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WORKPLACE
VENTURE PHILANTHROPY
Donor Relations
Business Skills
Many of the people working in charities or on charitable projects may not have the experience or skills necessary to manage large-scale projects. Their backgrounds are unlikely to be in project or financial management, in marketing or other such business disciplines. This is where the real value addition of venture philanthropy lies.
What are some of the business skills that Ajay has brought to his charitable work?
• Ensuring credibility and transparency - the six different Trusts are all registered with the relevant Charity Commissioners and have accounts audited annually. This makes donors more comfortable about giving to BEHT; • Maintaining links with donors and providing them with information so they remain interested and carry on donating - this is similar to the investor relations function of a listed company.
Management
Project Management
• Establishment of clear management structures with proper responsibility to the key people. This is a fundamental tenet of good business management.
• Project management skills, both for fund-raising (e.g. organising a swimathon) and at the execution level (e.g. organising the various constituencies for planning, building and managing the various projects, such as the schools). So far, Ajay has managed to successfully complete all the projects undertaken.
Administration
These skills, whilst essential to successfully run charities and complete major projects, were lacking in the agencies that were working on the assignments. Ajay has clearly demonstrated the necessity for this wide variety of management skills and the benefits that accrue when they are introduced into the various schemes.
• Overall improvement in administrative skills: • Requirement for proper record keeping; • Devising practical forms for recording data; • Establishment of the importance of regular meetings to ensure good communication between management teams and Trustees, and developing reporting guidelines for the flow of relevant information to the Trustees - this is like the effective communication between a company's Board and its management; . Emphasis placed on time management - using time effectively maximises the benefit of the donations. The funds raised can pay for a certain number of staff - the more effectively they work, the greater the output per pound of donation. This equates to a focus on productivity in a business.
Personal Results
Marketing
• Documenting and showing donors information about the projects where their funds are being used, using photography and video where possible. This has significant benefits when going back to them for further donations as they have greater involvement with these projects; • Provision of relationships for fund raising - going to people directly to get donations.
Ajay has personally found this active approach to charity to be extremely rewarding, and this has led him to devote to it almost all of his free time and holidays. On the fund-raising side, the project has its own momentum: people are regularly sending donations, since they can see the value of the work that he is doing. He ends up acting as an intermediary and co-ordination agent for their donations, ensuring that the money is used effectively for the purposes intended. With funds still being donated to BEHT, he is happy to carry on with this good work, and he has no plans to scale back his activities.
We must stress that it is possible to achieve good results without such a significant time involvement, but this is an example of the way how a committed individual can achieve meaningful results for a large number of people in need of help: using his business skills to leverage the benefits derived from the money donated.
The impact of his work will be felt for years to come by the many communities he has helped.
We hope that this article has given you some ideas you can use in planning your own charitable activities, and some thoughts as to how you can increase the effectiveness of your giving and the satisfaction it gives you.
Finance
• Decisions about how to allot funds across projects to give the maximum benefit. This is like making asset allocation or investment decisions in a company to maximise returns; • Evaluation of projects and budgets, and ensuring that projects are completed within budget.
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Jain Spirit . December 2002 - February 2003
Jain Education Intemational 2010_03
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