'India second in world for natural disasters'

Geneva: India ranks second in the world for natural disasters after China, a top UN official has said underlining that unplanned urbanisation and failure to address the issue of climate change pose a grave threat worldwide.

The two rapidly growing countries in the world, China and India, rank first and second in the number of reported natural disasters. While China witnessed 22 natural disasters, India came second with 16.

About 373 natural disasters killed over 296,800 people last year. The estimated costs of natural disasters in 2010, in which an earthquake in Haiti killed over 222,500 people and the Russian heat wave caused around 56,000 fatalities, is

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around $ 110 billion.

While China ranks first with 22 natural disasters, India ranks second with 16.

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The loss of lives and destruction to property was several times higher in China which witnessed landslides, earthquakes, and floods on an increasing scale.

"Unless we act now, we will see more and more disasters due to unplanned urbanisation and environmental degradation," warned Margareta Wahlstrom, the special representative to the UN Secretary General for disaster reduction.

A disaster is "a situation or event which overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a request to a national or international level of external assistance" and "an unforeseen and often sudden event that causes great damage, destruction and human suffering."

"These figures are bad," she said, cautioning that "weather-related disasters are sure to rise in the future, due to factors that include climate change."

Other than the Haiti earthquake and the heat wave in Russia, other major disasters include the earthquake in China (estimate number of deaths 2,968), floods in Pakistan (1985 deaths), landslides in China (1765 people killed) and floods in China.

Floods, drought, earthquake, and extreme temperatures are the major sources for rising wave natural disasters.

"It's critical for local governments, city leaders and their partners to incorporate climate change adaptation in urban planning, said the UN official.

Disaster risk reduction, she said, is "no longer optional," arguing that "what we call disaster risk reduction-and what some are calling risk mitigation or risk management - is a strategic and technical tool for helping national and local governments to fulfil their responsibilities to their citizens."

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India and NGO

India & NGOs

India has a long tradition of social service, social reform and voluntary agencies. NGOs emerged in India soon after Independence when Mahamata Gandhi made a plea for dissolving the Indian National Congress (the political party which came into power upon Independence), and transforming it into a Lok Sevak Sangh (Public Service Organization). This plea was, however, rejected; nevertheless, it did not halt the formation of non-governmental organizations in India. Many Gandhi followers established voluntary agencies to work closely with the governmental programs on social and economical issues. These agencies organized handicrafts and village industries, rural development programs, credit cooperatives, educational institutions, etc.

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The second stage of growth of NGOs in India was around 1960 when many individuals noticed that the governmental programs seemed to be inadequate to deal with the deprived sections of India. These groups formed organizations that worked on behalf of the poor, the landless, the tribals, the bonded labourers, and many other social groups that were being discriminated against by the policies of the state and social structure. These grass roots organizations work at the micro-level and work with limited resources and lack of coordination.

Since Independence in 1947 until around 1980 there was little effort on the part of the Indian Government to define the role of a voluntary agency or to recognize its importance. In 1980, however, with the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985), the government identified new areas in which NGOs as new actors could participate in development. These areas included:

1. Optimal utilization and development of renewable source of energy, including forestry through the formation of renewable energy association at the block level
2. Family welfare, health and nutrition, education and relevant community programs in the field
3. Health for all programs
4. Water management and soil conservation
5. Social welfare programs for weaker sections
6. Implementation of minimum needs program
7. Disaster preparedness and management (i.e. for floods, cyclones, etc)
8. Promotion of ecology and tribal development, and
9. Environmental protection and education.

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This plan, nevertheless, was to become the first of a series. Under the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-1990) the Indian government envisioned a more active role for voluntary organizations to aid in making communities as self-reliant as possible. These groups were expected to show how village and indigenous resources could be used and how human resources, rural skills and local knowledge, grossly underutilized at present could be used for their own development. NGOs because of their situation and interaction with local people can be very effective in bringing change since they are able to address issues that governments are often not able to comprehend. That is, because these organizations work at the grass roots level they are able to sense the urgency of issues and prioritize into the problem solving mode at a quicker pace.

This advantage has also been noticed by the Indian government. In the Eight Five Year Plan the importance of NGOs is further enhanced, paying particular attention to the role of these agencies as participants in rural appraisal for drawing up development plans at a very low cost and involving the rural community. The plan document states, "A nation-wide network of NGOs will be created. In order to facilitate the working of this network, three schemes relating to the creation, replication, multiplication and consultancy development have been worked out by the Planning Commission."

Today, India has a vigorous NGO sector. Although there has been no complete census of NGOs, it is estimated that about 25,000 to 30,000 are active in India. In fact, as of December 31st, 1989, there were 12,313 NGOs registered with the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) 1976; furthermore, 726 NGOs are unregistered but under the prior permission category. One problem with NGOs in India, as with NGOs anywhere else in the world, has been the increasing dependency on governmental funds or donations from external (foreign) donors like the World Bank. This dependent relationship has resulted in a lack of flexibility on the part of NGOs to pick their missions and objectives since many are expected to perform certain tasks in return for funding. But, further still, it has also created structures that have become more bureaucratic in nature and, hence, less effective in development. Nevertheless, NGOs are here to stay and will continue to work in India on political, economical or social issues, the task before before them is how they will manage to produce change will keeping track for governmental documentation.

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Methodology Used

Methodology

The methodology proposed here involves working simultaneously at various levels for raising funds for the organizations, including seeking foreign donor support, tapping local fundraising avenues and integrating community-based marketing approaches. The tasks have been outlined, as follows:

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Donor Tracking Team
An essential task of each organization should be to build a team or a staff member to proactively monitor donor funding, regularly refer the donor database, develop proposals and concept notes, suggest ideas and respond to donor communications. The team/staff member has to be net savvy with good internet and computer access. In most circumstances, an NGO may not be able to appoint the team/staff member or even, for that matter, a professional separately. This additional task has to be generated from among the existing project staff, which means adding more work to their/his or her existing project work.

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Donor Database
A donor database is a compilation of comprehensive information about donor agencies, locally as well as globally, which have a policy of providing regular funds through tenders and other means. The database should be developed with full listing of potential donor agencies, their country policies and priorities, contact addresses, fund guidelines, submission criteria, proposal formats and proposal deadlines. The database can act as a reference for the tracking team in submitting proposals and concept papers.

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Fundraising Material
Organizational material is often considered to be the tools for raising funds. However, this has to be planned professionally, designed effectively and has to remain visually attractive. Brochures, calendars, greeting cards, posters, websites etc can be developed with appropriate messages. It is important that the fundraising material focuses on sensitive case studies, success stories and organizational achievements. NGOs may decide upon the kind of material they need to bring out and can be designed effectively. However, the cost recovery factor needs to be kept in mind here.

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Communications and Appeal Letters
This task involves contacting and corresponding with both donor agencies as well as individual donors. Small donations can be received from individual donors inside as well as outside the country. A list of such individuals, especially from the Diaspora (which developing countries usually have to a greater extent), can be drawn up and contacted with appeal letters. Donors can be updated with organizational information and regular correspondence can take place.

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Events, Workshops and Exhibitions
These have been identified as potential sources of income generation either through donor agencies or through the collection of individual registration fees. NGOs can jointly plan out events and request donor support and/or collect registration fees.

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Collection Boxes

Collection Boxes can be used at various points to receive small donations, giving clear and positive messages on welfare and development. The boxes need to be designed well and must be placed at potential spots.

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Consultancy Services
NGOs can begin offering expert services in social development such as conducting research surveys, studies, assessments and evaluations to donor organizations, government and academic institutions. For this, a list of experienced staff members and their available expertise can be developed and presented to potential clients.

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Private Sector Collaboration
Working for a social cause is becoming increasingly popular in the private sector, especially among the private companies, banks and schools. The NGOs can start tapping collaborations where in private agencies are ready to share their resources for community development activities. Also, the long-term business collaborations, such as banks for micro-finance and insurance companies for micro-insurance, can be beneficial. Private agencies can be listed out and corresponded/contacted and meetings can be organized to initiate collaborations.

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Community-Based Marketing Approach
This can be a significant part of the overall fundraising and sustainability strategy as it has the potential to build resources over a long-term, both for the organization as well as the community. However, careful assessment and planned implementation will be required. NGOs may opt for many sectors here such as micro-enterprises, micro-finance, micro-insurance, health micro-insurance and community tourism. These approaches can be used to develop innovative proposals to be submitted to donor agencies. This is based on the fact that NGOs already have a strong base of community-based organizations and the community itself to whom it can market approaches.

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Voluntary Support
Volunteers especially from abroad can be a good resource to raise funds and provide other forms of support including documentation and promotion. Their assistance can be sought by contacting them via internet.

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NGO Fundraising Plan for Sustainability

Organizational sustainability has been both a tough challenge and a long-standing issue for NGOs around the world. Although NGOs have witnessed a substantial flow of aid, both at governmental and non-governmental level, and a large presence of bilateral, multilateral and private donor agencies continues to exist, everyone knows that the future of foreign funding is not encouraging. Also, experience says that the donor support is often coupled with difficult operational guidelines, tight deadlines, impractical policies and hefty documentation.

The recent trend of NGOs mushrooming to a large extent has led to increased competition over limited resources available with donor agencies. Besides, donor funding is highly volatile, depending mostly upon the political situation of the country and also its policies. Wars, internal conflicts, uneven economic growth and changes in government and state policies have had their share of adverse effects on NGO funding, putting both the activities as well as the organizations at risk. Further, it has been realized that excessive dependency on foreign donor support not only reduces opportunities for local resource mobilization, but also impedes upon generating innovative ideas which can ensure sustainable growth for NGOs. It has also been observed that the more dependent NGOs are on donors, the community also ends up becoming increasingly dependent on NGOs, thus, bringing down the whole model of sustainability to failure.
Looking at all these factors, it has become crucial for NGOs to involve themselves into some serious thinking to ensure organizational sustainability. Although seeking foreign donor support is still a good option, it should not continue to be the only option. NGOs need to diversify their activities by just not limiting their abilities to develop proposals for donor agencies. A huge cache of marketing opportunities exists at various levels, which if planned and implemented carefully, can ensure some kind of resource generation for NGOs over a long-term period.

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However, it is not easy to plan and implement. The continued dependency on donors has led to a mindset where NGOs tend to act only on the basis of the funding received. If there are no funds, there is no need to act on that front. Any fundraising plan has to be accompanied with:

* having openness to ideas;
* dedicating a resource mobilization team;
* undertaking consistent efforts; and
* having the ability to think beyond the conventional donor support concepts.
The fundraising plan includes efforts for exploring local avenues within the country, no matter how big or small the size of the prospective funding is, but should be only governed with the long-term sustainability factor. Considerable potential exists in community-based marketing approaches, collaborations with private sector, utilizing non-financial voluntary contributions and collecting individual donations. Several experiences and practices have taken place across the sub-continent, where NGOs are able to generate sources of income over a long period of time and at the same time, provide value-added services to the community in a sustainable fashion. A constant study and exposure to these efforts can earn valuable ideas and tap opportunities for NGO development.

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The Objectives of a Fundraising Plan
The objectives of a fundraising plan can be:
* To explore and initiate resource mobilization activities at local and global-level for long-term organizational sustainability.
* To reduce dependency on foreign donor support and increase local opportunities for generating funds.
* To understand, develop and implement community-based marketing and entrepreneurship development approaches.

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Need Of Fundraisers for the NGO

NGOs are good at their programmes. They know how to extend care, support and love to a cancer patient / HIV affected patient / under privileged child / disabled child / old age person, etc. but they are not good in raising funds for their sustainability. They are generally groping in the dark and realizing this reality, we stepped forward to see if we could bridge this gap.
It started with small contributions initially but we  have been reasonably successful in raising over 25 Lakhs of funds over the last two years and still going strong. we have now reached a stage where we can scale up our activity and make this Charity business company as a 100 Crores company as early as possible. However, this can happen, if we find investors coming forward to support our activity. It is with this thought that we have come up with this new venture  with a vision to convert the same to a Pvt limited company as we start growing further.

I feel our existence on this earth is justified if we are able to financially support atleast 100 deserving NGOs of India in executing their programmes effectively and thus save millions of underprivileged people of India.

Come forward and join me in my journey to achieving success.

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