Change due to social sector programmes (corporate social responsibility in India) can be measured through assessments that must be carried out periodically. Assessments inform us if we are on the right track and the achievements of programmes goals and purposes.

Why are assessments important?

Many question the need for assessments in the social sector programmes. Let us understand why there is a need for assessments from a stakeholder perspective –

1. Informs programming – the foremost benefit of assessment is that it informs our programme design and implementation. Short feedback loops (like monitoring) help inform whether the programme is on track and is able to fulfil its immediate purpose. Long feedback cycles (or evaluations), on the other hand, help us understand if goals are achieved, inform our programme design as we learn from mistakes.

2. Inform internal stakeholders – the corporate social responsibility committee, the internal constituency within a company, must be informed of change as result of monies being spent on programmes. The CSR committee is responsible for the programmes being carried out using corporate social responsibility money, and have a right to know of the outcomes of an expenditure.

3. Inform donors and governments – the government and other donors stand to benefit from measuring change and reporting the same. This allows convergence among efforts by various agencies, as also help build complementarity in programming.

4. Inform communities – in the development sector, our first line of accountability is to the communities we work with. Communities have a right to know the outcomes resulting from monies being spent on problems they live with.

5. Inform peers – sharing learnings on what works and what does not helps peers avoid making similar mistakes. Eventually this saves monies that can be used for more deserving projects.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring (also sometime loosely referred to as process evaluation) of a programme involves the collection of routine data that measures progress toward achieving programme objectives. Monitoring is therefore an –

• Ongoing process

• Requires collection of data at multiple points throughout the programme life-cycle

• Can be used to determine if activities need adjustment during the intervention to improve desired outcomes

Evaluation measures how well programme activities have met expected objectives and/or the extent to which changes in outcomes are achieved. Evaluation studies could be carried out during the mid-term of a project (referred to as mid-term evaluation) or at it conclusion (end-term evaluation). Evaluation could further be categorized into –

• Operational evaluation which looks at how well programmes were implemented and whether they realised their outcomes (and thereby the objectives), and

• Impact evaluation which looks into whether the intended goal was achieved and whether the change can be attributed to the programme. Impact evaluation measures how changes in outcomes can be attributed to the programme or intervention.

Mid-term evaluation is usually done around the middle stages of a programme to understand if inputs and activities are resulting in the desired outputs and perhaps early-stage outcomes. Monitoring and midterm evaluation together should ring warning bells if things are not in order.

Two other terms that one needs to be aware of –

• Prospective evaluation – these are designed at the same time as the programme is being developed. Baseline data is collected for both the intervention and the counterfactual (also referred to as the control group). Data collection during midline and endline stages therefore allows us for comparison with the baseline data and allows us to measure change.

• Retrospective evaluation – these assess programme impacts after the programme has being implemented.

Steps to designing and conducting assessments

This section captures the key steps required to put a place a robust monitoring and evaluation system.

Selecting key performance indicators and data sources

Selection is performance indicators are an essential first step towards the initiation of any assessment. An indicator is a variable that measures one aspect of a programme or project that is directly related to the programme objectives/outcomes
Data sources are the resources used to obtain data for M&E activities. It can come from various sources – clients,
programme, service, environment, population etc. and can be generalized into two categories –

• Routine data – Data collected on a continuous basis – like patient data utilizing clinic services – collected daily, aggregated monthly, reported quarterly – they should be cheap

• Non-routine data – Data collected on a periodic basis, usually quarterly or annually – they are usually extensive – they are expensive Some amount of discretion needs to be used for collection of both routine and non-routine data as they
could fall under both monitoring and evaluation.

Data collection tools and quality issues

There are basically two types of techniques for data collection – qualitative techniques and quantitative techniques. Quantitative techniques, as the name suggests, collect data points in number formats using surveys, tests, existing databases etc. Quantitative techniques use structured and unstructured observations, Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) etc to collect data. Each technique has its own share of pros and cons. Any evaluation will be as good (or as bad) as the data collected. Therefore, high level of integrity is required for
data collection, management, cleaning, storage issues.

Some data quality issues to keep in mind are –

1. Coverage – data is collected from the correct target group.

2. Completeness – data collected is complete

3. Consistent – data collected is consistent in and from various sources

4. Unique – record for data collected is unique across various records

5. Valid – data collected is valid and within ranges offered

6. Accurate – data collected is accurate and correctly describes the real-world situation

7. Timeliness – data collected should also be relevant for the period it is collected.

The most common errors that happen during any data collection exercise during assessments are –

• Sampling error – this type of error occurs if data is collected from the wrong group. This mostly happens when there are errors in sampling of target and control groups.

• Non-sampling error – these are errors that occur due to two reasons – either the survey administrator has not understood the context and question well or the respondent has not understood the same well, or both. Often questions are framed in a way that elicits erroneous responses from respondents. At times the units are misunderstood.

Informed consent and ethical issues

All evaluation studies must begin with an informed consent of the participants. All such studies (and data therein) are also closely guarded by ethical guidelines which could comprise of issues like – confidentiality of the data, traceability of respondents and thereby protecting their identity, and data safety issues. Ethical guidelines are stringent for studies around healthcare related topics.

Designing an impact evaluation study

Measure of change using prospective evaluation requires identification of intervention and control household/individuals (depending on the targeting nature of a programme) and measuring change between the baseline and endline stages. But, what happens if the prospective evaluation did not identify a control group or how does one measure change if there is neither a baseline or a control group? Let us try to understand the possibilities under these conditions –

Need for an M&E plan

This plan should capture the procedures that will be implemented to determine whether or not the objectives
of a project are met. The M&E plan typically comprises –

• The underlying assumptions on which achievement of programme goal depends

• The anticipated relationships between activities, outputs and outcomes

• Defined conceptual measures and definitions, along with baseline values

• A monitoring schedule

• A list of data sources

• Cost estimates for M&E activities

• Analysis and reporting plan

• Dissemination and utilization plan

Most organizations are wary of allocating funds for M&E purposes, however any project should typically allocate anything between 5-10% for such purposes.

‘Learning’ from assessments

Unfortunately many assessments are often a tick-mark exercise in the life-cycle of a project, never meant to be ‘learnt’ from. Assessments should be used inform and improve upon planning and implementation, rather than proving a certain point of view. Assessments done seriously can improve organizational culture, improve programme outcomes and direct funds towards worthy causes.

This column was published in the print edition of our magazine. To buy a copy, click here

Apart from teaching various courses at TISS, Dr Bhaskar Mittra is responsible for managing India-based operations for TCI. He is the TISS Representative to the Technical Assistance and Research for Indian Nutrition and Agriculture (TARINA) Steering Committee. He is closely associated with several well-known civil society organizations working at the grassroots level throughout India.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please drop a line.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team
Subscribe

The post Managerial Notes for Assessing Change through CSR Programmes appeared first on The CSR Journal.

On a parent-teacher meeting day, students have confidently showcased their science projects in the school’s long verandah. A Class V student, for instance, proudly displays a solar cooker he built.

This is one of the schools funded by the Gurgaon-headquartered SRF Foundation, CSR arm of SRF Ltd. “All the schools in Dadri block have been adopted by different corporate houses, such as HCL, Jubilant, Paytm, IndiGo, Power Grid and DLF, among others,” says Vinay Prakash Singh, District Coordinator for CSR and the Midday Meal Scheme.

In a first for any country, India’s new Companies Act passed in 2014 laid down that all companies with a net worth of INR 500 crore, or revenues exceeding Rs 1,000 crore, or net profit over INR 5 crore, should spend 2 per cent of their average profit over the last three years on CSR programmes.

As a result, such spending, formerly confined only to large, socially conscious companies, has been increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16 per cent, and amounted to INR 10,132 crore in 2017/18. This has led to companies setting up CSR departments and formalising CSR processes, unlike the ad hoc manner in which these programmes were conducted earlier.

Shortcomings

Five years after it became law, however, some shortcomings of the Act are also visible. One is unequal distribution of CSR funds – not all areas of the country are benefitting to the same extent. Since the Act decrees that companies “shall give preference to the local area”, the more industrialised parts of the country are cornering the larger share.

An appraisal has shown that in 2017/18, Maharashtra – the most industrialised state in the country – got Rs 817 crore (or 8.06 per cent) of the total CSR funding, followed by Gujarat with Rs 604 crore (6 per cent) and Rajasthan Rs 483 crore (4.77 per cent), while Jharkhand and Bihar got only Rs 268 crore (2.65 per cent) and Rs 230 crore (2.28 per cent), respectively.

The “2 per cent of net profit” rule also makes implementation difficult since CSR allocations have to be planned early, well before the year ends, when the actual net profit is still unknown. “In case the company doesn’t make the profits as projected, it might affect the smooth functioning of its CSR programme. Moreover, in case there are surplus CSR funds those, too, cannot be carried forward to the next year,” says the CSR head of a Gurgaon-based company, requesting anonymity. “As a result, I’ve not found any company with a five-year CSR plan.”

No wonder companies prefer to make contributions to existing welfare programmes of the government – where all they need is to write out a yearly cheque – rather than start projects of their own or work through non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which need long-term planning.

In 2015/16, the highest CSR spend in a single domain was on the government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which got Rs 1,011 crore. In 2017/18, CSR contribution to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund rose 142 per cent over the previous year to Rs 172.43 crore, while the Namami Gange (Clean Ganga) programme got another substantial Rs 80 crore.

The CSR should rightfully be included in the entire gamut of a company’s practices, including its business dealings, and impact on the communities and environment amid which it works. The current CSR rules, however, impose no such obligation on a company.

“CSR should not be thought of as an expense but an investment where social, environmental, human rights and consumer concerns are integrated in the business operations,” says Clement Chauvet, Chief, Skills and Business Development, UNDP.

Take the case of corporate giant Vedanta that has an admirable CSR record, having spent nearly 10 per cent of its average profit of the last three years on CSR activities in 2017/18. Yet, one of its companies, Sterlite Copper Smelter in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, has been charged with misreporting to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board the ambient air quality around the plant 35 per cent to 55 per cent of the time across 2017 and 2018, according to the RTI findings by the Anti-Sterlite Individuals’s Movement.

The local community has been agitating against the air pollution the company is causing. The law allows companies to shrug off their responsibility to the environment or how they treat their employees by thinking of CSR as an expense.

Unintended Consequences

Some maintain that by linking CSR to profit, the Act has actually reduced the responsibility of manufacturing companies. “Large manufacturing companies, while setting up a unit in any area, would anyway start schools and hospitals there if there weren’t any, and look into health, education and sanitation issues,” says CSR expert Vikas Goswami. “It was not only for altruistic reasons, but also to create an ecosystem to attract and retain local labour. Now they have to wait till they start making profits.”

The CSR rules, however, clarify that if a company profits in any way from an activity, its funding cannot be classified as CSR spend – it cannot hire people it skills or distribute its own products in underserved areas and call it CSR.

“The rule was laid down in good faith to prevent companies from benefitting themselves from CSR activity,” says Chauvet. But it also means, for example, IKEA’s Social Entrepreneurs initiative, by which it partners with organisations that employ local artisans – it has two such in India – and market their products, thereby creating jobs and improving lives, would not qualify as CSR activity under the Act.

As a result, these kinds of strategic investments are infrequent in India, even though it has a vibrant culture of collectives and self-help groups.

Political and bureaucratic pressure on companies on where and how to allocate CSR funds is also growing. “Every time a senior executive of our company meets a chief minister, he is asked about where the company is doing CSR work,” says another company’s CSR head, on condition of anonymity. “We are often directed to spend the money in the chief minister’s constituency, or else on a newly launched government scheme.”

The district collectors, too, sometimes seek to influence companies with manufacturing units in their region. In 2017/18, for instance, CSR funds totalling Rs 164 crore were donated for building the Statue of Unity in Gujarat as against Rs 125 crore in all of Chandigarh.

Compliance Burden

The CSR spending unfortunately has become another tax-like expense, which has to be properly accounted for in the company’s annual report and balance sheet each year, thus increasing the compliance burden. Balance sheets have to be audited, and auditors can sometimes be a hindrance.

Human development isn’t the same as engineering or construction where everything can be accounted for,” says Goswami. “If there is any discrepancy between the amounts allocated and actually spent, justifying it to auditors – who are often unaware of the ground realities of development – becomes difficult. Rigour in costing and auditing is necessary, but there should be better means of satisfying the auditor on the one hand and meeting the needs of development on the other.

It often leads CSR heads of companies to take decisions based not on what is best for the project, but on what will satisfy the auditors.

Compliance is equally a problem for many of the NGOs seeking CSR funds. The smaller ones, in particular, often do not follow professional management practices even when they are doing significant grassroots work.

“Most CSR funds go to big and well-known NGOs, which are growing much faster than before, while small and mid-sized NGOs, which often work in difficult, remote areas, struggle to raise funds,” says Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy, CEO of consulting firm Sattva.

Some of the smaller NGOs even find it difficult to frame their project proposals the way companies require so as to be able to raise CSR grants to support their work. Above all, companies seek the setting and achieving of targets.

“Companies giving CSR grants often ask us to set ourselves quarterly targets, as grants are annual in nature, which can be a problem if we are also talking about empowerment other than just tangible outputs like toilets constructed or irrigation schemes,” says Avijit Choudhury, Integrator of Professional Assistance for Development Action.

“It takes at least five years to bring about any transformational change. It can take longer if the project is in a remote location. Sometimes it takes a year just to build rapport with the community.”

“Outcome” is a key metric for companies, which creates problems of the sort faced by Azad Foundation, an NGO which trains women drivers. Companies it has sought money from are willing to fund according to the number of women who successfully finish the programme, not by the number who enrol.

“How can the NGO have control over the number of women who drop out, especially when their life is filled with multiple challenges,” says Shrinivas Rao, COO, Azad Foundation. “These women come from impoverished backgrounds which sometimes makes it difficult for them to continue.”

He notes that providing training is the easy part of his work; far more tough is getting women out of their homes. “A lot of intervention is needed to change mindsets, get buy-ins from husbands and the community. We have to build creches for their children and give them psychological support to deal with family pressure. But companies only see through the prism of ‘outcomes’, and don’t want to help in building the enabling ecosystem.”

Most companies prefer to invest CSR funds in areas where outcomes can be easily measured, such as health and education – according to PRIME Database, 38 per cent of CSR funds so far have gone into education and another 25 per cent into health care.

It is even safer to donate to government programmes, where outcomes are no longer the companies’ concern. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, for instance, intended to end open defecation, continues to find much corporate favour, even though a joint study by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics and the Centre for Policy Research’s Accountability Initiative found that nearly a quarter of people in the heartland states of UP, Bihar, MP and Rajasthan, whose homes have toilets, continue to defecate in the open. The toilets, lacking adequate water supply, were either kept locked or used as storehouses.

Playing Safe

In contrast, tasks such as advocacy, countering violence, reducing inequalities or improving slums, see negligible spends. “If we ask companies to fund girls’ higher education, we find them quite willing,” says Nandita Shah, Co-director, Akshara – a Mumbai-based women’s resource centre.

“But the moment we seek funds for anything mildly controversial, such as combating domestic violence or street harassment, they tend to become wary.”

Organisations that confront the government on any issue have little hope of raising CSR funds at all. “Compliance to national priorities becomes the focus,” says Namrata Rana, Director, Strategy and Brand, Futurescape – a customer experience company.

The scale of projects taken up and numbers impacted also matters. “Companies don’t invest in areas where they can’t show significant impact in their annual reports,” she adds. But some kind of developmental work, such as supporting domestic violence victims or those with debilitating diseases, often cannot be done on a large scale by a single agency. The impact of the work also may not be immediately apparent and visible as it requires unwavering long-term commitment.

No doubt utilisation of CSR funds needs to improve – around INR 1,743 crore remains unused so far. But there can be no doubt of its need in coming years, more so because the foreign grants many NGOs used to receive are drying up.

Developed countries are reducing funding of overseas development projects, while Indian government, too, tightened the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act through an amendment in 2015. The total flow of foreign funds dropped from INR 15,299 crore in FY2014/15 to INR 6,499 crore in FY16/17.

Overall, better dialogue is needed between the corporate and social sectors so that both can influence and learn from each other. Open data platforms are needed to encourage sharing of information and stories, and make social responsibility dialogue an ongoing process.

Deeper problems need to be confronted and resolved. “We can feed the poor, but we also need to solve the problem of poverty,” says Rana of Futurescape.

(Data from Prime Database)

Source: Business Today

The post Shortcomings in the CSR rules appeared first on The CSR Journal.

Enhancing Human Development Indices needs concerted efforts by all parties involved, including the government. No one can ignore the government’s role in public welfare. No other agency can match the government’s spread and reach. However, other players can supplement and enhance welfare schemes.

Given the nature and scale of inequalities, it is important to understand key ingredients in forging collaborations with and among companies, implementing agencies and the government. The Cambridge dictionary defines collaboration as, “the act of working together with other people or organizations to create or achieve something.” Working and achieving together with a single vision is critical in building collaborations.

Over the last five years, a large portion of big size companies has been pumping money into social development causes. A good number of mid-sized companies have begun their journey. However, the majority of companies with small-sized CSR budgets are hesitating to begin. It is important to have a start. Knowing companies’ business acumen will certainly catch up in doing good. However, a lot more needs to be done.

The CSR mandate has ensured that a good number of companies are discussing development issues in board rooms. Companies have redefined their approach to CSR and are going beyond compliance and charity. The mandate has also brought in technology to address social issues.

Addressing a social issue is a long term investment and is a slow process. It is important to have a vision for a CSR strategy. A project mode may help in the short run but limits opportunities to build a cohesive story. Therefore, the company and the implementing agency has to visualize the future and work towards it.

A long term strategy would certainly open doors for appropriate partners and therefore collaborations. PR and branding are important; however, the intention to address a long pending social issue would overcome these initial hiccups.

A common vision across companies and implementing agencies is critical for collaborations. It is even more important for sponsoring companies. A common vision will ensure project management aspects to address social issues. A common vision also brings onto the table, much-required compatibility. The compatibility will help in bringing together competencies to address social issues.

India is a vast and diverse country. Coming together is pivotal to address long-standing social issues to build a just, social and equitable society.

Nirbhay Lumde is a CSR professional and has recently published a book titled, Corporate Social Responsibility in India: A Practitioner’s Perspective,’ available on e-commerce portals. A Post Graduate in Political Science and an alumnus of SSSIHL, Prasanthi Nilayam and IIT Mumbai, he currently manages CSR interventions in the areas of Education, Health, and Environment, and Technology Incubation along with overseeing Employee Volunteering.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Thank you for reading the column. Your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

Subscribe

The post What prevents forging collaborations in CSR? appeared first on The CSR Journal.

On this issue, Deepa Menon feels the Indian government should have a CSR ministry “which can provide guidance, training, capacity building and have an organized platform to integrate social good with companies’ objectives”. When it comes to CSR, she believes in the Trusteeship philosophy propounded by Mahatma Gandhi.

Menon is currently employed with PVR Limited as the Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility. She is founding head of PVR’s CSR arm, PVR Nest (PVR Network for Enablement & Social Transformation) and the brain behind its flagship project ‘Childscapes’, the operational program for children at risk in Delhi-NCR. It aims to instigate basic life skills and provide non-formal education to children from disadvantaged communities by integrating sports into their learning curriculum.

“Sports have the ability to bring disciplinary skills amongst children,” Menon tells Kasmin Fernandes from The CSR Journal in an exclusive interview about how PVR Ltd. fulfills its responsibility of giving back to society by supporting vulnerable communities. Excerpts:

What do you think about the Indian govt. tightening scrutiny on non-compliance of CSR?

Being a listed company and a company which ensures compliance with MCA guidelines, PVR has always worked towards making a positive impact in the areas of education, healthcare, environment, and women empowerment.

Many companies, we have seen, following a strong CSR mandate in their companies and at times there are companies who have the CSR funds but lack the capabilities to make the optimum utilization of the same. Furthermore, lack of the right partnerships also delays the disbursement of funds for a defined outcome.

Lack of awareness on non-compliance part is another possibility in the funds remained unspent. In this case, the Government should have a CSR ministry, which can provide guidance, training, capacity building and have an organized platform to integrate social good with companies’ objectives.

There should be a collaborative way for the government to be a part of companies’ CSR policy and encourage public-private partnerships. Regular sensitisation by the government can bridge the intellect gap between the organizations and the right CSR provisions.

Which causes is PVR Cinemas most passionate about?

PVR believes in inter-twining its interest with that of societal development and constantly endeavours to render assistance for the growth and progress of the social order it caters to. Executing the corporate social responsibility through PVR Nest, it has adopted an integrated outreach strategy to drive urban sustainability through addressing the fall outs of unplanned urbanization and empowering the disadvantaged communities through educational initiatives, public health, sanitation, and environmental sustainability programs.

PVR Nest believes in educating, empowering and building a collaborative society to contribute to the Sustainable Developmental Goals.

What kind of CSR initiatives does PVR engage in?

PVR’s 12-year-long tradition of community engagement through PVR Nest entails not only financial and in-kind support for worthy causes but active involvement in a variety of volunteer activities and community partnerships.

Fostering mutually beneficial relationships with Central & State governments, embassies, national & international voluntary organizations, CSOs, societies, and other Trusts, PVR NEST works towards fulfilling the company’s celeste philosophy of Corporate Social Responsibility.

As a responsible organization, PVR via PVR Nest is currently carrying out initiatives namely, Childscape, CineArt, Eco Grants, SHE’s Ambassador, Pink Toilets, Project Eklavya, Maitri meals, Scholarship for Excellence and Academics program.

Tell us about the inception and agenda of PVR Nest.

Much before the CSR was legislated in the Companies Act, 2013, PVR Ltd was already fulfilling the corporate social responsibility commitments through a philanthropic approach. The organization has always considered a contribution to Nation Building as integral to the growth of its business.

As the company got listed in 2006-2007, we established PVR Nest as a not-for-profit nodal body aimed at providing a dedicated approach to community development. Through PVR Nest, we want to engage with the community and communicate with them. We execute all our initiatives with a focussed approach in order to improve the urban environment around us and uplift the condition of children with fewer advantages and opportunities. Watch the journey of PVR Nest below:

How is the impact measured?

PVR Nest is now 12 years old. We have always measured the impact with the number of beneficiaries being integrated into the programs and what they receive with the success of the projects. For example, Childscapes caters to the children at risk through non-formal education and the impact is measured by reporting the number of children who are in the formal education system through our intervention.

Our ‘Project Eklavya’ aims for 70,000 admissions through RTE act and we are confident that this impact will be achieved by the end of the program.

Similarly, we have curated the ‘Project COPE’ – a grant initiative dedicated to the persons with disabilities and with this program, we aim to reach out to 50,000 beneficiaries through excellence experts. PVR NEST will provide grants to the excellence experts (fellows) to work on high-impact projects that can bring a systematic change in the disability sector in India.

In addition to this, our ECO GRANTS program incubates 10 change projects from five cities who are working on bringing substantial change to environmental sustainability. Furthermore, employee participation is another contributing factor to the impact assessment.

We are further structuring the reporting and impact mechanism of the foundation by integrating the SROI tool – a technical platform that will handle the assessment studies and streamline the accounting standards.

What is your personal vision for CSR?

I personally believe in the Trusteeship philosophy propounded by Mahatma Gandhi. It is an “instrument of human dignity” and provides a simple meaning to social good.

Back in 2006, when we were formalising PVR Nest; we kept the foundation based on ‘Trusteeship’ and curated our flagship program ‘Childscapes’. We believe that it is the responsibility of the company to give back to society and extend support to the most vulnerable communities in urban settings.

Subscribe

The post The Government Should Have A CSR Ministry: Deepa Menon, Senior Vice President (CSR), PVR Ltd. appeared first on The CSR Journal.

Companies in India appear spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing implementation partners for their mandated CSR activities. The ratio of NGOs to people currently outnumbers the ratio of policemen to citizens! However ascertaining the credibility and efficacy of an NGO for a company’s CSR implementation is as daunting in sheer volume as it is in the depth of work involved.

Legal compliance, responsible governance and financial sustainability are necessary but not sufficient conditions to identify appropriate implementation partners. Companies need to move beyond these factors and look at the “fit” of an NGO, taking into account the dynamic nature of their work, the lack of standardized reporting procedures and easily comparable benchmarks.

“Criteria used to assess organizations in the business world, may not represent an NGO’s suitability for CSR accurately,” according to Anushree Parekh from Samhita Social Ventures. For instance, a well-established NGO may rank well on governance and processes but may not have a suitable project that lends itself to corporate engagement or may not have the “community connect” with remote villages that a local NGO would.

NGOs work according to the evolving needs of communities and donors and should therefore capture both long-term trends as well as recent activities to present a clearer picture of their work and impact to companies looking to implement programs with them.

The problem of reporting is compounded by the lack of adequate regulation for NGOs to disclose information to the public, resulting in irregular reporting and ad hoc reporting procedures. This presents a serious problem to companies that require information about the NGO and their work for their own compliance.

One of the most important factors that companies look at is the impact of an NGO’s programs. Comparing these numbers while choosing implementation partners is not feasible because of varied definitions of impact across the sector, as well as the metrics used to determine impact.

Grading NGOs may be a formidable task for companies that are not very familiar with the workings of the NGO sector. In order to implement effective programs with NGOs that are aligned to a company’s CSR strategy and philosophy, it may be necessary to conduct a comprehensive due diligence process.

While it is equally necessary to evaluate NGOs for their programs, it is important to keep in mind the context within which NGOs are examined and understand the reasons behind the disparity, because numbers only tell half the story!

Subscribe

The post How to identify CSR implementation agencies appeared first on The CSR Journal.

The scope of the committee includes reviewing existing CSR framework as per Act, Rules and Circulars issued from time to time, recommending guidelines for enforcement of CSR provisions, suggesting measures for adequate monitoring and evaluation of CSR by companies, examining and recommending audit (financial, social and performance) for CSR, etc. Corporations can expect major upheavals once the report is out in early 2019.

In the meanwhile, have you considered what the future holds? Here are our projections for the years to come. 

PSUs to focus on Aspirational Districts

Public sector units (PSUs) will now identify central themes for corporate social responsibility activities every year, with 60% of their CSR expenditure dedicated to the thematic programmes, as per new guidelines issued by Department of Public Enterprises.

The norms call for aspirational districts to be accorded preference by central public sector enterprises (CPSE) for their CSR activities. The Niti Aayog has identified 112 aspirational districts. For the current year 2018-19, school education and healthcare may be taken up as the theme for focused intervention, the guidelines said.

The CPSE undertaking CSR activity in aspirational districts would designate a senior level functionary as nodal officer to liaise closely with the district administration of concerned aspirational district.

CSR funds to cross 50,000 crores

If we look at the overall CSR ecosystem in India, the total CSR fund investment by companies in India would cross INR 50,000 crores by March 31, 2019 since the applicability of the mandatory CSR, according to a report on CSR in India by NGOBox and CSRBox. A large chunk of this is towards education and skills development projects, followed by healthcare and sanitation initiatives, both of which are top priorities for the central government as well.

With the prescribed CSR spend of companies totalling over 50,000 crores for the first five years of the compliance, the future of corporate philanthropy in India is going to be defined by how well we’ve used the fund in past four years and how we plan to use it in future for problem solving. This will also be a test of board-room decision-makers for setting up priorities by juxtaposing immediate gains of sheer philanthropy and long-term benefits of sustainability-oriented projects.

Top recipient: Education

Education is the most preferred intervention area for companies, especially companies with medium CSR budget, and this is expected to remain the most preferred theme for years to come. Three-fourth’s of the top 100 companies are supporting at least one program in education. Here’s what the interventions will be focusing on:

1. Digital/smart-classrooms

2. App-based learning modules both for teachers and students

3. Scholarships and fellowships for students

4. Career counselling and mentoring of students

5. Beyond-classroom activities

6. Supporting tech-based enterprises in edtech space

7. Teacher-training and capacity building

8. Setting up science labs

Annual CSR compliance will increase

CSR compliance in-line with the prescribed CSR per year is going to increase and would reach in the range of 97%-99% by FY 2019-20. Detailed disclosures in the annual reports will be a common practice.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs had in April, 2018 established the Centralised Scrutiny and Prosecution Mechanism (CSPM) for enforcement of CSR provisions on a pilot basis. Acting on its inputs, the Ministry has issued preliminary notices to nearly 300 companies for not complying with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending requirement under the Companies Act, 2013 for the year 2015-16. The companies have been asked to provide a reason for non-compliance with the CSR provisions. This practice is likely to get more stringent.

Government collaboration for large-scale partnerships

More companies will align their CSR programs with government programs, schemes and priorities with special focus on Ayushman Bharat, Aspirational District Programme, Skill India Mission and National Nutrition Mission. Business to business (B2B) collaboration and joint design and implementation of projects is gradually getting space in board-rooms and we will see more collaborative projects on the ground in the near future.

No carry forward of unspent fund

Companies will not be allowed to carry forward the unspent CSR fund to next financial year. The fund needs to be deposited in one of three funds of the central government; PM Relief Fund, Swachh Bharat Kosh and Clean Ganga Fund.

No corpus fund

Corpus fund transfer and deposit in any fund other than the Central Government fund will not be accounted in CSR. In other words, any corpus transfer to an NGO or CSR fund would not be an eligible CSR activity if there is no on-ground implementation.

Subscribe

The post Top CSR trends and projections for 2019 appeared first on The CSR Journal.

Developed states which house India’s largest companies, tend to get more money from their corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets shows an analysis of listed companies’ CSR spends from Prime Database compared to government figures on Gross State Domestic Product at Factor Cost (current prices).

A state like Bihar ranks 17th on a list of 32 states and union territories for which CSR data is available. Topping the list are industrial powerhouses like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka. The correlation between these three states’ economic output and the amount of CSR spends is 0.93. Zero indicates no correlation, and one indicates perfect correlation.

The reasons for this concentration in CSR spends may not be hard to find. Most of India’s industry is concentrated in a few states. Companies of a certain size are required to mandatorily spend two per cent of their average three-year profits on corporate social responsibility. It stands to reason that companies would spend money where they are located.

The concentration of industry has been a problem that policymakers have dealt with for decades. The RK Hazari Committee report in 1966 noted the problem of regional concentration. And it has persisted since then. A problem as long-standing and deeply entrenched as the concentration is unlikely to go away quickly. This means that CSR spends may also continue to face concentration issues.

Swetank Mishra, who runs a developmental non-governmental organisation called Sahej said that poorer regions would be better served with such funds. And interestingly, the government does prioritise certain regions when it comes to allocating funds.

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh get the maximum share of central resources shows data on the devolution and transfer of resources from the centre. This seems to follow the policy of redistribution of resources so that backward regions can develop better. And is in sharp contrast to the patterns in CSR spending.

One could make an argument for mandating spending in backward states when it comes to CSR too. But a question would arise as to whether corporates can spend effectively when they are not familiar with the territory or its problems. Would they be able to monitor such spends effectively in the most backward of regions?

A partnership model with local governments is one way to involve local governments and corporate expertise. But there may be an argument to be made to consider to let the government take up the role entirely. Corporates remit the money to governments, just like their taxes. And let central, state and local governments decide where to spend the money.

With the government, elected representatives are accountable to voters. Spending on backward, populous regions can help win votes. Governments also have the last-mile connectivity required to bring projects to fruition and monitor them. The accountability of such public projects is also likely to be higher than privately-owned ones. Companies have no accountability from voters. Shareholders are hardly directly impacted by its charity work. So well-directed spending cannot be expected to occur as a natural consequence of mandatory CSR.

Source: Business Standard

The post CSR spends have a geography problem appeared first on The CSR Journal.

Thus went the reprise when I started working in the Social Development space, not such a long time ago, as a matter of fact. And this was from the mouths of grey-haired men and women, the men oftentimes having salt and pepper beards to match, who had spent years and years in the field and not the greenhorns.

Interestingly, however, the conversations I’ve been having off late have been markedly different from the ones above. There is all around acknowledgement that Technology has an increasingly important role to play in this sector. Fortunately, we have an increasing number of Technology players in the social sector providing a variety of solutions. Very recently, Namita Vikas, in an article published on May 5, 2018 on The CSR Journal portal spoke eloquently about some of the enabling technologies for the sector.

What I would like to do in the next few paragraphs is to actually take a step back and look at some of the broad ways in which Technology is being leveraged in the CSR sector in India and some of its future possibilities. Here I am assuming a more liberal definition of “Technology” being a process and including innovation rather than just products. Also, rather than looking at this from a Technology perspective, my lens will focus on the basic structure of the Social Development space and look for the gaps that need filling and what “Technology” has to offer.

So, let us start with the structure

One way to look at this sector is to visualise it like a pyramid divided into three broad layers. The bottom layer is the grassroots layer, the middle is the organisation layer and the top is the ecosystem layer. The three layers while being quite distinct, are, in fact, very intricately intertwined.

Now, let us briefly discuss the role of Technology in each of these layers:

Grassroots

This is where the maximum amount of activity is taking place. A lot of the activity is centred around product innovation. This is also the layer where a lot of start-ups and social enterprises are functioning. The product range extends from app-based marketplaces for farmers, to modularised low cost testing machines for patients, to microgrid solutions for local renewable power.

Most activity, however, tends to stay niche / local. The good news is that these innovations do not have geographical boundaries, with a lot of products and ideas flowing in and out of India. Also, there appears to be a healthy appetite among impact investors for investing in such ideas, which also acts as a sanity check for the innovations.

We should see more broad-based solutions emerging in the future, hopefully from within India. One pre-cursor for that will be establishing standards in the ‘ecosystem’ that allow different products and solutions to talk to each other, so that individual solutions can have a greater collective impact. Also, innovative Financial instruments such as Social Impact Bonds will also help innovation flourish.

Organisations

There are a number of players in this space attempting to automate the processes for both Donors and Implementors. There are several products that do so, as well as bespoke solutions built to cater to individual organisations’ needs. They mostly tend to cater to the larger organisations that have the capacity to pay for these solutions and almost always operate in silos.

Also, these solutions mostly tend to automate processes as they are, rather than do a lot of process re-engineering or introduce innovation. There are several organisations I have seen that do have some excellent ideas on innovation in this space. The future here lies in cheaper, more flexible systems that are capable of interoperability, through block chain and similar technologies.

Ecosystem

As a trickle-up effect of the silos and fragmentation at the lower two layers, the Indian social development ecosystem, including the CSR sub-ecosystem is quite deeply subdivided. These subdivisions are further accentuated by a lot of efforts being centred on individual goals such as brand-building and promotion of personal agendas. This has several ramifications, such as, creating barriers for sharing of best and worst practices, duplication of efforts, standardisation of reporting, comparable measurement of SROI etc.
This has a significant impact on the standard measures of any process / system, namely, Productivity or efficiency and Transparency or Governance, with a commensurate knock-on effect on the overall Risk.

While part of the solution lies in fixing the gaps identified in the layers lying below this one, there is significant amount of ecosystem level work that needs to be done. Big Data clearly has a role to play here, but we also need the Software Development Project Management kind of disciplined approach, need to evolve standards like in the Technology sphere, create platforms like NASSCOM for sharing best practices etc.

Additionally, there is a need to align these efforts with the UN SDGs, which India has committed to, but does not have a formal framework in place to encourage, measure and report progress along the same.

This article was originally published in the August 2018 print edition of The CSR Journal.

BSE Sammaan CSR Ltd. is a fully owned Subsidiary of BSE Ltd. The author holds a Management degree from IIM Kolkatta and an Engineering degree from IIT Chennai. He has taken over the helm of BSE Sammaan after 26 years in the Financial Services industry, both in India and overseas.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Thank you for reading the column until the very end. We appreciate the time you have given us. In addition, your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please do drop in a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

Subscribe

The post Leveraging Technology For CSR appeared first on The CSR Journal.

The government is working tirelessly towards these causes. However, poor accountability, corruption and favouritism act has hindrances. Lack of inadequate methods of nurturing talent are causing the country to lose many young and talented people to foreign countries.

Many of these problems are location and site specific. They can be taken care of by specific customised solutions and some NGOs are doing very good work in this department. However, these NGOs rely on external funding which is often difficult to obtain and sustain for their long term operations. Their focus shifts from the cause since they also have to keep looking for investors.

In order to tackle these issues realistically, the country needs business like approach towards its problems. This kind of approach can be exhibited by the corporate bodies who are known for their efficiency and logical decisions.

Corporates often work and gain profit in the midst of resource rich rural areas leading to an imbalance and creating a feeling of hatred for it among the local population. The existence of big conglomerates in the area causes influx of population causing the benefits to move to the outsiders which creates a feeling of animosity not only for the company but also the people who work for the company. In order to safeguard the organisation from this imbalance which could often lead to violence, the corporates can initiate CSR projects in the area to ensure that the society as well as its functioning are moving towards a positive growth. Apart from this, the CSR mandate is there in place, which ties the organisations to dedicate a budget for CSR.

Corporates act with proper physical, legal and financial planning towards any project. They have accountability as they want to ensure that the money they spend is being used as planned. They can use these skills along with the superior knowledge of familiarity of the situations in the village they are operating gained by the extensive research, to turn the tables in the favour of the society. This will not only build a goodwill for the organisation but will also boost national development.

Thank you for reading the story until the very end. We appreciate the time you have given us. In addition, your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please do drop in a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

Subscribe

The post Why India Needs CSR appeared first on The CSR Journal.