Charity Park
This is a follow-up on my previous post (Well, sort of ...)
There are IT parks coming up everywhere in India - There are atleast four huge ones (> 1 Million sq.ft) coming up in Chennai right now that I know of. And then there is one in Coimbatore, and a few in Kerala, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc ...
There are even Food Parks being created in several places around India, where several food manufacturers can set up shop in a shared space. And Textile parks ...
The benefits are obvious - Centralization enables the sharing of certain services such as internet access, cafeteria, construction costs etc (for the IT Parks) and testing labs, water treatment, cold store (for the Food Parks) and (Dyeing, Pollution Control and Design (for the Textile parks). Of course, there are benefits of having enough economies of scale - Such as the ability to set up a dedicated power plant/generator/transportation service etc ...
Would this concept work for charities as well ? Why shouldnt multiple charities co-locate themselves (either physically or virtually) and share vital, expensive services.
Some examples of these services are financial accounting, marketing, advertising, web development, government liasion, airport pick ups, correspondence and several others. Instead of every NGO recruiting people to perform these functions for them, why not have a shared pool of resources that can be used on an as-needed basis by multiple NGOs.
This would serve the purposes of improving inter-NGO coordination (which is sorely lacking), increased purchasing/bargaining power and ability to hire full time resources (rather than contractors/part timers after whom NGO managers need to run).
I think this would work on a virtual basis.
There are IT parks coming up everywhere in India - There are atleast four huge ones (> 1 Million sq.ft) coming up in Chennai right now that I know of. And then there is one in Coimbatore, and a few in Kerala, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc ...
There are even Food Parks being created in several places around India, where several food manufacturers can set up shop in a shared space. And Textile parks ...
The benefits are obvious - Centralization enables the sharing of certain services such as internet access, cafeteria, construction costs etc (for the IT Parks) and testing labs, water treatment, cold store (for the Food Parks) and (Dyeing, Pollution Control and Design (for the Textile parks). Of course, there are benefits of having enough economies of scale - Such as the ability to set up a dedicated power plant/generator/transportation service etc ...
Would this concept work for charities as well ? Why shouldnt multiple charities co-locate themselves (either physically or virtually) and share vital, expensive services.
Some examples of these services are financial accounting, marketing, advertising, web development, government liasion, airport pick ups, correspondence and several others. Instead of every NGO recruiting people to perform these functions for them, why not have a shared pool of resources that can be used on an as-needed basis by multiple NGOs.
This would serve the purposes of improving inter-NGO coordination (which is sorely lacking), increased purchasing/bargaining power and ability to hire full time resources (rather than contractors/part timers after whom NGO managers need to run).
I think this would work on a virtual basis.
Comments
I know of an entrepreneur near Madurai - he grouped together a bunch of farmers starving off their dry land. Now they cultivate cucumbers, process it and sell exclusively in US for $1.5 for 6 salad bars of cucumber! The life of these farmers has drastically changed. I guess India with an enormous tourism potential, can develop it aggressively - that's one industry that can touch the grass roots. Lesser known villages in Kerala are now cozy ayurvedic spas and thanks to this promotion, many people are better off than ever before.