Ratings for NGOs to access to donor funds mooted news
18 December 2007

Mumbai: "Should corporate social responsibility be a pre-profit or a post-profit exercise? Should the corporate goal of delivering benefits to society be contingent on their profitability or should it be an intrinsic part of the way they do business, regardless of monetary gains or losses?" asked A N Singh, managing trustee, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, voicing the dilemma facing private sector enterprises.

Delivering the keynote address at the NGO conference, 'Managing NGOs better - challenges of social sector' at the Indian Merchants Chamber held in Mumbai today, Singh stressed that the need for trusts, foundations, NGOs, etc, to govern their organisations to ensure that they outlived their founders and continued to embody their vision and passion for benefiting society.

Earlier, welcoming the gathering of NGO representatives, IMC president Niraj Bajaj stressed the importance of NGOs as enablers of sustainable development and equitable wealth distribution. "While creation of wealth by corporates is important, its equitable distribution is central in making wealth creation truly meaningful. Indeed, not doing so can have lethal consequences in setting off social imbalances of the sort we are seeing at Nandigram," he remarked. He urged NGOs to go far beyond the role of rendering services to the poor, to becoming the voice of the poor masses.

M K Chouhan, chairman of the IMC expert committee on corporate governance and governance briefed the audience on the nature of the conference. "Although companies create wealth for society, there is a widespread perception that they are not behaving in a socially responsible manner. To change this perception, it is necessary to change the way business is done today. NGOs are a big part of this remedy," he said.

Chouhan explained that the term governance encompassed code of conduct, transparency, long-term direction and vision, whereas management was a term that addressed day-to-day working, concerns of optimal resource utilisation and efficiency. Governance of NGOs themselves was extremely important, he stressed.

In the course of the interactive session after Singh's keynote address, Bajaj opined that an unbiased rating agency was needed to ensure easier availability of donor funds. Many key concerns were also raised, such as the need for tax exemptions to be made applicable to donations-in-kind and donations for beneficiaries in other countries.

IMC's vice president stressed that good NGOs were the conscience-keepers of society. He noted that the 1.2 million Indian NGOs needed to grow, gaining not only in numerical strength, but also in the quality of their collective leadership and the speed at which they achieved social transformation.


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Ratings for NGOs to access to donor funds mooted