Recently, at one of the most prominent conferences for the non-profit sector in India, I happened to witness one of the most disheartening exchanges that is reflecting the reality of the space.
It was during a panel discussion on scaling where the panelists (two of them from big Indian foundations) were talking about their own understanding of scale. One of them very aptly talked about "depth" being one of the aspects of scale that they focus on. When the floor was opened for questions, there was one audience member who spoke about running an organisation for 18 years, benefitting 6000 beneficiaries. And how they are struggling to survive because of no support from any CSR or foundation. The plea was heartfelt and would hit anybody, who has ground-level experience and visibility, pretty hard. The response to her plea was that one thing she needs to realise is that there isn't enough money to go around and she shouldn't take it personally. This was also delivered, in what appeared to me, the most casual way which also sounded to disregard her work and situation. I left, extremely disturbed, so I honestly don't know if there was any worthwhile advise that she received from the panel, later on.
But what this made me realise is how even the non-profit sector, very much like the profit sector, has become completely advertisement (evidence-driven storytelling in the current jargon) and promotion driven. As I look around myself more and more, I realise the ones thriving are the ones who have excelled at storytelling. Many of us do real work and have the access to a network, resources etc to embellish it with storytelling but MANY MANY of us out here are left to struggle despite the good work, despite the actual capability to serve and help people on ground. In fact, because of their proximity to ground (which makes them less capable of jumping into the bandwagon of latest jargons and storytelling techniques), they are probably serving the people in a much stronger way. What are we as a group doing to support them?
Perhaps, the panelists could have spoken to the NGO head about what they look for when they talk about depth. They could told have told her about the "processes" and "systems" which they kept referring to, in their talk. But whatever they said left me wondering where are we heading in this love for polished decks and stories.
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