Integration in Not-profits.

It would be really blissful to live the day when every child in India would get to go to school. To be a part of an effort that can make this possible is my long standing fantasy.

Someone said , "Either modify your dreams or magnify your abilities" - so true.

How much ever we magnify our abilities, will it practically possible to ensure that every child - every single child - in this country gets access to schooling? I doubt, hence over the past few months my fantasy has undergone modifications. It now reads " to see the day when every Indian child gets access to education". Suddenly you remove the physical structure of a school and replace it with only learning, this dream looks achievable in our lifetime.

If children who sought education had voting rights then perhaps schools would have burgeoned by the dozen, but by the virtue of not being members of the largest BANK - read vote bank - children stand to only lose.

In Mumbai watching very young kids beg, is a very common sight - at signals, outside temples/ churches, railway stations, bus stands. The question which invariably comes to mind is, will this child ever get a decent living while he survives? One gets to see women with 3-4 kids begging, will any of those kids grow up to ever enjoy the basic essentials of life? It is just not possible in the current system. These kids will grow up if they do not perish under the difficult conditions, with no access to education end up doing odd jobs, some will get into most easily available company and get into drugs, and finally hook up with an equally miserable person of opposite sex and breed. The production of miserables lives long.

The lady who carries those kids may possibly never get to enjoy the fruits of a decent, stable and safe living. Its a shame to all of us who cannot do anything about this, but there is a definite chance to save the kids in her arms from suffering her fate. The generation which hangs on the shoulders & arms of this unfortunate lady is priceless - they should not be wasted. They need to be pulled out, nurtured and raised so that they live unlike their parents who merely survived.

For any person, to lead a life of substance , needs the manure of education. It is not necessary to occupy the seats in formal schools and imbibe conventional learning. What is critical and imperative is to be exposed to inputs which increase awareness, instill dreams, kindle motivation, offer employable skills and ensure that the hope of a better life keeps fluttering.

In my first blog i mentioned about some wonderful people who are putting in efforts to ensure that the lesser sons of God get access to learning. And these are the selfless people who and only who can guarantee that all the lesser sons of God get modest if not equal opportunities to live!!! Social entrepreneurship efforts, not profit organsiations , NGOs operating in the field of education, wherever they maybe, live this dream day in and day out. It would be a pity if their efforts do not bear the desired fruits.

But the reality is that, their efforts will not bear the desired fruits for the following reasons:

a) The task at hand is so humungous that the only possibility of succeeding is, when all genuine, focussed & like minded volunteers join hands. However this is not the reality. Many noble hands work for a common cause but in isolation.

b) The need for resources is great, so great that one can either concentrate on resource generation or either focus on the primary motive of the effort. Most non-profits die prematurely at the stage when they try to scale up, because scaling up requires money which is very difficult to come.

But then the problems that are cited are manageable, infact there is a potent cure to all this. I intend to put a potential solution.

Management talks of INTEGRATION - Forward & Backward Integration.
Forward Integartion - Say a vegetable & fruit grower expanding into retailing
Backward Integration - Say a readymade garment owner going into manufacturing his own label.

Similar to for-profit companies which move into integration either to drive down costs (backward) or increase revenues (forward) eventually making more profits through synchronisation of efforts, not-profits can increase effectiveness by consolidating energies and forming an integrated chain.

Let me give an example:
Consider 4 not-profit efforts:
a) Effort A which is dedicated to underprivileged kids - young kids of pre school, nursery grades age
b) Effort B which is a group of volunteers ensuring that older kids (primary schooling age) get access to valuable educational inputs
c) Effort C which trains teens/adults prepare and clear their matriculation exams/ HSC exams
d) Effort D which spends resources to ensure that the school-went children get access to employable skills and in effect a good job

The key thread in this example is :
All 4 efforts exist in the field of EDUCATION.
All 4 efforts are in a logical sequence.
All 4 efforts have similar problems.
All 4 efforts have volunteers who are driven, passionate and exactly the kind that can realise the utopia.
All 4 efforts work independently

Now if look closely, the first 3 efforts are completely dependent on outside funding to run the show. Mind you, a serious not-profit effort which does not compromise on the quality of inputs requires a fair deal of money. These efforts focus on an audience (young children) which in no way can generate revenues (essentially NOT making theirs a self financing model). However the 4th effort by the mere potential of providing job options becomes a revenue generating model.

The 4th effort can draw in money through various modes:
a) By placing the participants (who would now be employably skilled) in companies and in return get reimbursed for the training costs.
b) By encouraging the kids that succeed to in turn sponsor another kid's training
c) And other conventional methods.

Now if this works, we suddenly have an effort which has the potential of making more than it has spent. What happens to the remainder - part is retained to grow the effort and the remaining part needs to flow backwards to fund the first 3 efforts.

Point to remember here is that there is a mutual exchange of benefits in either direction
(4----->3------->2------->1) & (1--------->2------------>3------------->4)

Success of effort 4 depends on the quality of employees it churns, because companies would want to absorb only those who meet certain benchmarks. Effort 4 will be able to churn out people of a set standard faster only if it gets people who meet its entry expectations. To provide the entry suitable candidates to effort 4 is the responsibility of preceeding 3 efforts. Also if the end effort gets people of a set standard the cost of training will significantly go down as the training will move towards standardisation.

When money flows backwards, the first 3 efforts can concentrate all their energies on inparting skills. The pressures of raising funds will cease to exist, thus ensuring focussed efforts capable of delivering expected results.

Like in For-profits,

a) All those who join hands (there could be many individual efforts at any level say 1,2 ,3 or 4) would need to deliver an expected output, thus ensuring no let-ups in any way
b) Because you get access to funding and your performance determines the training cost incurred by the succeeding effort, every effort will have the pressure to deliver (Sounds like CAPITALISM)
c) This becomes a highly interdependent chain, output of which is as good as the weakest link. Hence energies will unknowingly focus towards strengthening this weak link.
d) Any individual effort which does not deliver at any level will be moved out and other deserving efforts will take its place.

This is no different from an integration in the business world. Such relationships will seek synergies, ensure that they happen, demand quality and weed out substandard performance. All of a sudden we have a chain of not-profit efforts bound by market pressures. Multiple not profits can exist at each level provided at each level the services delivered remain the same.

All this could be put down because all the efforts considered in the example work in the field of education, and hence synergies could be derived from their teaming up. Though this sounds easy it is extremely diffcult and some reasons which i can fathom right now are:

a) Cease control. Unlike business integration where ownership is not divided, here different not-profits will come together. The fear of losing identity may keep some away.
b) The pressure of performing may keep many at bay.
c) There is a great possibility that this may be run with a commercial Heart. Not-profits should be run by a commercial head & a non-commercial heart

Notwithstanding all these problems i personally feel that this is a viable solution because:
a) Likeminded people come together (IMMENSE POWER)
b) Reliance on outside funding goes down thus enabling full focus on the job at hand

To build schools is the the job of the government. To ensure that no child begs irrespective of the womb in which he lay is the job of the government, to ensure that no child is deprived of childhood is the job of the government, and they get Taxes to do it. However for reason mentioned above governments will not want to do all this - its a big task for too little rewards.

Expecting the government to deliver all these is far fetched - way beyond reality.

But these problems can be solved - perhaps that too in our lifetime . For that, like efforts need to join hands, synergise and leverage on economies of scale.

If not-profits are indeed run with a for-profit brain (However the objective still remains to positively affect lives), the utopian dream of seeing every child get access to education may indeed become a reality.

On yet another hope, i end.

Let Insanity prevail.

All you guys, do good and take care.

cheers,
Pranil