Alliance Online - June 2007

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation in India, 1999-2007

Ajit Chaudhuri

I joined the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) in April 1999 to handle the India programme, and I’m still here in May 2007. There have been some changes in that time. I joined on a two days a month contract and inherited five PHF-supported projects, all in and around Delhi. I did not handle a significant portion of the India programme, as several relationships were administered directly from London. I now work ten days a month, and since April 2006 I have two part-time consultants supporting me. The India programme spends about three times as much money, and PHF supports, at any given time, between 20 and 25 different organizations across the country. This paper looks at the projects supported and the strategies adopted over the period 1999-2007, noting the issues and conflicts that arose.[1] It includes some feedback from PHF partners at a recent (March 2007) meeting. The purpose is both to act as a record and, at a time when PHF is considering the future of its India programme, to peg some matters that require clarity.

Projects supported by the India Programme

Between 1999 and 2007, PHF has supported 47 different organizations whose relationships I have managed. There were, in addition, four relationships with existing partner organizations that focused on disaster relief and rehabilitation work alongside their existing project.

A look at the geographical spread of the projects indicates a bias towards the north and west of the country. In the north, the focus has been on the city of Delhi. Most urban projects have been located in the large metropolitan cities. There have been few supported projects in the insurgency-prone north-east – our early experience was that NGOs paid ‘taxes’ to insurgent groups from grant funds. The east, which is the most backward part of India, has also been neglected.

The spread of supported projects comes across as a classical ‘long-tail’ distribution, with some concentration on education, health and disability and a wide spread of projects in other areas. This is by design – we have eschewed both an issue-based and a geographical approach to project identification. The emphasis has been on working with good organizations, wherever they are, on whatever issue they see as necessary based on their experience on the ground (within, of course, certain limits set by PHF – no capital costs, for example). It is only recently that a special emphasis has been placed on the east.

Have the supported projects proceeded (or are they proceeding) as per PHF’s plans for the relationship at the time of first approval? Largely so (38 out of 47)! Where they have not, there are three main reasons: financial irregularity, organizational changes (the CEO or key persons of the project leaving the organization), and changes in PHF’s priorities and thinking.

Finally, a major change over the years relates to finance. PHF has many more large partnerships (nine at over Rs2 million or £23,500 per annum as opposed to only one in 1999), and it is a significant donor to many of the partnered organizations. One thing has remained constant: without exception PHF supports only local Indian NGOs with Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act registration.

The strategy

Strategically, the seven years have seen three distinct phases – 1999-2001, 2001-04 and 2004-07. These have, of course, overlapped.

When Paul Hamlyn was alive
The first phase was when Paul Hamlyn was alive. His personality dominated the India programme and the approval process at Trustees’ meetings, and the main concern was whether he would like a project and would feel it was worthy of support. The projects supported at the time were mainly service delivery projects. Of the ones I inherited, the Delhi Council for Child Welfare (DCCW) and BMVSS aka ‘The Jaipur Foot’ had a close personal rapport with Paul Hamlyn. There were exceptions – the key drivers being my own ideas and biases, for which PHF gave considerable space.

Grantmaking was reactive, and field appraisals were conducted before proposals moved to the UK for formal approval. At this stage, they were usually discussed between the then director, Patricia Lankester and Paul Hamlyn (and me, if I was in the UK) outside the Trustees’ meeting, and Paul Hamlyn’s view set the direction for the Trustees’ decision. Apart from DCCW and BMVSS, projects were supported once for a maximum of three years. Monitoring standards were consciously weak and trust-based, and I tried to visit all supported projects once a year.

After his death
On Lord Hamlyn’s death, the India programme did two things. First, it worked to integrate into PHF, draw in the Trustees’ interest and come under their control – and thereby move away from being ‘one of Paul’s special interests, in which only he knew what was happening’. A note articulating the India programme’s focus was formulated and presented to the Trustees in 2002; the aim was to retain the basic characteristics of PHF’s way (great flexibility, out-of-the-box thinking, minimal red tape) while simultaneously identifying interest areas and outlining limits.

Second, it started to think strategically. Questions such as ‘what are we as a whole achieving?’ and ‘are we supporting the best organizations and the best projects?’ and ‘should we support NGOs for work that the government should be doing?’ were raised (if not addressed). PHF’s Small Grants Programme (up to £5,000) began to be used as a way to start relationships with organizations that could continue into the longer term.

The current phase
Several factors brought about the third (and current) phase: a review of the India programme by Robert Graham-Harrison in 2003; the current chair taking on the role of lead Trustee for the India programme; and Robert Dufton taking over as the director of PHF. Expansion has taken place. The funds available have been increased considerably (currently about £500,000 a year), and the quantum of funds to each organization has increased considerably, with several organizations receiving more than £30,000 per year.

The duration of relationships has also lengthened, with the programme now having the option of supporting an organization for up to seven years. A system of independent reviews for the longer-term projects has been initiated, and these feed into the decision to continue support.

The capacity to identify new relationships and monitor existing ones, which was under strain with the expansion, despite what Robert Graham-Harrison called our ‘soft hands’ approach, has recently been enhanced with two more part-time consultants joining the India programme team.

This phase has also been characterized by changes in PHF’s thinking, from that of a small and quirky (‘it’s our money, and if we like it we can support it’) organization to that of a more conventional international donor where each project looks to fit into a larger strategic picture (although the range of areas PHF supports and its style of work sets it apart from many other donor organizations).

Looking ahead to the next phase

PHF is now thinking about the next phase of its work in India from 2008 on, when it plans to expand its work still further. We are looking at different options but we have adapted a process used by PHF in 2006 in developing its first strategic plan for work in the UK. This has involved reflecting on our achievements to date; mapping need; identifying opportunities; consulting with past and present grantees; and taking other advice.

The main consultation with grantees was carried out during a two-day India Partners’ Meeting in March 2007. This was the first time that PHF had organized such an event. The main purposes were to allow our grant-holders to share information and gain knowledge useful to their work, to inform us and each other about important issues facing the NGO sector, and to discuss the future directions for PHF in India. The key elements of feedback were:

• PHF’s current approach, with a focus on the quality of the partner and supporting them in what they feel is important, is a good one.
• PHF should support partners to build their own skills and better the quality of their work, especially in monitoring and evaluation.
• It should enable good people to come into and stay within the development sector.
• It should support good organizations to play a nurturing/mentoring role to smaller organizations within their spheres of influence.
• It should diversify its portfolio more – in terms of geographical area, more diverse leadership, etc.

Some issues, conflicts and contradictions

The main issues which concern us as we plan our future work are as follows.

Sustainability of the organizations we support
While we (and most other donors in India) have a project-based approach to funding (although, as mentioned above, we can fund for up to seven years where we are supporting the development of an organization or a service), organizations need to keep going in the long run. It is therefore in their interest to raise financial support that is both stable and long term, to continue relationships with donors for as long as possible, and to manage their project periods so that organizational continuity is smooth.

We need to recognize this, while also accepting that it is not in our interest to get into a few large and very long-term relationships (turnover is important and each new partner brings in fresh thinking and challenges), and that we need therefore to set limits on quantum and duration of funding ourselves and enforce them transparently and without exceptions.

Sustainability of the work we support
Related to this, some of the work we support, especially in health and education, does not have a natural end – more so if the model is successful. In these cases, where the so-called end is usually a construct of the project and its funding, our thinking on continuity has to go beyond wishful thinking that either the government will take the work over and/or that the poor will be able to pay for the service. Good organizations would look to continue and to replicate good work. We need, within limits, to be more proactive in enabling them to do so, beyond our funding relationship with them.

Working with ‘good’ organizations
We have a policy of working only with good organizations – which we define in our strategy notes as ‘organizations that have a clear perception, based on their own experience on the ground, as to their local situation and what ought to be done, and who have the skills and strength to do it’ – and supporting them to do work that they see as important. The key factors for us in project development have therefore been the interests and skills of the partner organization and the needs of the area in which it works. This has resulted in our supporting a wide variety of work and raises the question: should we focus on a few specific issues, and build up a portfolio of supported projects and a reservoir of expertise within these?

Also, while the policy fits well with our ‘soft hands’ approach to monitoring and support, it does concentrate our work in areas where good organizations exist – in the west and in big cities. The backward parts of India, the areas in which we should have a serious presence, are in the east and in the smaller towns – but these are places where NGOs are less evolved and where the ‘soft hands’ policy will not work.

Monitoring and support using the ‘soft hands’ approach
Our systems for monitoring and support have several advantages, the most important being that they are cost-effective. However, it is time to question whether the cheapest approach is the best approach, and whether the quality of work would be better with a more intense engagement with the projects and the partner organizations, with more interaction between the various partners across the country, with more networking with development actors in the country, and with links between our work and national and international development policy. More so, given the increasing number of larger and very exciting relationships that have the possibility of affecting policy and thinking. This would, of course, require expertise and resources but may well, over the long term, be worth the investment.

Welfarist vs activist projects
In 1999, our projects were purely welfarist, ie service delivery projects. Today, while there is a mix of projects with differing degrees of emphasis on direct delivery of services, our thinking has been moving away from work that the government should be (but is not) doing and towards bringing about change by getting government systems to work (the ‘rights mode’ approach). Many other donors have thought similarly, leaving huge gaps (and opportunities) in service delivery-based projects that would have been right up our street earlier. What should the correct mix be, and how susceptible should we be to the development fashion of the day?

The question of mandate
We have been asking our partners: do you have a mandate to do what you are doing? Who has given you this mandate, and how have you built it up? To whom are you answerable, and how? As we go increasingly into projects that bring about change in the way things work, and which have a value judgement for something and against something, we too will be increasingly asked these questions. Should the India programme look to build a mandate within India?

The approach to disasters
So far, the thinking has been to stay away from grants for relief and rehabilitation in post-disaster situations except for token grants to existing partners if the disaster has occurred in their operational area and centralized grants from the UK to specialized UK-based relief agencies. If there is going to be a serious involvement in disasters, we will need to develop a clearer and more tangible approach.

1 This article is based on a paper written for internal use within PHF as part of the process of reviewing the future of the India programme.

Ajit Chaudhuri is a consultant for PHF based in India. Email ajit.chaudhuri@gmail.com

For more information
www.phf.org.uk

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