MUSLIM NGOs

Is lack of human resources and shortage of funds the major hurdles in providing quality service by Muslim social, educational and welfare organizations?
When confronted with poor quality of work and service these organizations always point out that they don’t have enough volunteers and cannot afford the service of professionals as they cannot afford.

The first impulse of many Muslim social, educational and welfare organizations seeking funding is to search for the possible funders, these NGOs often write immediately to the potential funder, stressing how desperately funds are needed.
Sadly, this approach often does harm to the Muslim organizations, rather than evoking any support. It often proves repulsive.

The work of Muslim organizations working for the community is vital to millions of people. However, fund-raising for these bodies is particularly difficult, for numerous reasons. There is often great competition among numerous local groups for scarce local financial resources. Government agencies are reluctant to fund community-based NGOs “directly”, because of three major reasons. First a perception of lack of accountability, second difficulty in establishing credible references, and last but not the least, practical issues with resource transfers.
Some community-based organizations lack what donors regard as the necessary prerequisite structure for being able to process donations, financial or otherwise. For many organizations, this becomes a “Catch 22”. Resources would permit the necessary administrative changes to become more donors-compliant, but they cannot get those resources without making the changes.

A random survey conducted by Trend Research and Analysis centre (TRAC) revealed that generally people do not trust Muslim welfare organizations as most of them lack transparency in their functioning. This makes their task of getting funds arduous.

Out of 56 respondents representing a cross section of the community, 88 per cent said that they don’t trust the Muslim organisations because of the lack of transparency. In fact many of these organizations are flooded with queries under Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Thus, to provide quality service and raise funds for their various projects, the Muslim welfare organizations should bring in transparency in their functioning and earn goodwill of the local masses. Once they recognize them, it will generate tremendous word of mouth. This will bring in support in the form of human resource and financial support.

According to the survey, financial transparency and quality work are the two important attributes which people look for in NGOs before they start trusting and then contributing. 79 per cent of the respondents said that they are not satisfied by the quality of service provided by the Muslim organisations.

82 per cent of the respondents said that if they are convinced about the credibility of the Muslim organisations they will contribute both time and money.
Word of mouth is basically an opportunity for organizations to think strategically. For Muslim welfare organizations, the appeal of word-of-mouth marketing is obvious. It relies on a concept with which many non-profit organizations are already familiar, motivating members and volunteers to translate talk into action.
Muslim organisations can learn from the example of Aravind Eye Hospitals. This body began in 1976 with just 11 beds. Today, in addition to the hospital in Madurai, there are four other Aravind Eye Hospitals in Theni, Tirunelveli Coimbatore, and Puducherry with a combined total of nearly 3,590 beds.
With their focus on quality and service to the poor, with less than 1 per cent of the country’s ophthalmic manpower, Aravind Eye Hospitals accounts for 5 per cent of the ophthalmic surgeries performed nationwide.

Local support and reorganization is the prerequisite for the growth of any organization. Once that is achieved, the door for corporate donors can easily open up. Corporate social responsibility is the new mantra in the corporate world.

The idea of social responsibilities presumes that the corporation has not only economic and legal obligations but also certain responsibilities to society, which extend beyond these obligations.

Unfortunately, the major problem with Muslim organizations is that they approach Muslim businessmen or Muslim owned corporate. Why these organizations are not approaching corporate in general irrespective of who the owners are?

What really matters is the matching of objectives of both the welfare organisation and the corporate. Most of the corporates have their own social objectives. Infosys Foundation of Infosys Technologies Ltd has done exceptional philanthropic work by providing shelter and assistance to destitute children and building libraries and science centres in several government schools run in remote areas.

They are also providing financial assistance to artisans and their families in their endeavor to sustain and revive the disappearing art forms and the ethnic culture of rural India.

At Indian Oil, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been the cornerstone of success right from inception in the year 1964. The IOC objectives in this key performance area are enshrined in its Mission statement: “… to help enrich the quality of life of the community and preserve ecological balance and heritage through a strong environment cons-cience.”

All that Muslim welfare or-gani-sations need to do is to identify the corpo-rates whose social objectives are in tune with their own objectives. The next step is to approach the corporates with the necessary documents and proper format as required.

There has been a revolutionary change in the attitude of the corporate sector towards the community they are operating in. Corporate social responsibility emphasizes the responsibility of companies towards the stakeholders as against their earlier focus on profit-making alone.