--- On Thu, 26/3/09, ashok _ <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: ashok _ <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [silk] the business of charity!?! > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, 26 March, 2009, 1:29 PM > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 8:42 AM, > Bonobashi <[email protected]> > wrote: > >There is also an unfortunate tendency to assume > >that work here should be paid differently, on the > >basis of voluntarism, thus scaring away young > >people, most of whom are under enormous pressure > >from their parents and family to show reasonable > >social return on investment. It tends to become > > Its a bit difficult to justify equating salaries in NGOs > with private > sector jobs. > Most NGOs i have seen carry huge administrative costs, so > much so that > the proportion of funds spent on administrative costs / vs > / project > implementation spending is sometimes ludicrous.... > > Secondly, if you have a private sector company -- if it > isnt doing > well it either goes bankrupt / closes down -- this is > because there is > a very clear definition in terms of what is the starting > point (to > manufacture / service a need etc..) and what is the ending > point (not > competitive, service not required anymore etc...). With > NGOs, while > there seems to be a clear starting point -- it is never > clear when the > ending point has been reached. > > Most NGOs start with a kind of charter - a statement > describing why > the organization has been started. What is perhaps needed > is a clear > identification of time-frames and goals -- and if those > arent reached > the organization is disbanded at that point because it > clearly did not > serve the purpose it was built for. From what I know of the social sector after a brief brush with it over a period of slightly less than a year, what I have stated as a cause is what you have re-stated as a result. Please consider: in a private sector organisation, there is a constant paranoia about head-count; there is no encouragement to add numbers unless the individuals concerned are able to add value to the efforts of the team as a whole within a very short time of their joining the team. My experience of NGOs has been that there are large numbers of incompetent and untrained people milling around and getting in each other's way in the absence of structures, processes and systems, and their salaries, pitiful though they are, add to the disproportionate administrative costs that occur in this sector. What I am advocating is a reduction in numbers of staff engaged, and an increase in their competence and capability. In an ideal world, this increase in competence and capability would be achieved by excellent training mechanisms and by the addition of hitherto untrained or less-trained individuals to the work force. Instead large sums of money are spent, and produce no result because they are going as salaries of people who simply can't do what they are supposed to do. In a less than ideal world, therefore, the social sector is compelled either to host these masses of non-performing people or to compete with the private sector at salary levels which are frankly unaffordable, considering that the social sector expressly does not set out to make money or to be self-sufficient. This is still not the worst-case scenario. The social sector could be drawing its personnel from the public sector. Therefore in this less than ideal world there is no short-term alternative for hiring in competition with the private sector, at the salary levels which will encourage talent to work in the social sector. In other words, at salary levels which may not match, but which come close enough to give pause to youngsters and make some of them take the pllnge; Cricket on your mind? Visit the ultimate cricket website. Enter http://beta.cricket.yahoo.com
