Non-communicable diseases are creating rapidly rising health issues across many nations.  The main NCDs include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory illnesses and share common behavioral risk factors, including smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and the harmful use of alcohol. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 60 per cent of global mortality, or 35 out of 59 million deaths in 2005 were caused by NCDs. Six of the top ten risk factors leading to death are NCDs. This burden is particularly high in low and middle-income nations, where 80 per cent of all deaths caused by NCDs occur. While many still believe that the biggest health challenges in developing nations continue to be infectious diseases, this view is long outdated. NCDs today are a greater threat to global economic development than fiscal crises, natural disasters, corruption, or malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDs. Addressing NCDs more broadly represents a crucial link between single issues such as alcohol and tobacco and the broader development agenda, including the discussion on what should follow after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

 

NCDs have recently come more forcefully onto the global agenda. A September 2011 High-Level Meeting on NCDs convened by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly marked a watershed in the global response, but the commitments to this agenda remain shallow and continue to fall short of effectively addressing the global harm caused. A 2010 report of the Center for Global Development found that less than three percent of all global health funding in 2007 ($22 billion) was targeted at NCDs.  This stands in stark contrast to the fact that addressing most NCDs is relatively inexpensive and measures of prevention and treatment have a proven track record of success. We know this from the experiences of developed nations, but we have yet to apply it in much of the developing world. For example, raising taxes on and restricting the marketing of tobacco and alcohol are very effective, while distributing relatively cheap medicines (aspirin, asthma inhalers, beta blockers, etc.) will greatly reduce injury and death from NCDs.

 

Despite the fact that the global community could make a lot of progress very fast on NCDs, the agenda continues to be stuck in mere rhetoric. At the 2011 High-Level Meeting many of the problems slowing down action were on display. Food, tobacco, and alcohol industries hold a tight grip on governments and slow down policies harmful to their profits as much as possible. NGOs with their focus on specific issues were afraid that their ‘cause’ might lose out or argued that their issue was not adequately represented in the first place. And unlike the case of HIV/AIDs a decade earlier, there was barely any public interest, let alone street demonstrations by victims of the diseases and their supporters. Some observers argued that the NCD agenda is simply too broad and cannot be addressed effectively at the global level. As a case of complex collaborative governance, NCDs are a key issue not just because of their global burden of disease, but also because the emerging responses offer ample opportunities to research the failures and successes of strategies deployed to limit the harmful effects of NCDs. Students of global governance have variously studied the role of scientists, NGOs, industry, the public, intergovernmental organizations, and governments in addressing major challenges. In the case of NCDs, all of these groups play crucial roles, but even on the least controversial issues they have yet to produce effective collective action.

Here is another journalistic article consistent with what the TNGO Initiative has written about over the past few years regarding how to measure the effectiveness of NGOs.

 

The worst way to judge a charity is an article published in the LA Times, by Jack Shakely. "Though low administrative costs could indicate prudence and sound judgment at a charity, it could just as easily indicate inadequate staffing, insufficient salaries or, shall we say, fudging." He goes on to ask, "Donating to charity is a worthy action. But which charity? Would it surprise you to know that the criterion that is most often used to decide that question is also the most unreliable? Would it surprise you more to know that many charities are aware of how flawed the criterion is and play it like a violin?" 

 

To read the entire article, click here.  

During her two weeks of "intellectual rest and recreation" as a Program Fellow for the TNGO Initiative, Nyradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Secretary General of the World Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), researched the challenges of inter-generational, shared, and transformative leadership as a global movement as well as how it can be applied to the YWCA. 

Mrs. Gumbonzvanda gave two insightful and inspiring talks at The Maxwell School. In her first talk, Mrs. Gumbonzvanda took us through her career story, sharing with the group her path to becoming a global leader and her motivations for taking the position of Secretary General. Her second talk, titled "Inter-Generational, Shared and Transformative Leadership" addressed these approaches to leadership and their relation to women's rights.

You can access her Career Story here.

You can access the presentation to her leadership talk here.

This blogpost looks at changes in the total amount of development aid given by OECD countries from 2010 to 2011 and makes several observations based on the overall decrease in total aid. Mr. Green also suggests some options for NGOs and aid campaigners to address this phenomenon.

From Poverty to Power is a blog written and edited by Duncan Green who is Head of Research for Oxfam Great Britain. The blog attempts to address how active citizens and effective states can change the world. 

You can access the blogpost here.

‘Human rights advocacy in the 21^st century,’ keynote address at the Global Conference for Human Rights Defenders Networks, Freedom House, Washington, DC, April 18, 2012, link here.

Civil society organizations and human rights defenders are facing increasing legal restrictions in many countries as repressive leaders share 'best/worst practices' in orchestrating a backlash against human rights. What can NGOs and their networks do to respond effectively to these new challenges?

TNGOs, rights-based approaches, and the CSR agenda

In this blog post, Uwe Gneiting introduces some of the key tensions behind his dissertation research on Business and Human Rights: how should NGOs engage with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) if they also embrace a Rights Based Approach in their work.

Uwe Gneiting is a PhD student at the Free University in Berlin, Germany and a TNGO Initiative Research Associate

You can read the full blog here

The Transnational NGO Student Group is proud to present:

 

Marshall Ganz
Harvard University

“People, Power, and Change: Leadership, Organizing, and Democratic Renewal”

 

Marshall Ganz is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. In 1964, a year before graduating from Harvard College, he left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. He found a “calling” as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and, in the fall of 1965, joined Cesar Chavez in his effort to unionize California farm workers. During 16 years with the United Farm Workers he gained experience in union, political, and community organizing, became Director of Organizing, and was elected to the national executive board on which he served for 8 years. In 1991, in order to deepen his intellectual understanding of his work, he returned to Harvard College and, after a 28-year "leave of absence," completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an MPA by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his PhD in sociology in 2000.
 
Mr. Ganz is one of America’s foremost social movement scholars. As senior lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, he teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics. He served as adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign on citizen mobilization approaches.
 
 
 
April 18, 2012

12:30 - 2:00 pm

341 Eggers Hall

 

Lunch will be served

Visiting Program Fellow for the Transnational NGO Initiative and Secretary General of the World YWCA, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, will be taking a trip to North Tonawanda, NY to visit a local YWCA affiliate. She will be attending a raffle fundraiser in support of their work against domestic violence.

 

Click here to read the article listed in Tonawanda News. 

 

The Transnational NGO Student Group is proud to present:

 

 Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Secretary General, World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)

 

A Career Talk

 

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda became General Secretary of World YWCA in 2007. YWCA, which has existed for 158 years, is a global network of women and young women leading social and economic change in 125 countries, reaching 25 million women and girls. Its work is inspired by Christian principles and a commitment to women’s full and equal participation in society. It is a volunteer membership movement, inclusive of women from many faiths, backgrounds, and cultures and advocates for peace, justice, human rights, and care of the environment. The World YWCA develops women’s leadership to find local solutions to global inequalities women face.

 

Ms. Gumbonzvanda is a trained human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation. She has been working on women and children’s human rights issues, with a special focus on crisis countries, for 25 years. Within the women’s movement, her focus is on violence against women, peace with justice, property rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and HIV and AIDS. Ms. Gumbonzvanda spent over 10 years with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Eastern and Horn Africa, covering 13 countries. Before that she was a human rights officer with UNICEF in Liberia and Zimbabwe.

 

April 3, 2012

4:00 - 5:00 pm

341 Eggers Hall

 

 

 

The Transnational NGO Student Group is proud to present:

 

 Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda

Secretary General, World YWCA

 

Inter-generational, Shared, And Transformative Leadership: Advancing Women’s Rights

 

 

The global agenda for development, peace, and equality is grounded on notions of equality of voice, opportunities, and access for citizens in their diversity. Leadership plays a critical role as a driver for change. There is urgency, especially in transnational NGOs, to adopt clearer approaches for nurturing, fostering, and sustaining inter-generational leadership. Many organizations struggle with practical ways for facilitating meaningful participation of young people as co-leaders in the development agenda.

 

Ms. Gumbonzvanda will discuss the World YWCA's agenda for promoting intergenerational leadership and investing in leadership of young women. For a global movement and organization that has existed for 158 years and has a presence in 125 countries, with an outreach to 25 million women and girls; such clarity of approach on shared and transformative leadership is critical. She will focus on inter-generational leadership within the goal of advancing women's rights.

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is a trained human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation. She has been working on women and children’s human rights issues, with a special focus on crisis countries, for 25 years. Within the women’s movement, her focus is on violence against women, peace with justice, property rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and HIV and AIDS. Ms. Gumbonzvanda spent over 10 years with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Eastern and Horn Africa, covering 13 countries. Before that she was a human rights officer with UNICEF in Liberia and Zimbabwe. In 2007, Ms. Gumbonzvanda became General Secretary of World YWCA.

 

Lunch will be served

April 4, 2012

12:30 - 2:00 pm

341 Eggers Hall

This event will provide a space for mutual exchange among students who share an interest in starting an NGO or are running a start-up NGO. The goal is to provide a learning environment for students to discuss and share their experiences on challenges, solutions, and best practices. 


 

 

 Program on Latin America and the Caribbean 

Co-sponsored by the Transnational NGO Initiative 

Presents: 

 

Problems and Solutions of Starting an NGO  

How do you get from ideas to implementation? Why would you start an NGO rather than joining one? How do you get donors when you have nothing to raise money for (no projects yet)? What are some of the challenges after you start the organization (or of maintaining it)?  


 

Allyson Goldsmith is the founder and Executive Director of ELEVEate, an organization which helps girls obtain an education in Senegal, and is also currently completing a dual masters in Public Administration and International Relations at the Maxwell School. 

Rose Marie Cromwell is a co-founder and co-director of Cambio Creativo, a grassroots organization facilitating educational workshops in Coco Solo, Panama, and is currently completing her MFA in Art Photography at Syracuse University. 

Roman Yavich is a co-founder of Comunidad Connect, a community development non-profit in Nicaragua, and a current graduate student at SUNY ESF. 

Nicolas Hernandez is co-founder and former director (4 years) of Ocasa, an NGO that works with youth promoting transparency and citizen participation in Colombia. 


 

All are welcome, but if possible please rsvp to Flavia Rey de Castro at freydeca@syr.edu to help us estimate our food order. 


 


 

April 4, 2012  

5:30 – 7:30 pm  

220 Eggers Hall  

  

 

 

Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken recently facilitated a learning day on organizational change among seven large TNGOs with a basis in the UK. The purpose was to compare cross-organizational lessons on how to lead and manage change; what are the drivers for such change; how to design large scale organizational change processes; implementation challenges encountered and lessons learned. The TNGOs involved are: Oxfam International, Save the Children, CARE International, Islamic Relief, a consortium of Irish NGOs including Trocaire and CAFOD, ActionAid International and Amnestry International.

The INGOs involved in this learning day are currently considering how to follow up with a more large scale learning process, which may result in the decision to build a repository of in-house documents on organizational change, facilitating bilateral problem solving around specific change related issues, and the organization of regular cross-organizational learning events. The TNGO Initiative stands ready to stay engaged in this process as needed and fulfill a facilitating role. The documentation resulting from this process will allow Maxwell to engage in applied research on this important topic, will contribute to the development of teaching materials, and further round out the TNGO Initiative's practitioner engagement work.

The work will also complement the efforts by Steve Lux, Executive Education Director and Tosca to write a teaching case on the organizational transformation process that Save the Children is currently undergoing -- on the request of the NGO concerned.

For more information, see here.

Using social media, Invisible Children (IC) has raised global awareness about Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and their atrocities committed across Eastern and Central Africa since 1986 (for my own extended take, see here and here). In only a few days, close to 40 million have watched a 28 minute film which calls on viewers to pressure the U.S. government to continue its military engagement and ensure the removal of Kony. The White House has congratulated the film makers. Critics of this most recent campaign against Kony have challenged the motives of the organization behind the campaign and also questioned the goals advanced by IC. Some of these criticisms miss the point entirely, while others should lead to a broader public debate that addresses the root causes of this conflict.

 

Many of the critics have made the point that Invisible Children in 2011 only spent 32% of its budget of $8.6m on direct services. This type of criticism misses the point on two counts. First, as an advocacy group, Invisible Children is not supposed to spend most of its income on service, but on advocacy. The last few days have shown that it has done that quite effectively, at least in terms of reaching millions. Which raises a second point: What primarily matters are outcomes and impact, not how much money the organization spends on activities relative to fundraising or administration. Charity watchdogs typically only look at efficiency measures, telling donors nothing about what actual impact an advocacy group has.

 

This then raises the final point: Is Invisible Children actually contributing to improving the situation in a sustainable way? Critics of the campaign have made some important points: 1. the atrocities have taken place many years ago; 2. it fails to highlight atrocities committed by the Ugandan army; 3. it fails to address the root causes of violence found in poverty and ethnic discrimination; 4. it portrays Africa yet again as a ‘dark continent‘ in need of our help (which typically only makes things worse); 5. it fails to reflect local views from the region; and 6. it mobilizes thousands of naive and uninformed people to sooth their guilt with money while creating dangerous and harmful outcomes. As one can see across the internet, the debate about these criticisms (a good summary at the BBC) has become more than ‘spirited’ and in many cases openly hostile (IC's response to its critics).

 

IC has, once again, raised awareness about Joseph Kony and the LRA. Yes, their ‘solutions’ may be questionable and some may even be dangerous, but the argument cannot simply be that things are ‘complex’ and that this won’t work. Those who criticize IC and claim to be experts need to formulate their alternatives and be willing to engage in the public debate in a proactive manner. To just say ‘no‘ won’t do it in addressing the atrocities committed by Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. In the age of social media, 'bad' ideas can easily turn into counterproductive campaigns and even worse policies.

 

On March 1, 2012, David Harvey, President and CEO of ProLiteracy,the largest NGO advancing adult literacy, gave a talk at The Maxwell School through the TNGO Initiative. In the talk, titled "Leading Out of Crisis: Strategies to Reposition an International NGO for Success", Mr. Harvey discussed the restructuring and turnaround of ProLiteracy to address the significant financial, operational, and strategic challenges that threatened the organization.

 

   

 

 

Preparing to make a leadership “leap”? 

 

Potential leaders focused on obtaining top transnational NGO leadership positions and executives building a succession plan for their organizations should carefully consider this critical question.


The Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University is pleased to announce the second annual Transnational NGO Leadership Institute. This specialized “leap” program offers leadership training for up-and-coming international NGO leaders seeking top NGO positions. Global professionals from all regions, sectors and organizational sizes are invited to attend a cost-effective, intensive and interdisciplinary program May 21 - 25, 2012, in upstate New York. Institute attendees transitioning to top leadership positions will be provided with state of the art knowledge about NGO leadership, competency and talent development approaches, as well as strategic and analytical skills. The program will allow participants to examine their personal leadership style, expand specific competencies and roles, network with peers and experts, and benefit from practical applications tailored to their needs.


The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs is the premier public affairs professional school in the United States (US News and World Report 2009 ranking of American public affairs graduate schools). Maxwell’s Executive Education Program was the first university-based program in the United States dedicated solely to the purpose of leadership training.
 

By participating in the Institute, you can expect to:

 

 Understand the effect of your leadership style.
The Institute provides an initial leadership assessment for each attendee. Participants will be able to gauge the impact of their leadership style when facing challenges and opportunities in their operating environment.

Expand and test specific leadership competencies.
Participants will examine five issues they are likely to encounter when making this leadership “leap.” Customized, proven and interactive learning approaches from Maxwell faculty and staff will be combined with the expertise of top NGO leaders who have made this leap, to look at the following topics: 

 

• Leading in a Complex Context: the broader landscape of actors and issues; the impact of personal/individual leadership styles; management vs. leadership.
• Organizational Governance: organizational change and design; board leadership
• Collaboration and Crisis: communication, networks, partnerships, collaborative governance and leadership; leadership in crisis; leadership and stress
• Politics and Power Relationships: symbolic leadership; advocacy
• Strategic Decision-Making and Performance Management: resource planning, allocation and management. 
   

Networking.

The five-day itinerary includes individual and group study, plenary sessions, group exercises and simulations, experiential creative activities and networking opportunities. Attendees will be encouraged to explore one of the beautiful lakeside villages located in the Finger Lakes region, during part of the program. Despite the rigorous schedule, participants will be given maximum time to network and build relationships with others facing similar challenges. 

 

Reaping actionable benefits.

As a companion to the five-day Transnational NGO Leadership Institute curriculum, Maxwell School researchers and executive education experts offer customized research for attendees, that provides them with insight into their specific leadership and organizational challenges. There will be opportunities before and after the Institute for participants to engage in collaborative conversations, information sharing, and networking via a dedicated website. 

 

What well-known NGO leaders say about the Leadership Institute:  

Our inaugural Transnational NGO Leadership Institute, offered in September, 2011, received excellent reviews: 

 

“Leaders of transnational NGOs are called upon to exercise influence on the key global issues of our times even as they manage large, complex organizations with accountability to a diverse range of stakeholders. I believe that this unique initiative from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University fills a critical gap in ensuring aspiring TNGO leaders acquire the knowledge, skills and orientation necessary to take on those challenging responsibilities.” 

 

Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS 

 

 

 

“In our complex global environment, strong, diverse leadership is essential to the success of the international movement to address global poverty and advance social justice.  The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University is doing a great service by supporting rising leaders and building the talent pool.” 

 

  Lindsay Coates, InterAction 

 

 

The Leadership Institute is guided by the following Steering Group members: 

 

 Lindsay Coates, Executive Vice President for Policy and Communications, InterAction 

 Susan Hayes, CEO, ReSurge International, and Board Member, InterAction 

 Sherine Jayawickrama, Manager, Development and Humanitarian Relief NGOs, Hauser Center for Non Profits, Harvard University 

 Mark Sidel, Professor of Law, University of Iowa and President, International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) 

 Ramesh Singh, former CEO, ActionAid and Visiting Fellow, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University 

 Ingrid Srinath, Secretary General, CIVICUS 

 Adam Weinberg, President/CEO, World Learning 

 

Contact information 

 

Please join us! Open registration for the second annual Transnational NGO Leadership Institute begins on December 12, 2011. Please visit our dedicated Institute website (http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/leadershipinstitute/), where information on program content, training fees, opportunities for funding support, and testimonials from past participants are available. Please contact Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, Director for Education and Practitioner Engagement, Transnational NGO Initiative, or the Leadership Institute team, Maxwell School at Syracuse University at leadershipinstitute@maxwell.syr.edu or  +1 (315) 443-5073 for more information.  

 

 

 

 

The Transnational NGO Student Group is proud to present: 

 

 David Harvey 

Leading Out of Crisis: Strategies to Reposition an International NGO for Success 

 

Good governance and effective leadership are crucial to “turning around” an NGO in financial and programmatic crisis. The talk will address what defines effective leadership to promote organizational change. Mr. Harvey will also share real-world experiences of managing an NGO in a rapidly changing economic and social environment.

 

 

 

David Harvey is president and CEO of ProLiteracy, the largest nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the cause of adult literacy and basic education programs in the United States. Before joining ProLiteracy in 2007, he was founding executive director of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families, a national training, research, and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. He also was project director with the National Disability Rights Network, and began his career as staff assistant to U.S. Representative Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.).

       

 

 

 

 

 

                        Lunch will be served 

 

The Global Journal has published an inaugural list of the “Top 100 Best NGOs.” David Algoso has a critique on the methodology (lack thereof) and the failure to recognize the immense sectoral differences. At best, one hopes the editors wanted to give us a list of a few NGOs they really liked and the ranking part then is simply a vehicle with no real value. But it is unlikely that this is the case, considering the response posted in the comments section by Jean-Christophe Nothias, the Editor of the journal. 
  

Unfortunately, such rankings matter, in particular since there are thousands of NGOs always looking for donations, and there are millions of donors trying to find a good investment for their good intentions. The Global Journal does a big disservice to both. First, it picks only one hundred among the many deserving organizations, focusing not on matching donors with appropriate 'causes,' but further contributing to high inequality and a concentration of wealth at the top of the nonprofit sector. Second, the ranking provides no meaningful informaiton about the organizations and their effectivness. Charity watchdogs have for some time struggled to rate not-for-profits and have for many years only focused on overhead spending. As we have argued elsewhere, financial efficiency is, at best, a weak proxy for effectiveness and, at worst, weakens the nonprofit sector significantly by forcing organizations to neglect organizational growth and engage in a 'race to the bottom.' 

 

Charity watchdogs, including Charity Navigator, are currently changing their ratings to include more meaningful information about individual organizations. This will still include financial data, but also provide more information about what organizations actually do. This is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the Global Journal seems to have missed this whole discussion.  

 

The Construct of Organizational Effectiveness: Perspectives From Leaders of International Nonprofits in the United States, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, by George E. Mitchell.

 
 

George E. Mitchell is an assistant professor of political science and an affiliate of the public service management program at the City University of New York (CCNY). He is also a Moynihan research fellow at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, where he was a founding member of the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs. He currently specializes in international relations and nonprofit management and has written widely about organizational effectiveness, transnational NGOs, e-governance, and development finance.
 

 

International Studies Association Venture workshop, March 31, 2012, San Diego
 

organized by Elizabeth Bloodgood and Hans Peter Schmitz

 

1. Website for venture workshop, here.

 

2. ISA website on workshop grants
 

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a very interesting article about the potential significance of promoting effectiveness in changing donor behavior. You can read the full article here.

 

 

"Nongovernmental organization (NGO) executives from around the world attended the inaugural Transnational NGO Leadership Institute this fall at the Maxwell School..." You can read the full article here.

"Child-Centered Community Development (CCCD)," comes from the 'Best Practices' section of Monday Developments Magazine (the US umbrella of relief and development NGOs) and was written by Ann Wang, Senior Writer/Communications Specialist, and Justin Fugle, Senior Program Manager of Plan International USA. The piece discusses the meta review of Plan International's evaluations in three key sectors, executed by the Transnational NGO Initiative on Plan's request. The review focused on the effects on program outcomes of Plan's Rights Based Approaches (RBA). Empirical evidence of such effect on program outcomes is surprisingly rare in the RBA literature.
For more information on CCCD's unique approach and the findings of TNGO Initiative study please click here.

 

Tom Tierney, chairman and co-founder of Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consultant to nonprofits, talks about the problem of overhead in a Wall Street Journal article. You can read it here.

Syracuse University can help nonprofits make 'leadership leap'

An op-ed piece written by Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, co-director of the Transnational NGO Initiative, was recently published in the Post-Standard. The piece, entitled "Syracuse University can help nonprofits make 'leadership leap'," argues that as many experienced, high-level nonprofit heads retire in the coming years, their successors might have difficulty making the leap to the top level of responsibility, something Maxwell's Transnational NGO Leadership Institute hopes to help remedy.

"Accountability of Transnational NGOs: Aspirations vs. Practice" co-authored by TNGO Initiative researchers Hans Peter Schmitz, Paloma Raggo, and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken is forthcoming in Nonproft and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Here is the abstract:

 

 "NGOs working across borders face increased accountability demands. While many have proposed ways of changing accountability practices, the debate is rarely informed by leaders’ perspectives of how accountability is perceived and practiced across different organizational settings. In interviews with NGO leaders we find aspirations to make accountability more meaningful and integrated, in particular by listening more to stakeholders other than donors. But these aspirations are rarely put in practice and leaders continue to highlight traditional means such as financial accounting. This gap is particularly pronounced for smaller organizations and reflects an increasingly competitive environment shaped by rating agencies and a focus on financial metrics. In order to move from aspirations to practice, NGOs have to be willing to share more meaningful information about their work and outcomes with stakeholders. Practicing transparency that empowers beneficiaries is central to effective organizational learning and balancing demands from different stakeholders." 

TNGO Initiative is pleased to launch its Practioner Brief Series with the first issue Defining Organizational Effectiveness by George Mitchell, a Research Fellow. More practioner briefs, based on published data, will be forthcoming in the future.

*IMPORTANT*

 

For students who are planning to graduate this academic year (December 2011 and May 2012 degree candidates), please take a moment to review the section of the Graduate School website on planning for graduation with notable changes made to filing deadlines for programs of study.  Be sure to submit your Porgram of Study for Certificate of Advanced Studies in Civil Society Organizations on time.

Below is an article from the blog hosted by the Humanitarian and International Development NGOs domain at the Hauser Center on Nonprofits at Harvard University.

NGOs lobbying International Organizations: How to set agendas effectively

Posted: 13 Nov 2011 02:16 PM PST

By Rahul Daswani

The reason there are 9 “Major Groups” of stakeholders as part of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is because these groups are the ones who are pushy and vocal.

Felix Dodds (Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum), shared his tips during a talk at the Harvard Kennedy School on November 10 2011: “By getting involved early, you can have a huge impact on influencing the policy agenda”.

Even when governments are not ready to engage and we want to keep up momentum, there are lots of ways conversations can be kept moving – from coffee chats in capital corridors to more formal discussion with officials on their priorities, constant engagement leads to a strong trust-based bond.

Naturally, the desire to get involved early must be complemented with enough substance in order to get the attention of international organizations. Some ways to do that include a) writing background papers – promoting ideas, workshops, information leading up to a major event b) providing policy recommendations for instance on how to reshape financial markets (indices, governance, incentives, state owned investment vehicles) c) building alliances with key players in industry, for instance on the issue of corporate accountability for sustainability.

While this makes sense as a broad strategy, an audience member raised a question that is likely to be an obstacle to actionable progress: How do we make sure governments collaborate, agree, and execute?

Dodds suggested that the main way had to be by instituting review mechanisms that reward delivery. “NGOs play a role in holding accountability: we have done that very badly over the years – one of the missing links is parliaments. Parliaments could be part of as an annual review mechanism. There is no reason why parliaments can’t hold the executive branch of the government accountable.”

Another useful question was understanding whether this process is replicable outside the sustainable development arena (e.g. health, human rights, etc). Dodds was unambiguous in his response – Yes. In the fields of HIV/Aids and human rights, NGOs had demonstrated that they could set the agenda.

One of the things that Dodds wants to see is more UN summits taking place away from New York. It would be particularly important to have the 2015 MDG Summit hosted by a developing country. “Once we have a pooled expertise, then we get to have a more coherent input to the process”. This winds back to his earlier point – the beginning is the most important bit – if you get things right in agenda setting, governments trust you since you’ve been working with them over a period of time, so they take your ideas.

In my own experience setting up the Office of Climate Change and Development for the Government of Papua New Guinea, I found a lot of these principles to be valid. We appreciated the expertise of NGOs understanding how to get things done on the ground, and by engaging them early, developed a comprehensive, prioritized set of stakeholder interactions in different formats for various provinces. Furthermore, the indigenous people we spoke to felt much more comfortable pursuing ambitious initiatives knowing that NGOs, international organizations and the government together agreed that it was the best course of action.

Rahul Daswani is a pursuing a Masters in Public Policy Degree at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Executive Education Programs Presents:

EMPA Candidate Enrique Rubio

 

"How to Foster Partnerships Among the Private Sector, NGOs and Communities in Developing Countries to Help People Overcome Poverty: the Case of Venezuela and Other Latin Countries” 

 

 The partnership between key societies' stakeholders can contribute and help people overcome poverty through combined corporate social iniatiatives, social and business entrepreneurship programs. How these partnerships contribute to build strong democracies, fostering economic and social stability in developing countries will be explored via the experience in Venezuela and other Latin American countries. 

 

Enrique Rubio is an EMPA candidate with an interest in public policy and social development with a focus on utilizing social capital in order to build stronger communities through entrepreneurial activities. He is a founding partner and president of a management consulting firm whose focus is on non-profit and social and economic organizations. Mr. Rubio is also National Projects Coordinator for the Venezuelan Green Party where he is in charge of social and ecological project design and evaluation. 

 

 

 

Tuesday, November 1st  

11:30 am – 1:00 pm  

204 Maxwell Hall 

 

 

 

 

Peer to peer is a series for Executive Masters in Public Administration students to share issues, problems or successes with their fellow students. Each student guest speaker will speak for about 20-30 minutes and then we will have a 20-30 minute discussion time.  This event is open to all students. 

      

Lunch will be provided at the start of the event. Please RSVP to Kristina Donzella, kedonzel@maxwell.syr.edu by Friday, October 28th. 

 

"The Midas Touch: the NGO Sector in Post-Conflict Societies" 

Patrice McMahon, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska (Lincoln) 

  

 In post-conflict countries, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are not the first thing that you notice, but their presence is striking. From providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, to rebuilding infrastructure, to giving training to women, the embrace of NGOs as assistants, collaborators, and even saviors in the country’s reconstruction is a stable of peacebuilding exercises.  What do NGOs do in peacebuilding exercises? Why are these actors so prevalent? And, most importantly, what are the effects, specifically in fostering local agents of change? My research argues that peacebuilding exercises, starting in the 1990s were based on the universal belief that peacebuilders needed to strengthen civil society and support local partners to build peace. For good and for ill, this translated into significant support for NGOs -- both international and national. NGOs were supported, and strengthened because they were viewed as effective and legitimate mechanisms for increasing political engagement, transforming attitudes, and, ultimately, cementing peace and democratic change. Prof. McMahon’s talk will explain the contradictory role played by the international community in supporting NGOs in peacebuilding environments.    

 

Patrice McMahon (PhD, Columbia University) is an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  McMahon’s research interests include global governance, ethnic conflict, post-conflict reconstruction and human rights. She is the author of Taming Ethnic Hatreds: Ethnic Cooperation and Transnational Networks in Eastern Europe (Syracuse University Press: 2007). She recently completed an edited volume, Statebuilding and the International Community: Getting its Act Together? (Routledge 2012). Her work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Democratization, and Ethnopolitics,  

 

 Nov. 10, 12:30-2pm 

 Lunch will be served 

 

Comments on Bruno-van Vijfeijken and Schmitz

Hans Peter Schmitz and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken have recently published their comments on a paper "Crisis in Civil Society" by John Clark in the Jounrnal of Civil Society. Please take a look at John Clark's rejoinder to their article by clicking here.

  

Senegal Curbs a Bloody Rite for Girls and Women 

Please click here to read NY Times article about efforts undertaken in Senegal by an international NGO, Tostan, to end genital cutting.

 

  

Commentary: A Gap between Amibition and Effectiveness

Hans Peter Schmitz and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken were invited recently by the Journal of Civil Society to comment on a paper  "Crises in Civil Society" by John Clark, well-known former civil society practitioner who is  currently pursuing free-lance writing and consulting assignments. John worked as the first Policy and Research Director at Oxfam Great Britain in the 80ies and later spearheaded the opening up of the World Bank towards civil society organizations in the 90s. It was during this time that John and Tosca were colleagues in the Social Development Department of the Bank. John has since retired from the World Bank. Other commentators in this issue of the Journal are Jan Aart Scholte, John Clark, Ann Florini, Margaret E. Keck & Marisa von Bulow, and Mark Juergensmeyer.

Please clickhere to read their commentary "A Gap between Ambition and Effectiveness"

 

 

The Role of NGOs in Post-Conflict Zones  

with Rudy von Bernuth

 

 As part of the Everett Postconflict Reconstruction Speaker Series, INSCT welcomes Rudy von Bernuth from Save the Children to discuss the roles and challenges that NGOs face while operating in post-conflict environments. At Save the Children, von Bernuth supervises all programs and policies related to emergency response, humanitarian assistance and food assistance. With 40 years of experience in international development and emergency relief programs, he has directed response efforts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan and Tajikistan, among others.

DATE: OCTOBER 18, 2011
TIME: 12:30PM-1:45PM
PLACE: EGGERS 060, GLOBAL COLLABORATORY

 

In this tongue-in-cheek account, Shotgun Shack, the author of this Staff Expat Aid Workers blog, presents a 'courtship' tale of how Northern NGOs would sometimes go after certain Southern NGOs that they perceive to be very attractive.  

 

 

 

 

 

Elisa Peter is a Master of Public Administration candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Mid-Career Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. She formerly served as Acting Director of the NGO Liaison Office at the U. In this article she addresses the issue of the current status of NGOs as actors in view of the CIVICUS’s latest report.  

 

 

Have NGOs Become Irrelevant?   Posted: 07 Oct 2011 01:39 PM PDT  By Elisa Peter  International NGOs are the verge of facing irrelevance, if not extinction. This is one of the main messages of CIVICUS’ latest report, which warns that many well-established non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become disconnected from people’s aspirations and concerns.   The report argues that citizens are increasingly coming together in new and informal forms of association to affect social change in their communities, often disregarding traditional NGOs. Ingrid Srinath, the Secretary General of CIVICUS, notes that “civil society organizations must embrace people’s movements to connect better with the public and renew themselves in order to survive”.  The genesis of the Arab Spring seems to provide a case in point: individuals using social media to connect with one another led to the fall of authoritarian regimes, while established organizations watched from the sidelines.  The report starts by reviewing the state of the world’s civil society, building on the work done by CIVICUS in the past four years to track the political, institutional, social and cultural constraints faced by civil society in various countries. The erosion of the political space for civil society is a reality in many parts of the world. Restrictive legal environments, intimidation, criminalization and other repressive measures are silencing NGOs.  To make matters worse, many NGOs are still recovering from the financial impact of the global economic crisis on their organizations. This affects the capacity of NGOs to outreach, mobilize, engage/disengage and advocate effectively.  The CIVICUS report brings up a number of important questions, which ought to be taken seriously not only by NGOs but by anyone trying to affect social change. In essence, it looks at the nature of civic activism and mobilization, and asks what types of social structures are most adequate to deliver the change that people aspire to today.  The following elements, which are missing from the report, also ought to be taken into consideration when discussing the dynamics of change and democratization:  § The report is surprisingly silent about the gender dimension of social change.  The cover of the report shows a large group of visibly angry men in a mass demonstration (on the streets of Cairo?) and one wonders what kind of change will take place when half of the population is nowhere to be seen on the streets. The discussion over form (NGOs versus decentralized citizens movements) should not preclude a discussion over purpose. NGOs as well as grassroots movements have both historically failed to include women in their top decision-making processes worldwide (with a few exceptions). Women need to be included in any type of formal or informal activism if change is to lead to stable and representative societies based on the rule of law and the respect of women’s and men’s universal human rights.  § The report argues that many NGOs are perceived as urban and elitist organizations, but is silent about the capture and instrumentalization of grassroots independent movements by vested interests. I would argue that decentralized movements are as, if not more, vulnerable to internal power struggles and external cooptation than established NGOs. Unfortunately, the indigenous peoples movement is a sad example of this worldwide.  § The report focuses only on countries and movements in the global south. I would argue that many of the issues faced by southern NGOs and movements are also increasingly relevant to northern NGOs and movements. Lack of funding, the rise of conservative governments in Europe, the concerted battle on terrorism, high unemployment rates, etc. are all redefining the social contract between citizens, their elected representatives and the role of member-based organizations. The recent social uprisings in Greece and Spain were not led by traditional organizations (trade unions, NGOs) but by an active citizenry expressing its discontent with the lack of regard for their everyday concerns, rights and aspirations.  The report concludes by urging organized and less formal civil society to come together as each has distinctive and complementary capabilities as drivers of social change. Will CIVICUS’s next report provide actionable recommendations as to how to (re)build these connections in support of participatory and progressive change?

 

Ramesh Singh is a Visiting Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University and a former CEO of Action Aid. In this blog on humanitarian and development NGOs (posted on 27 January 2011), he comments on the “customer satisfaction” of the Southern NGOs in regard to their partnership with their Northern counterparts.   

 

Living Unhappily Ever After: Southern NGOs and Northern NGOs 

 

Keystonehas just published NGO Partner Survey 2010 , a report about the relationship between northern NGOs from high income countries and southern NGOs from mid and low income countries. The report is a presentation of response and ratings of more than 1000 southern NGOs about their bilateral relationships (partnerships) with 25 NGOs from Europe (16) and USA (9) who cooperated with Keystone in this survey. The list of 25 northern NGOs notably does not include some of the bigger, more visible or vociferous advocacy NGOs.

The 80-page public report that does not give out much about the 1000+ southern NGOs in terms of whether they are organizations or movements of poor and excluded people or intermediary NGOs, or whether they are bigger or smaller NGOs and whether they are from countries where civil society space and sectors are well developed or not (and such factors would affect the nature and the quality of relationships).

The report recommends that "every year (northern) NGOs publish systematic feedback from their southern partners that is independently collected on an anonymous basis and is structured and presented in comparison to similar feedback received by other (northern) NGOs."

All in all, Keystone should be congratulated for the survey and the report, and for bringing up the relationship between southern NGOs and northern NGOs for discussion. However, my hope is that this sparks a conversation and debate about the relationship broadly between northern NGOs and southern NGOs (beyond the money mediated so called bilateral "partnership" between northern NGOs and southern NGOs). Not all relationships are partnerships and northern NGOs relate to the southern NGOs in a variety of relationships from sub-contractor to grantee to partner.

If we were to do a similar sectoral survey about southern NGOs' view about northern NGOs, I suspect the report card would look even worse with gory details of unfair competition for contracts, stealing staff by paying big salaries, double standards, media-hogging and hiding at the time of political pressure, etc.

In many of the contexts I know, northern NGOs and southern NGOs as two sectors have a relationship of constant tension (if not conflict). Yet, southern NGOs continue to shop around and take whatever they get from one or other northern NGOs - and live with the rest. Similarly, northern NGOs work with the southern NGOs that they like - and ignore the rest. Then they both live unhappily ever after!

Why is that southern NGOs, even in their better organized form as national federations or associations, live with so much unhappiness about northern NGOs without getting the situation resolved? Why is that northern NGOs get away with so much and do nothing to reconcile, change and co-exist positively? Will this become more complex or come to a head when so many northern NGOs are now also trying to be southern NGOs (albeit international) in many countries? Who can further research, facilitate and mediate a more constructive relationship between northern and southern NGOs? I am searching for diverse perspectives on this issue!
 

Development impact calls for knowledgeable development practitioners 

 

                  Chance Briggs, 97 MPA
World Vision International Career Talk 

 

   

 Chance Briggs currently serves as national director for World Vision International’s operations in Mali. In this role, he manages a large development program focused on food security, maternal and child health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, agricultural production and marketing, and disaster preparedness and response.  

 

As a relief and development worker, Chance has served for 20 years in the US, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Mozambique. He has been a program manager, head of office, assistant director, emergency coordinator, project director, relief director, program director, country representative, and country director.  He served as a country representative for CRS in Nigeria and Albania and was a program director with World Vision International’s operations in Pakistan and Mozambique. As a teacher, Chance lived and worked in Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, and in the USA. For several years he led a program to send volunteer teachers to developing countries. 

 

He holds a Master’s of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs as well as a Master’s of Education from Harvard University. Chance also serves on the board of directors of Ethical Expeditions, an American NGO that is engaged in rainforest conservation in Indonesia.  

   

Briggs was born and raised in Cortland, NY. He originally came to Maxwell in order to redirect his career towards US-based community development; however, through a Maxwell contact, he had the opportunity to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a volunteer election supervisor right after graduation—and those two weeks changed his life. He returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina two months later with his suitcases and a determination to find work.  Chance speaks English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish and gets by in Croatian, Mandarin Chinese, and Wolof, which he learned when he spent one year at the University of Dakar, Senegal, studying African Civilization & Literature. In his spare time, Chance likes to rock climb, ride his mountain bike, and spend time with his family. Chance is married to Renata Jagustovic-Briggs, who is from Zagreb, Croatia, and they are the proud parents of Maxwell Briggs, a 5-year-old boy who was born in Islamabad, Pakistan.   

 

Wednesday, October 5, 2011
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Room 204 Maxwell Hall
 

 

   

 

 

 

 

Here is an interesting blog update by Max Lawson, Oxfam's head of advocacy, on the progress of an European Financial Transactions Tax (aka Robin Hood Tax), with a brilliant video at the end.

 Charity Navigator (CN), the predominant and influential web-based rating intermediary for nonprofits in the US, just launched its revised rating platform ('CN 2.0'). This now includes indicators related to Accountability and Transparency, in addition to the financial health indicators which had been in existence from the beginning of CN, and which were highly contentious. To get a sense of the significant changes  in rating, which some NGOs have gone through as a result of the above change, please see the most recent blog post of Ken Berger, President of CN: http://www.kenscommentary.org/2011/09/cn-20-more-knowledge-more-good.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KensCommentary+%28Ken%27s+Commentary%29 

 

Many NGOs as well as analysts and academics have advocated for these changes, since the financial health indicators did not offer meaningful information about NGO effectiveness. In the next 1-2 years, CN is expected to launch its next iteration, 'CN 3.0', which will include indicators related to the quality of results assessment, and the extent to which NGOs publicly report on their results. Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, co-Director of the Transnational NGO Initiative, who joined CN's advisory panel very recently, will  contribute to this next round of changes.

 

"Government, Civil Society, and Nature Protection in Belize, Central America: Models of NGO civic engagement"

Dr. Steven Brechin is a professor of Sociology at Maxwell School. His particular interest is in organizational, political, and environmental sociology. He is interested in understanding the range of organizational models that exist for the protection of natural areas and biodiversity.  In his current work, he uses the theoretical lens of the “hollow state” to explore the unique partnership between government and NGOs that has evolved in Belize to manage protected areas throughout the country, and its implications for public engagement, governance, and the goals of conservation. 

 

Belize has a well-developed and active civil society comprised of both domestic and international NGOs. Much of these organized civil society activities revolves around nature protection initiatives engaging both the government and local communities.  Nature-based tourism has become a major source of economic development for the country over the last several decades.  This presentation looks at different models of civic engagement pursued by domestic NGOs in Belize, Central America.  The cases presented here differ dramatically from those given by Dr. Derick Brinkerhoff in his presentation to the TNGO Initiative in February 2011 on his fascinating work on NGOs and civil society in Indonesia. You may wish to review a Youtube video of Dr. Brinkerhoff’s talk by clicking here 

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm 

Our first annual Transnational NGO Leadership Institute was successfully concluded on Tuesday, September 20, 2011. You can enjoy the pictures taken throughout the event here.

On September 15, Hans Peter Schmitz spoke  to about 90 students and faculty at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) about the current crisis in Somalia and the responsibilities of the global community. The talk titled "International Responses to the Somalia Famine: Too little, Too late" in the Sanford Room of the Warren Hunting Smith Library was followed by additional comments via Skype from recent Hobart graduate Matt Wilson ‘10 who is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. Wilson offered first-hand information about current relief efforts as well as the situation in refugee camps in the border region. This event represented the end of a fundraising and awareness week organized by the HWS branch of Americans for Informed Democracy. Donations go to Oxfam USA.

Hans Peter Schmitz presented results of research conducted by the TNGO Initiative at the meetings of the American Political Science Association in Seattle, WA, September 1-4. He participated in a plenary roundtable that discussed the APSA Task Force report. Appointed by the President of APSA, Carole Pateman, the Task Force addressed issues of social justice, rights, and economic citizenship. In addition, Uwe Gneiting and Hans Peter Schmitz presented research papers on the panel 'Rights Based Approaches to Development: Have They Made A Difference?' The respective titles of the papers are 'A Human Rights-based Approach (HRBA) in Practice: Evaluating NGO Development Efforts' and 'Does the promise hold? A review of the effects of human rights-based approaches on international development programs.' Both papers are available online at Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

We are excited to host our first Transnational NGO Leadership Institute at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, September 14-20, 2011. The School's press release on the event can be found here.

Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, co-Director of the Transnational NGO Initiative, recently was invited to join Charity Navigator's Advisory Panel. This follows on years of engagement by various members of the Initiative in the discourse with Charity Navigator, other charity rating intermediaries, and INGOs on the impact of these rating systems. Charity Navigator is the largest US independent web-based nonprofit evaluator. It is undergoing wide ranging and important changes in its rating system, which through its indicators will balance the need for NGOs to be financially healthy, transparent and accountable, and to report on their results to the public. For the composition of the Advisory Panel which will guide these important changes, please click here.

 

 

The American Beverage Institute (ABI) complains that 'Mothers Against Drunk Driving' (MADD) received only a 'D' from the American Institute of Philantrophy. Slate Magazine already ran a story about the obvious: ABI's efforts to weaken MADD is all about the alcohol industry's bottom line and profits. And if MADD was indeed 'ineffective' as the rating suggests, then ABI would likely not bother to even attack it. So, what is happening here? Why go after a charity that seems to fail in its mission?

 

First, many advocacy organizations naturally spend more resources on overhead and difficult-to-measure activities, scoring typically lower than service delivery organizations (such as foodbanks). MADD is at 61% program spending, and AIP sets a 75% expectation for highly efficient charities. Second, efficiency ratings tell donors nothing about the actual impact of an organization. As we have argued elsewhere, financial efficiency is, at best, a weak proxy for effectiveness and, at worst, weakens the nonprofit sector significantly by forcing organizations to neglect organizational growth and engage in a 'race to the bottom.' 

 

Charity watchdogs, including Charity Navigator, are currently changing their ratings to include more meaningful information about individual organizations. This will still include financial data, but also provide more information about what organizations actually do. Measured by the attention received by your corporate opponents, MADD is a good investment for donors.          

The TNGO Initiative will host the first Transnational NGO Leadership Institute next month, September 14-20. The inaugural module in the Institute, which offers executive leadership preparation programs, is for invited NGO leaders only, and will focus specifically on leaders who currently work at the second tier of responsibility in their organizations and who wish to prepare themselves for top leadership. This focus came out of the realization that leadership succession and transition remain a difficult issue for the TNGO sector. We hope to offer this module, as well as future additional modules, annually.

 

 The Institute is guided by an impressive Steering Group of external NGO practitioners, and has a cohort of 16 participants with great regional, sector and gender diversity. Excellent Maxwell faculty and NGO leaders are contributing to the program content. For a full update on participants, contributors and program, please visit www.maxwell.syr.edu/leadershipinstitute. Applications for the 2012 Leadership Institute will open late this fall.

During the past InterAction Forum in Washington DC, August 10-12, the TNGO Initiative hosted a panel on "What Really Matters: Perspectives on Organizational Evaluation, Disclosure and Learning". The panel focused on outcome data generated and disclosed by INGOs: to what purpose should this be done? Is it feasible and even desirable to come to standardization of outcome related data, and if so, who should take the lead?

 

Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken moderated the panel, while George Mitchell, Assistant Professor at City College of New York (part of CUNY), and TNGO Initiative Fellow presented on "Outcome Accountability: How Far Are We Willing To Go?", which provided a solid foundation to the discussions, and asserted that most NGOs as yet do not have a consistent policy or practice on outcome evaluation, let alone disclosure ofsuch data.

 

 Ken Berger, CEO of Charity Navigator (CN), the influential US web-based rating intermediary, offered an update on the important ongoing changes in their rating system in the areas of transparency and accountability as well as results reporting. These changes will greatly incentivize NGOs to improve their generation and disclosure of outcome data. Ken agreed with George's assessment regarding the vast majority of NGOs ("there is no there there"), and mentioned that most individual donors give to nonprofits based on loyalty considerations and earlier connections to the organization concerned, and not based on good data about outcomes. He also mentioned that 40% of the charities rated by CN will see changes in their rating as a result of the current re-rating based on the new transparency and accountability standards.

 

 Matthew Forti, Program Measurement Lead at Bridgespan, the well-known US consulting and training group for nonprofits, did a presentation that offered some of the answers to the questions raised above. Matthew mentioned the new website Charting Impact, which offers the beginning of such outcome accountability, although he agreed that it has some limitations in terms of outside verification of information offered, and offers no assurance on the quality of evaluation data offered. He stated that only those standardsetting initiatives that help organizations improve their effectiveness and which contribute to organizational learning will survive and thrive, while those that focus foremost on donor accountability will not. Also, it is crucial that institutional donors financially support the significant investment costs that NGOs face in terms of evaluation capacity. Finally, any standardization in outcome data generation and disclosure should be encouraged, not mandated.

 

 Carlisle Levine, former evaluator at CRS and CARE US and co-chair of InterAction's Working Group on Evaluation, offered detailed comments on the three presentations from her practitioner experience. She highlighted the fact that on the one hand, some of the larger INGOs are investing in outcome accountability ("there is a there there"), while NGOs in general face significant constraints in improving their accountability. What to do with federated and/or highly decentralized NGOs, where coming to consensus on what is the right outcome data to collect and disclose can be difficult? How do we apply measures to diverging forms of NGO activity, such as advocacy, capacity building and service delivery? If we (only) measure what we can easily measure, then we are probably not measuring the right things. And what is the right time frame for such measurement?

 

Overall, the panel was attended by a good size audience, included spirited discussions and well well reviewed by participants. Tosca has been invited to join Charity Navigator's Advisory Panel to help guide CN's changes in how it rates NGOs towards a greater focus on both transparency and accountability ('CN 2.0') and results reporting ('CN 3.0').

Economist Pranab Bardhan takes on the rights-based approach in the Boston Review and gets applause from Chris Blattman. There are many important and valid points in the essay, but much of the critique is based on inaccurate assumptions and generalizations about the development sector. Bardhan claims that many activists somehow "romanticize the poor" and that rights-based approaches in a weak state are "hollow and promoting them breeds cynicism" because court orders are not implemented and enforced. While such problems may be real in specific contexts, they are hardly representative of the broader movement. These charges not only misunderstand the sincerity of many development professionals dedicated to eradicating poverty, but fundamentally miss the larger point of rights-based mobilization. Litigation is but one strategy in the RBA tool set, which is most effective when deployed simultaneously at different levels of domestic society. RBA strategies are primarily about raising consciousness and empowerment at the local levels as well as accountability at the state level. For NGOs as external actors using RBA, the strategy is not just about pitting the people against the state, but is requires complex analyses of all forms of inequality and discrimination, especially those prevalent within local communities. Development workers do not admire “the pristine life of the poor and the indigenous,” as Bardhan puts it. Instead, RBA is designed to focus particular attention on community members who have traditionally been disenfranchised, including the poorest.

Of course, much remains to be done and RBA is very much an unfinished agenda. Our recent evaluation of RBA efforts of Plan International finds limited evidence of rights holders successfully holding duty bearers accountable through electoral or other mechanisms. Most development agencies have yet to establish systematic guidelines for how to apply RBA in different contexts as well as systematic methods for evaluating the efficacy of such activities. Most importantly, NGOs often have difficulties developing holistic strategies that simultaneously target community-, civil society- and state-levels. In this sense, Bardhan is right. Winning a single court battle is not an end to the war against poverty. But it is one step towards broader social mobilization which diminishes the role of external actors and increases the influence of domestic democratic forces.

Written jointly by Jesse D. Lecy (Georgia State University), Haley Swedlund (Radboud University, Nijmegen), and Hans Peter Schmitz, the article 'Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness: A Modern Synthesis' has been accepted for publication by Voluntas. International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. The article provides a structured and interdisciplinary literature review on the topic of not-for-profit effectiveness.   

 

Abstract: While the issue of NGO/NPO effectiveness remains a prominent topic for scholars and practitioners, the literature on this topic is increasingly fragmented along disciplinary lines. We address this issue by presenting a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the literature on NGO and NPO effectiveness using citation analysis. In order to uncover communalities across disciplines concerned with questions of NPO/NGO effectiveness, we deploy a structured literature review using snowball sampling within citation networks. This approach limits author biases, fosters an interdisciplinary perspective, and adds a different methodological approach to conventional content-based literature reviews. Our review uncovers three trends: (1) there is broad scholarly consensus that uni-dimensional measures of effectiveness are not useful – even though such measures are commonly used by NGO/NPO rating agencies; (2) the scholarship on NGO/NPO effectiveness is dominated by conceptual works, while empirical studies remain rare; (3) a consensus on how to operationalize effectiveness remains elusive. These results suggest that progress in our understanding of NGO/NPO effectiveness requires crossing disciplinary divides, adding more empirical analyses, and increasing efforts to develop shared categories and methodologies.

A paper presented by Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken at INTRAC's 7th Evaluation Conference in the Netherlands, is posted here. The paper draws on results from the first comprehensive review of Plan International's adoption of rights-based strategies, completed by the TNGO Initiative in July 2011.

Following an invitation by Plan International USA, the TNGO Initiative has completed a three-month review of country program evaluations submitted since 2007. The review aimed at better understanding if and how rights-based programming improves the well-being of children; its title is: "How does CCCD Affect Program Effectiveness and Sustainability? A Meta Review of Plan’s Evaluations." The Plan Federation spans 60 countries and has a annual budget of three-quarters of a billion US-dollars. In its response, Plan USA commented that the findings "have relevance to other development actors working with children, communities and Rights-based Approaches to development more generally." The executive summary of the report is here.

On June 15, Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken presented a brief paper on the findings of multi-level applied evaluations of Plan International's transition towards Rights Based Approaches (RBA) at the INTRAC conference in the Netherlands on the evaluation of complex social change processes. For the brief working paper, click here. For the PowerPoint presentation, please click here.

The research by the TNGO Initiative's own Christiane Page, on the effects of leadership style on NGO impact, was recently featured in the April issue of Monday Developments, the monthly journal of InterAction, the US umbrella organization of development and relief NGOs. This interesting work highlights the interplay between TNGO leadership styles and constraints in the operating environment of TNGOs, and addresses how these factors affect the direction and impact of TNGOs. Christiane will soon defend her dissertation, which is based on data from the TNGO Interview Study, on this very topic.

Our annual report for 2010-11 is now available here. The report summarizes the main activities of the TNGO Initiative in the three areas of research/publications, education, and practitioner engagement.

Duncan Green, Head of Research of Oxfam, has a blog which is very worthwhile to read. This entry makes some valid points about the 'how' of NGO advocacy in one party states -- I say this based on my experience in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Please click here.

 

Tosca

 

 

The New York Times reports that NGOs in China -- both domestic and international -- experience increased government scrutiny as a result of concerns about 'Arab spring' cross-over impacts. More

From Stanford's Social Innovation Review, Kevin Starr thoughtfully examines the scandal around Greg Mortenson's Central Asia Institute NGO and what it means for future donors and other TNGOs.

 

What are the issues that divide the experiences of domestics NGOs and transnational NGOs (TNGO)s? And what processes are best for bridging those gaps? Mr. Mutasah and Ms. Mcube will discuss the structural and environmental issues that produce conflict and competition rather than collaboration and partnership between domestic and transnational NGOs. The discussion will also articulate what conversations domestic and transnational NGOs should be having, at what stage and with whom, as well as how they should frame their priorities.

Tawanda Mutasah
Tawanda Mutasah, International Director of Programs, Open Society Foundation,

Mary-Jane Ncube,
Humphrey Fellow at Maxwell and Executive Director, Transparency International, Zimbabwe

Tawanda Mutasah is International Director of Programs at the Open Society Foundations (formerly Open Society Institute -- OSI) in New York City, and was formerly Chair of OSF's Africa Advisory Board. He previously directed the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, and, among other pre-OSI roles, served on Oxfam GB's international advocacy staff.

Mary Jane Ncube has ten years of experience working as a specialist in anti-corruption and governance. She has extensive experience working with governments, local authorities and parliaments in Southern and East Africa. Mary Jane is currently the Executive Director for Transparency International Zimbabwe 

CEO of Charity Navigator, Ken Berger, shares his predictions about future developments in the US nonprofit realm. The TNGO Initiative's George Mitchell will share a panel with Ken and others at InterAction’s Annual Forum, August 2011, in Washington DC.

Hans Peter Schmitz was appointed to the American Political Science Association's Task Force "Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World." APSA task forces are charged with "(1) putting the best of political science research and knowledge at the service of critical issues that have major public policy implications and (2) sharing with broader society what political scientists know about important trends and issues in areas of public concern." The report of the task force will be published at the next APSA meeting in September 2011 in Seattle. Hans Peter will contribute the TNGO Initiative's research on rights-based approaches to the task force deliberations.   

Did you ever wonder about the global impact of transnational development NGOs? The US-based umbrella organization Interaction has begun tracking the global presence of its membership, see here, for example: projects related to food security.

The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) focuses on the fulfillment of economic and social rights, such as the right to food, health, education and water. In this interview, Ignacio Saiz, Executive Director of CESR and 2011 TNGO Fellow, speaks with Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken about the specific challenges and opportunities in this relatively new sector within human rights advocacy.

 

The TNGO Initiative recently embarked on a collaborative research project with the U.S. branch of the transnational development NGO Plan International. The project aims to assess changes in effectiveness and sustainability of Plan’s operations as a result of the organization’s change in program strategy. By analyzing internal evaluation documents from more than 50 program countries, the researchers hope to be able to identify if and how development strategies, such as promoting community awareness and participation, strengthening accountability and responsiveness of state institutions, and fostering alliances with local partner organizations contribute to enhanced program results for transnational development NGOs. These approaches, reflected in PLAN's Child and Community Centered Development (CCCD) strategy, encompass some RBA components.

 

This project constitutes the second research cooperation with Plan International. In 2009, the TNGO Initiative conducted an intensive six-month strategy evaluation of Plan International’s work in Guatemala aimed at assessing the shift of Plan towards a rights-based approach (RBA)  to development. The evaluation found that rights-based approaches, as implemented by, have the potential to be a coherent and effective framework for community-based development work but require significant transformation of an organization’s practices and increase the reliance on the commitment and performance of local actors. The current project builds on these findings and aims to elaborate them by comparing evidence from a sample of other program countries.

This collaborative research project ties in with the initiative’s mission to conduct applied research, which helps to enhance the work of transnational NGOs while at the same time contributing to relevant academic debates, such as aid effectiveness or rights-based approaches to development. The results of this project are planned to be published in relevant journals and thereby accessible to interested practitioners and academics.

 

Hans Peter Schmitz, Uwe Gneiting and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken are undertaking the review; their work will be finalized by the end of June, 2011.

This New York Times article describes the fairly rare cases of some NGOs that decide voluntarily to go out of business. The TNGO Initiative is currently finalizing the preparation for publication of a case study on just such a case: Realizing Rights.

 

The Transnational NGO Initiative is proud to present: 

Tawanda Mutasah, International Director of Programs, Open Society Foundation and

Mary-Jane Ncube, Humphrey Fellow at Maxwell and Executive Director, Transparency International, Zimbabwe                

Transnational NGOs: Big Brother or Collaborator with Global South Domestic NGOs

What are the issues that divide the experiences of domestics NGOs and transnational NGOs (TNGOs)?  And what processes are best for bridging those gaps? Mr. Mutasah and Ms. Ncube will discuss the structural and environmental issues that produce conflict and competition rather than collaboration and partnership between domestic and transnational NGOs. The discussion will also articulate what conversations domestic and transnational NGOs should be having, at what stage and with whom, as well as how they should frame their priorities. 

Tawanda Mutasah is International Director of Programs at the Open Society Foundation (formerly Open Society Institute, OSI), in New York City, and was formerly Chair of OSF’s Africa Advisory Board. He previously directed the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, and, among other pre-OSI roles, served on Oxfam GB's international advocacy staff.

In Zimbabwe, he was founding chair of the National Constitutional Assembly - a prodemocracy coalition of over 200 national civic organizations. In the early 1990s, Mutasah was a young national leader who experienced various episodes of Mugabe's retribution against Zimbabwe's pioneering civic activism, suffering persecution as a national student leader and then as a human rights defender and pro-democracy organizer. He currently serves on many African and international boards, including as chair of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe (IDAZIM), and as a founding trustee of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC).

Thursday April 7, 1-2pm, Eggers 341

 

Then at 3pm… 

 

Co-sponsored by the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute, Maxwell’s Center for Career Services and the Student Group on Transnational NGOs:  

 

A Career Discussion with Tawanda Mutasah.  

 

Tawanda Mutasah is International Director of Programs at the Open Society Foundation (formerly Open Society Institute, OSI), in New York City, and was formerly Chair of OSF’s Africa Advisory Board. He previously directed the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, and, among other pre-OSI roles, served on Oxfam GB's international advocacy staff. 

 

Come armed with your career focused questions!  

 

Refreshments will be served 

 

When: Thursday, April 7th^th  3-4pm 

Where: 341 Eggers Hall 

 

 

 

From Harvard University and the Center for Global Development, interesting perspectives on why NGOs may prefer bad news.

The TNGO Initiative is hosting a meeting bringing together scholars with research interests related to transnational NGOs at the upcoming annual meetings of the International Studies Association in Montreal.

When: Thursday, March 17, at 7pm
Where: Salon 3, Sheraton Hotel

Jonathan Owen of the The Independent (UK) reports on the controversy over links between the Libyan regime and the London School of Economics and it's Centre for the Study of Global Governance.

Since 1969 Gadhafi has always seen civil society, political parties and other groups as potential centers of opposition or protest. So he systematically destroyed them. In a recent the Wall St. Journal article, journalist Robert D. Putnam describes the implications of this during his 2007 encounter with Libya's "philosopher king".

 

The Transnational NGO Initiative is proud to announce: 

  

Ignacio Saiz 

  

Executive Director, Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and 2011 Moynihan TNGO Fellow 

  

 

“Bridging human rights and development: the growing movement for economic and social rights” 

  

This talk will cover the work of transnational organizations on economic and social rights, mapping the field, and teasing out convergences and divergences between human rights and development practice.

 

Ignacio Saiz was appointed executive director of CESR in 2009, having served as the Center's research director since 2006. Prior to this, he was director of policy at the international secretariat of Amnesty International, where his responsibilities included overseeing the development of Amnesty's research, campaigning and advocacy on economic, social and cultural rights. Previous roles at Amnesty International have included deputy director of the Americas Program, policy coordinator and Central America researcher. He has also worked as a freelance human rights consultant for several other organizations in areas relating to sexuality and human rights, the prevention of torture and post-conflict accountability. Ignacio holds an LLM in international human rights law with distinction from the University of Essex and a BA degree in French, Spanish and Latin American literature from the University of Cambridge.

 

We are honored to welcome Ignacio Saiz as the Spring 2011 Moynihan TNGO Fellow. Mr. Saiz will be resident at the Moynihan Transnational NGO Initiative March 1-11 to undertake research and reflect on his organization’s challenges and opportunities.

When: Tuesday March 8, 12-1:30pm

Where: Eggers 100

Lunch will be served 

Last week Derick Brinkerhoff, Distinguished Fellow in International Public Management at RTI visited the TNGO Initiative to discuss the role of TNGOs in Indonesian Civil Society Development. It was a great talk and if you missed it you can find the slides here .

 

The TNGO Student Group is proud to present:  

  

Derick Brinkerhoff, Research Triangle International 

 

Derick Brinkerhoff, EdD, is a Distinguished Fellow at RTI in international public management and has more than 25 years of experience with public management issues in developing and transitioning countries, focusing on policy analysis, program implementation and evaluation, participation, institutional development, democratic governance, and management change. He has received multiple awards and honors for his published research in social science and policy studies and for his contributions to the theory and practice of international development and comparative public administration. Dr. Brinkerhoff is North American editor of the UK‐based journal, Public Administration and Development. He also holds an associate faculty appointment at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. 

  

Please join us for lunch as Mr. Brinkerhoff discusses:  

  

Civil society capacity development: lessons from the Democratic Reform Support Program 

in Indonesia 

 

This talk examines civil society strengthening experience from Indonesia to illuminate issues, challenges, and lessons for NGO capacity building and international donor supported democratic reform. Indonesia’s democracy promotion NGOs have largely operated as instruments of donor‐supported reforms. As they seek to become socially embedded actors pursuing indigenous agendas, they face the need to confront the various expectations of their stakeholders regarding their roles and legitimacy, develop flexibility to respond to new engagements with government and with citizens, and address their internal capacity gaps. The USAID‐supported Democratic Reform Support Program’s efforts to work with Indonesian NGOs illustrate both the problems and the progress with government‐NGO collaborations in democratic governance. 

Lunch will be provided 

 

When: February 8, 2011 12:00‐ 1:30 pm 

Where: 100 Eggers Hall 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then at 3pm…

 

Co-sponsored by the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute, Maxwell’s Center for Career Services and the Student Group on Transnational NGOs:

 

A Career Discussion with Derick Brinkerhoff. 

 

Mr. Brinkerhoff’s career reflects an interesting mix of scholarly and applied work, which may appeal to many students. He also co‐authored the book Working for Change: Making a Career in International Public Service (Kumarian, 2005) with his wife, Jennifer Brinkerhoff, and thus can also share his knowledge resulting from research for this book. 

  

Come armed with your career focused questions!  

  

Refreshments will be served 

  

When: Tuesday, Feb. 8^th  3-4pm 

Where: 341 Eggers Hall 

 

The Transnational NGO Student Group is proud to present: 

“Establishing a web-driven TNGO : A conversation with Dr. David Crane, founder of Impunity Watch” 

 

Dr. David Crane is a professor of practice at Syracuse University’s College of Law where teaches international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and national security law. From 2002-2005 he  served as Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international war crimes tribunal.  Professor Crane’s mandate was to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international human rights committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone during the 1990’s. Among those he indicted for those horrific crimes was the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, the first sitting African head of state in history to be held accountable.   

 

In 2007 he founded Impunity Watch, a student run web-driven TNGO that operates as a law review, message board, and blog. Impunity Watch’s mission is to monitor and address horrific human rights abuses and possible situations of impunity.  Its articles have been cited on the BBC, CNN and notable international blogs.  

 

When: February 2^nd, 2011 -- 12pm-1:30                   

Where:  Eggers 100

We hope to see you there!

A humorous story in The Economist  from South Sudan, where NGO-speak is quickly becoming a local language.

 

 The jargon of aid

   Jan 27th 2011 | NAIROBI | from PRINT EDITION

   THE emerging new country of South Sudan, which has voted
   overwhelmingly for secession from the north, has already become a
   leading nation of "the workshop": not a place where hard work gets
   done under duress but where the language of aid is taking hold even
   among the natives. "I feel like a stakeholder now," exclaimed a
   woman of the Dinka tribe, the region's most prolific.

   All the favourite words of NGO-speak are now aired in the makeshift
   corridors and canteens of Juba, the fledgling capital. Top of the
   list are "empowerment", "capacity-building" and "stakeholder" (not
   someone actually carrying a stake). "Governance", "civil society",
   "facilitators" and "disadvantaged" follow fast behind. British NGOs
   have a fondness for "focal groups". Americans like anything that
   leads to "inclusion", especially of the "excluded".

   Such terms' joy is that they are nice and woolly, hard to define and
   harder still to contradict: who could possibly turn down the chance
   to enhance development practitioners' facilitation skills for the
   capacity-building of gender-disadvantaged women?

   NGO-speak is particularly cherished and fostered in the grant
   applications that smaller NGOs have to file to the bigger ones.
   Using the right word is all. "If you don't know the buzz words,"
   says an NGO director, "you hardly have a chance to apply for funds."

Lydia Polgreen of the NY Times writes of the risks faced by people who are exercising their right to government information under India's Information Law. This is particularly interesting and relevant to TNGOs as many are involved in advocacy campaigns to expand freedom of access to information.

 

“A nonprofit’s financial report reveals virtually nothing about its effectiveness or efficiency in creating social value,” argues Harvard Business School’s Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman in their article, “The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits,” published in the Harvard Business Review. In a recent interview with the BBC’s Peter Day, Kaplan and Grossman explain why outcome evaluation, not just financial disclosure, is necessary for appropriately evaluating nonprofits and encouraging greater efficiency across the sector.

 

I’ve long argued that financial measures alone are fundamentally incapable of measuring nonprofit efficiency and effectiveness because they take no account of the outcomes organizations attempt to achieve. How much an organization spends on programs relative to other expenses, for example, tells donors nothing about the impact of that spending in terms of achieving meaningful results. Similarly, Kaplan and Grossman note:

 

“One financial ratio widely used by nonprofit analysts—administrative expenses divided by funds raised or disbursed—is even misleading. Some organizations may disburse a great deal of money with a small central staff but accomplish little. Others may have higher administrative expenses but attract outstanding staff, have a great model for achieving change, and actually deliver high-impact social services to their constituents. The traditional financial expense ratio makes the first group appear better managed than the second.”

 

It is useful to make a distinction between two types of nonprofit evaluation. Evaluation based on the principle of ‘outcome accountability’ focuses on whether nonprofits are achieving their promised results and doing so cost-effectively. I use the term cost-effectiveness in place of efficiency to emphasize that efficiency is a ratio of inputs to outcomes, not a ratio simply among inputs. A ratio like the cost per child fed is an efficiency measure because it assigns a financial cost to a specific outcome. A ratio like program expenses to total expenses is not because it fails to take any associated outcomes into account. 

 

Another type of nonprofit evaluation is based on the principle of ‘overhead minimization.’ In this view, organizations are effective and efficient when they attribute a large proportion of their expenses to programs rather than to fundraising or administration. This is appealing because financial measures are easier to come by and simpler to evaluate than outcome measures. Additionally, it feels intuitive that the more a nonprofit spends on program expenses relative to non-program expenses the greater its impact. But why would reducing non-program expenses improve program efficiency? Non-program expenses simply represent a nonprofit’s ‘cost of doing business’ and should be regarded as indirect program expenses.

 

I’ve also argued that measures of efficiency should take into account both direct and indirect expenses, not solely what are traditionally regarded as program expenses. An efficiency measure such as the cost per child fed, for instance, should include the cost of securing the funding for the program and an appropriate fraction of the nonprofit’s administrative costs. Allocating total costs, rather than just program costs, across a nonprofit’s achievements better represents its true cost-effectiveness.

 

All this implies that evaluations of nonprofits that rely solely on financial information measure neither efficiency nor effectiveness, but simply arbitrary ratios of costs. I say arbitrary because—beyond anecdotes and speculation—there is no solid empirical connection between a nonprofit’s financial ratios, on the one hand, and whether it is actually accomplishing anything, let along efficiently, on the other. This is a rather severe shortcoming, and a particularly problematic one for anyone trying to measure a nonprofit’s effectiveness or efficiency.

 

Nonprofits wasting money on ineffective programs shouldn’t be considered ‘efficient,’ ‘effective’ or ‘accountable’ just for having a high program expense ratio. Conversely, nonprofits with unfavorable financial ratios are not necessarily ineffective.

 

Nonprofits need to be held accountable for achieving results cost-effectively. For this to happen we need a systemic effort to induce nonprofits to disclose specific and measurable goals, to meaningfully evaluate their progress toward them and to reveal the financial costs associated with their achievements. Armed with this information, donors can channel their contributions to the most effective and efficient nonprofits while incentivizing less effective and efficient organizations to improve or perish. This is the kind of oversight and market discipline the nonprofit sector needs.

 

Kaplan and Grossman propose that emerging social investment intermediaries—acting somewhat analogously to mutual funds in the business sector—could help meet this challenge. The current system, based primarily on the principle of overhead minimization and implemented by a few nonprofit ratings agencies, clearly falls short. Thankfully, one of the most popular nonprofit ratings agencies, Charity Navigator, now recognizes the primacy of outcome accountability and, very laudably, has begun migrating from their old version 1.0, based solely on financial ratios, to their new version 2.0, which promises to assess organizational attributes related to results, accountability and financial sustainability.

 

Charity Navigator’s progressive new framework is ambitious. Few nonprofits generate, let alone disclose the information necessary for meaningful evaluations. For the foreseeable future Charity Navigator will have to make do with limited data from IRS Forms 990 and organizations’ websites. Historically, the widespread availability of financial information has largely driven nonprofit evaluation practices. I hope that in the future the presence of higher quality ratings and evaluation systems will compel nonprofits to generate and disclose more and better data.

 

Looking ahead, I’m already thinking about Charity Navigator version 3.0, which I hope will hold nonprofits accountable for truly being effective. Potential donors should be able to compare a nonprofit’s annual promises against its annual achievements to assess its track record. This way donors could feel more confident that their social investments today will have demonstrable impact tomorrow.

 

But efficient social investment requires not only that nonprofits achieve their goals, but that they do so cost-effectively. In version 4.0 I hope Charity Navigator will hold nonprofits accountable for achieving their results at low cost. Given two or more nonprofits with equivalent programs, donors should support the organization with the greatest impact per dollar. This is the kind of information that the public needs to know to make the kind of informed giving decisions that will force nonprofits to become more efficient. But we still have a long way to go. Currently, nonprofits simply aren’t providing the public with adequate information to support better systemic evaluation practices.

 

Greater outcome accountability will encourage a more effective and efficient nonprofit sector. The public deserves better information about the tax-exempt organizations it subsidizes. Meeting this challenge may require a mixture of financial intermediaries, independent ratings agencies and government oversight all demanding more meaningful evaluation and disclosure practices from nonprofits. We’re not there yet, but I think we’re finally heading in the right direction.

 

by George E. Mitchell
 

 

The Maxwell Perspective December 2010 issue features an article on NGOs as important actors in global governance, and highlights, among others, the perspectives of the TNGO Initiative and its leaders, Hans Peter Schmitz and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken: Click here

The TNGO Initiative is proud to announce the launch of the Transnational NGO Leadership Institute, a five day executive training program for rising, second tier leaders of transnational NGOs and networks who wish to prepare themselves for transition towards top leadership. The inaugural five day program will take place September 15-19, 2011, in Upstate New York. Initial  information about the rationale, training content, benefits etc. can be found on our website here. A separate, dedicated website with full information about curriculum content, training fees, logistics, registration procedures etc. will be launched Dec. 17th. The Institute will be held annually; additional training modules may be added over time.

A study on Realizing Rights by Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken and David Berlan was cited in The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

“Time-limited groups may be perceived as less threatening to partners because they aren’t seen as long-term competitors for funding,” says Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. With David Berlan, a colleague at the public-affairs school, she has been studying Realizing Rights as a model for time-limited organizations.

West, Maureen, 2010: Charities With an Expiration Date Hurry to Make a Lasting Mark, The Chronicle of Philanthrophy, November 28.

The TNGO Initiative appeared in full force at the annual meetings of the Association for Research on Non-Profit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in Alexandria, VA. Presentations by TNGO members included:  

 

George E. Mitchell: "The Construct of Organizational Effectiveness: A Leadership Perspective."

 

Paloma Raggo/Ines Mergel/Rachel Sigman:  "Accountability 2.0: The Use of Social Media Tools in U.S.-based Transnational NGOs"

 

Hans Peter Schmitz/George E. Mitchell/Paloma Raggo: "Challenges Facing Leaders of Transnational NGOs: Introducing New Data from a Cross-Sectoral
Study"

 

Christiane Pagé: "From Change Agents to Method Actors: The Effect of Transnational NGO Leadership Style on NGO-to-Government Relationships" 
 

David Gregory Berlan/Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken: "Reigning Beyond the Grave: The Case of a Time-Bound NGO"

 

On Saturday, November 20, we also organized the first meeting of a planned research consortium designed to bring together scholars interested in international/transnational NGOs across academic disciplines. About 20 participants discussed their research interests and how such a working group could be organized. As a first step, we agreed to set up a list-serv and organize follow-up meetings at the International Studies Association meetings in Montreal in March 2011 and ARNOVA 2011 in Toronto. Schools represented at the meeting included SUNY-Albany, University of Delaware, University of Memphis, Baruch College, George Washington University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Notre Dame, University of Washington, Georgia State University, and Harvard University, among others.  

 

As the anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake approaches, serious questions have arisen on the lack of TNGO coordination with local authorities. By Jose de Cordoba Wall St. Journal.

On Wednesday, November 10, Ramesh Singh visited the TNGO Initiative and discussed current trends in transnational NGOs as well as his outlook on the future roles of TNGOs within global civil society. He also gave a brief interivew for students interested in working in this sector. The interview with Tosca Bruno is now availalble in the interview section of our website.

The Transnational NGO Initiative is proud to present:  

 

Ramesh Singh 

Former CEO, ActionAid International and former Moynihan TNGO Fellow 

 

 

 

Trends, Trajectories and the Future of Transnational NGOs: Questions and propositions 

   

After recent crises and geopolitical shifts, how has the world changed for changed for Transnational NGOs? How are they globalizing, merging, expanding and changing? What kind of TNGOs will we need in the next cycle of development, and what kind will we end up with?  

 

Ramesh Singh is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. He was most recently CEO of Action Aid International, whom he worked for in various technical, management and leadership positions for over 25 years. Originally from Nepal, Mr. Singh and has lived and worked in the Gambia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Thailand, England and South Africa for most of the past 30 years. Mr. Singh is trained as an agronomist/seed technologist in Nepal and the UK. His expertise and research includes food and agriculture; TNGO governance, strategy and management; accountability systems; human rights based approaches and programming and south-south networking and influencing.  

   

When: Wednesday Nov. 10^th 12pm 

 

Where: Eggers 341 

 

LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED 

   

 

Dr. Maliha Khan,

Director of Program Impact for CARE USA

 

Dr. Khan had a great visit to the TNGO Initiative today where she spoke about the challenges, risks and rewards of creating a system for measuring the impact of programs and its organizational structure. A brief power point presentation outlining her work can be found here.

  

 

Co-sponsored by the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute, Maxwell’s Center for Career Services and the Student Group on Transnational NGOs:  

   

A Career Discussion with 

   

Dr. Maliha Khan 

   

Director for Program Impact, CARE USA 

   

Dr. Maliha Khan is a development practitioner in the fields of project and program design, monitoring and evaluation, impact measurement and gender with 20 years of international experience. CARE USA is part of the global federation CARE International, and is one of the biggest US based transnational development NGOs. Prior to joining CARE she was an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Sustainable Development degree at World learning’s SIT Graduate Institute. Over the years Dr. Khan also has worked as a consultant for a range of clients in the fields of natural resource management and gender, including the Ford Foundation, Heifer International, the World Bank, UNEP, the government of Pakistan as well as many bi-lateral agencies.   

   

Dr. Khan has a Masters in Social Anthropology from Quaid-i-Azam University of Pakistan and a doctorate from the State University of New York, where she specialized in Development Anthropology. 

   

Come armed with your career focused questions!  

   

When: Tuesday November, 2^nd 3pm to 4pm.  

Where: 341 Eggers Hall 

   

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED 

 

Microsoft is expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using softward piracy inquires as a pretext to supress dissent. by Clifford J. Levy, NYTimes

David Brooks of the NYTimes reviews the new book Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary. From the NYTimes Book Review.

 

The Transnational NGO Initiative is proud to present:

Dr. Maliha Khan

Director for Program Impact, CARE USA

A system for measuring impact across CARE USA: Risks and Rewards

There is a growing need for Transnational NGOs to demonstrate their accountability, legitimacy and effectiveness in achieving their mission goals; but how does a TNGO set up systems for evaluating its programs as well as overall organizational impact?

 

As Director of Program Impact at CARE USA, a large humanitarian NGO, Dr. Maliha Khan tackles these issues every day. Dr. Khan is currently overseeing a process to measure CARE’s impact, improve knowledge management, and ensure that the organization is accountable to standards and codes of conduct. On November 2^nd she will visit Maxwell to share her experiences in this process and address the questions of:

·         What are the challenges in putting such a system place and where is CARE in the process? 

·         What have we learned in the last 3 years of doing this? 

·         What changes need to happen in how we do development if an organizational assessment process like this is to be realized?

·         What are the rewards if we can pull this off?

·         What are the risks if we fail?

 

Dr. Maliha Khan is a development practitioner in the fields of project and program design, monitoring and evaluation, impact measurement and gender with 20 years of international experience. Prior to joining CARE she was an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Sustainable Development degree at World learning’s SIT Graduate Institute. Over the years Dr. Khan also has worked as a consultant for a range of clients in the fields of natural resource management and gender, including the Ford Foundation, Heifer International, the World Bank, UNEP, the government of Pakistan as well as many bi-lateral agencies. 

 

Dr. Khan has a Masters in Social Anthropology from Quaid-i-Azam University of Pakistan and a doctorate from the State University of New York, where she specialized in Development Anthropology.

 

 

When: November 2^nd, 12-1:30PM

Where: IR conference room (between the IR and MPA offices)

LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED

We hope to see you there!

 

Advocacy Director of Children’s Rights, Human Rights Watch

The Campaign to End the Use of Child Soldiers: Lessons from a successful Transnational NGO-led coalition.

The recruitment and use of child soldiers is one of the most horrific aspects of modern warfare. Jo Becker, founding chairperson of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, will discuss the global campaign that secured a UN treaty banning the use of child soldiers, legislative initiatives to withhold military assistance from governments using child soldiers and focused attention from the UN Security Council to hold child recruiters accountable.

Ms. Becker is the Advocacy Director of Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/jo-becker. She is responsible for the organization’s global advocacy strategy on issues including child labor, children and armed conflict, juvenile justice and violence against children.

Ms. Becker holds a master’s degree in political science from the Maxwell School. She is an adjunct associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.

When: Tuesday September 21, 12:00-1:30pm

Where: 341 Eggers Hall

LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED



Then, at 4pm Eggers 341:
A Career Discussion with

Jo Becker

Human Rights Watch is a major U.S. based human rights NGO. Ms. Becker is responsible for the organization’s global advocacy strategy on issues including child labor, children and armed conflict, juvenile justice and violence against children. Ms. Becker is also the founding chairperson of the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, which campaigned successfully for an international treaty banning the forced recruitment of children under age eighteen or their use in armed conflict.

Come ready with your career focused questions!

When: Tuesday September 21, 4pm-5pm

Where: 341 Eggers Hall

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED

Hans Peter Schmitz participated in an experts workshop on accountability in global environmental governance jointly organized by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and Boston University's Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The September 9 workshop fomulated an agenda aimed at inserting more meaningful accountability measures into global environmental governance, particulary during the run-up to the Rio+20 environmental summit of 2012. A lunch time panel discussion focused on why wide-spread agreement on a need for greater accountability (to close the ever-widening gap between commitment and compliance) has not been translated into action. Other participants included Ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, the country’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Chief Negotiator for the G-77 on environmental issues; Adnan Amin, Director of the United Nations Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) Secretariat; Adil Najam (Director, Pardee Center); Deborah Murphy (IISD); Mark Halle (IISD); Maria Ivanova (UMASS-Boston); Tom Bigg (International Institute for Environment and Development); Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz (International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development); Miquel Munoz (Pardee Center); and Ulf Melgaard (Danish Embassy to the United Nations).

APSA task forces work to enhance the public presence of political science by bringing political science research to bear public policy questions ( link). The newly created task force puts primary emphasis on the politics of economic development and governance, asking under what conditions specific rights-based and participatory policies enhance agency, democracy, equality and capacity. During the past decade, many new approaches to development emerged and political science can play an important role in evaluating the effectiveness of rights-based policies, cash transfers, expanded participatory governance, among others. I presented evidence from the TNGO Initiative's ongoing research evaluating the implementation of rights-based approaches in local and indigenous communities in Guatemala. At the 2011 APSA meetings in San Francisco, dedicated theme panels will serve to present the results of the task force. The task force convenor is Michael Goodhart (University of Pittsburgh). The members of the task force are: Archon Fung (Kennedy School, Harvard University), Varun Gauri (World Bank), Siri Gloppen (CSI, Bergen/Norway), Louise Haagh (University of York), Patrick Heller (Brown University), Stephen Ndegwa (World Bank/Yale University), Enrique Peruzzotti (UNRISD), Thomas Pogge (Yale University) Shahra Razavi (UNRISD), Anja Rudiger (National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, NESRI), Guy Standing (University of Bath), Peter Uvin (Tufts, Fletcher School), Brian Wampler (Boise State University), and Susanna Wing (Haverford College).

Research based on data from the TNGO Interview Project, as well as independent analysis, suggests that US nonprofits are being evaluated by nonprofit watchdog agencies according to the wrong definition of organizational effectiveness. Rather than evaluating effectiveness based on goal attainment, and efficiency based on program cost-effectiveness, nonprofit watchdogs rely on speculative financial proxies that incorrectly substitute for effectiveness and efficiency. In a presentation delivered during the DMA Nonprofit Federation New York 2010 Conference, I explained why prominent nonprofit watchdogs are barking up the wrong tree and how nonprofits can help correct the discourse about nonprofit effectiveness by generating and disclosing higher quality data about results and cost-effectiveness. Through improved evaluation and disclosure practices on the part of nonprofits, the efforts of some watchdogs to improve their systems could meet with greater success. A draft of the white paper, “Reframing the Discussion About Nonprofit Effectiveness,” was distributed at the conference.

 

by George E. Mitchell

Our interview with Chance Briggs, Program Director for World Vision International in Mozambique and Maxwell alum ('95-'96), who worked in a range of NGOs before joining World Vision, is now available in our Interview Series. Learn what are the main challenges currently for this major faith based NGOs, one of the largest in the world, and the skill set one needs to be effective.

 

 The TNGO Initiative is proud to announce a new collaborative relationship with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) at American University in Beirut, Lebanon. Drawing on the example of the TNGO Initiative Interview Study, IFI researchers are adapting and extending the US TNGO study to Arab NGO leaders across Lebanon, Syria and potentially the wider Middle East region. Given its strong capabilities and reputation in the region, IFI will take the lead role in the effort, with the TNGO Initiative providing advisory assistance with research design and implementation. IFI's study will closely mirror the TNGO Interview Project, enabling in-depth, large-N comparative study between US and Arab NGOs.