pace.

VK: There is also the matter of getting new people in place to take over Pushpa's earlier roles. Getting good people to work in the non-profit sector is difficult in a booming economy where jobs are aplenty and salaries are going through the roof - hence the delay.

CH: Venkat, you say you're going to spend more time on strengthening GiveIndia's core ideology. Can you say something about this ideology?

VK: In Built to Last by Jim Collins, the concept of 'core ideology' is introduced as a prerequisite to successful institution building. It consists of core purpose or mission/vision and core values or beliefs and approaches. GiveIndia's mission is to promote efficient and effective giving that provides greater opportunities to India's poor. Our vision is for a strong giving culture where Indians donate 2 per cent of their income every year and a vibrant philanthropy marketplace to ensure that the most efficient and effective non-profits get access to the most resources. The challenge is to ensure that this core purpose and values are entirely shared and owned by everyone in the organization. They have to be understood and internalized by every member of the GiveIndia family, which then results in a GiveIndia way of doing things.

PAS: And a strong, shared core ideology is critical to sustainability in the long run. In a fast-growing organization like ours, it is important that new people joining the team understand and appreciate these aspects of who we are and why we are the way we are.

CH: What is the GiveIndia family and how will you go about this?

VK: By the GiveIndia family, I mean primarily our staff and volunteers. I don't yet know fully how I will go about this - just that I will spend more time listening to people and understanding their perspectives and then helping them see what GiveIndia stands for and appreciate that.

CH: You also talk about helping GiveIndia integrate tightly with the sector at large? How do you see GiveIndia's relationship with the wider voluntary sector in India?

VK: Steven Covey's 7 Habits talks of a wonderful principle where he says that people have to grow from dependence to independence and only then to interdependence. True collaboration and synergies are possible only between partners who are each capable of standing on their own feet. We spent the first five years of our life working hard to become 'independent'. Today, we can honestly claim that GiveIndia has shown basic proof of concept, and has created a core 'viable' value proposition that is capable of sustaining itself. In short, we have independently earned our right to exist. The next step is to work with the sector to try and help bring about more change.

PAS: We see our basic role as helping to create a philanthropy marketplace that the wider voluntary sector can use to gain access to resources and to become more effective and efficient. Towards that, we see ourselves collaborating closely with other players such as the Credibility Alliance, GuideStar India and the like.

CH: What is most urgently needed to create this philanthropy marketplace?

VK: It can be created only by getting all players in place that are needed for it to be effective - a good database, a good accreditation system, etc.

CH: You also talk about evangelizing the idea of a giving culture. How will you go about this? What needs to change in India in order for individual giving to grow?

VK: Two things. First, easier, more convenient access to giving mechanisms that don't cost a bomb. Secondly, more visibility and public celebration of giving through ideas like a National Giving Week, more telethons, and other such activities that involve people in giving. Of course a more favourable tax structure will help, too, such as inheritance taxes which can be exempted on bequests.

CH: Venkat, you say that although Pushpa has been around for the last five years, in fact almost from the beginning, she differs in approach from you on a variety of things, where the difference will actually be good for GiveIndia in the long run. Can you say something about these differences and how they will affect GiveIndia?

VK: This is the classic difference between the entrepreneur and the professional. The former always looks at how things should be, whereas the latter is able to accept things as they are. In terms of being able to get things done, the professional approach is always more effective in the long run, and the styles are mutually complementary. One difference I see is GiveIndia becoming perhaps a bit less tight-fisted - a more liberal financial regime within the organization will give people more space to do things, better working conditions, and will improve organizational effectiveness.

Another difference is that Pushpa is much more extrovert than I am. So, for example, I am likely to look at a given situation, analyse it, and come up with ideas and various possible solutions, but Pushpa is more likely to 'sell' these ideas to people. This is another win-win complementarity.

PAS: It's amazing, though, how often my responses would be exactly the same as Venkat's. These are mostly related to core values and business decisions.

I think I would make the workplace a little more exciting and add some fun to work itself. For instance, we had an awards ceremony at our offsite annual review where we gave awards for persistence and performance to staff and volunteers.

I had been an entrepreneur for two years prior to joining GiveIndia and that helps me appreciate the fact that some things cannot be changed because they have the genetic imprint of the founder. I also believe that the entreprenuerial streak is quite dominant in me, so you will continue to see that in GiveIndia's actions. In fact this is something that runs strongly across the team.

I am going to push for more spend in technology and training but I will also make sure we have certain steady revenue streams to support these initiatives. I personally enjoy sales and marketing and hope to strike a good balance over the next two years.

CH: GiveIndia will be one of Guidestar's partners in India. How do you see the arrival of GuideStar affecting the Indian voluntary sector?

PAS: I see this as a first step in growing the philanthropy market in India.
But it is a daunting task to aggregate existing data, then mine it and build upon it. If we can create the first version with the support of various networks in the country, I think we can expect a surge in giving.

VK: Data is the bugbear of the sector today. In the absence of data, opinions and 'experts' thrive. Once we have data, truth will prevail!

CH: I believe GiveIndia will be one of GuideStar's 'partners' in India. How exactly will you work together?

PAS: In 2004, I met Buzz Schmidt, founder of GuideStar, in South Africa and was captivated by the power of having a comprehensive non-profit database as the first layer to build a philanthropy marketplace. In early 2005, GiveIndia facilitated an exploratory study by GuideStar, which was followed by a six-month feasibility study.

We have recently formed a three-way partnership between GiveIndia, Credibility Alliance and Civil Society Systems (CSS promotes and supports the construction of GuideStar systems around the world) to implement the development phase of GuideStar India. Credibility Alliance will lead institutional and government alliances and raise local resources while GiveIndia will front-end the project - help with the formation of the legal entity and creation of the board, recruit and direct the project team, create the business plan, promote the concept of GuideStar, and secure voluntary sector participation. We have an India Steering Committee of very eminent persons from the voluntary sector to advise on strategic issues. CSS is providing the initial funding; the technology platform that has been developed for civil society information systems worldwide, which will be available to GuideStar India with flexibility for customization at the country level; and its expertise in setting up GuideStar in the US, the UK and several other countries.

I view these collaborative efforts as a great step at leveraging resources across borders. Credibility Alliance members will gain from being featured on GuideStar India, while GiveIndia can enable online giving to NGOs on the GuideStar site subject to a small set of criteria being met. This partnership has the inherent potential to result in greater effectiveness and efficiency for all.

CH: It was a key GiveIndia principle to feature on your website only NGOs that met your own norms, but the decision has been made to start featuring those that don't as well. Why and how did you develop the original GiveIndia criteria for NGOs on your site and why is this changing now?

PAS: We were clear right from the start that we wanted a transparent process that used objective criteria. The GiveIndia team brainstormed and made an exhaustive list of criteria that could help us certify an NGO as credible. As most of us were new to the voluntary sector, we invited inputs from sector experts and arrived at a set of seven criteria, with guidance notes explaining what information should be looked at to determine rating under each criterion. We set up an internal committee that represented donor interests and NGO interests.

But we were not too happy with this arrangement - at times we found ourselves in situations that called for personal judgement. In our attempt to make the process less subjective, we formed an external selection committee in 2001. This comprised two NGO leaders, two academics, a journalist and an industrialist. This was a useful method. It sharpened our criteria and gave us better insight into how NGOs operate. However, it still meant that the wisdom and views of a few could determine whether an NGO would get listed with GiveIndia or not.

GiveIndia was one of the key participants in the consultative process in India that led to the formation of the Credibility Alliance. The Credibility Alliance core group put out a set of draft norms, which were debated and discussed by nearly 5,000 organizations in the Indian voluntary sector. In 2003, we adopted the minimum and desirable norms to form the core of GiveIndia's selection process. This has made our selection process 100 per cent transparent and objective.

We will now have two categories of NGOs (we have been following this practice for fundraising through the marathons):

GiveIndia-certified NGOs, which meet all GiveIndia's norms and have unitized their 'ask' into 'Donation Options'. For contributions to these NGOs, GiveIndia will assure feedbacks to donors.
Other NGOs, which will be screened using a small set of criteria to ensure they are legitimate non-profits. GiveIndia will merely facilitate donations to these and not take responsibility for how the money is used.

The marathons have demonstrated that a good number of donors are willing to donate to the second category based on their past experience or references or their own due diligence.

VK: So the picture has now changed. Even five years ago, we defined ourselves as a 'philanthropy exchange and regulator rolled into one'. With the birth of the Credibility Alliance, we now have an entity independent of GiveIndia that will define what constitutes a good NGO and thus play a quasi-regulatory role. GuideStar will hopefully provide the data that people need to make decisions. This will allow us to focus more sharply on doing one thing well, which is to facilitate donations without getting into decision-making on where the money should go.

CH: So you are now focusing on being a philanthropy exchange?

VK: We were always clear that we would be a philanthropy exchange. We played additional roles because we didn't see other players step up to the plate to do so.

CH: What part does GiveIndia play in providing a philanthropy exchange? How does it fit into the whole?

PAS: As Venkat explained, GiveIndia is currently playing multiple roles (regulator, database creator, running a charity exchange, and managing charity portfolios). We believe that the philanthropy exchange will see a quantum jump in activity only when the regulating mechanism is robust and there is an up-to-date comprehensive database of non-profits.

Today, when a donor expresses a desire to support an NGO working for a particular cause in a particular area where GiveIndia does not have a pre-certified NGO, say education in the state of Kerala, the GiveIndia team will spend considerable time and energy searching for non-profits in Kerala, collecting information about the organization, and screening the NGO using the Credibility Alliance norms plus other GiveIndia criteria. It will then proceed to evaluate projects, create donation options and facilitate giving. This could easily take three to six months.

A similar request two years on might take only a couple of weeks: GiveIndia would access the GuideStar database for NGOs providing education in Kerala, check for those with Credibility Alliance certification and focus on screening through the additional GiveIndia criteria, appraise the project that needs support, structure 'giving', facilitate fund transfer, monitor and report.

The philanthropy exchange will list a large number of NGOs (the GiveIndia certified ones and a large list of others powered by GuideStar), offer a wide range of donation options and projects, allow individuals to set up fundraising pages, facilitate giving circles/communities to engage in discussions and choose projects, etc.

Venkat Krishnan N is founder and director of GiveIndia. Email venkat@giveindia.org
Pushpa Aman Singh is Chief Operating Officer. Email pushpa@giveindia.org

See www.giveindia.org

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