Things to Think Aboutprint story

May 30, 2011

Deep Jyoti India
Anoop Jain

Our work is such that at any given time, we might inadvertently be creating a dependency between our beneficiaries and ourselves. These dependencies can take a variety of forms. The most obvious is monetary. When we have raised large sums of money for community initiatives, we are essentially giving away a service for free. For example, we are building four toilets for the children at Deep Jyoti. The families don’t have to pay for any of this; it was money that was raised here in the US.

As fundraisers, we must be careful though. We must set our boundaries and reinforce them constantly. We are only able to raise so much in any given period of time. Furthermore, we have very firm intentions for the use of the money we raise. If the organization and its beneficiaries, for whom we are raising the money, are not aware of this, we might run in to unfair expectations.

It is imperative that the doors of the communication always remain wide open. As fundraisers, we have a duty to inform our partner organizations about what we feel our capabilities are. The purpose of this is not to set harsh limitations. Rather it is to ensure that the goals and objectives we have set are realistic and that they are met.

Dependencies are also dangerous because they do not account for sustainability of a project after the primary benefactor has left. A big component of our work should always be empowering a community to stand on its own two feet. If tomorrow, for any given reason, we are not able to provide funds to our partner organizations, that should not spell the end of that organization or its initiatives. Becoming the primary care takers of these organizations is a big disservice, something that we should be extremely wary of.

Comments

Please log in to post a comment!