In April I organized a workshop with Christopher Bosch,
Director of Strategy and Operations for World Vision.
Through his work, Chris
researches trends affecting that agency, and other church-related NGOs.
During the workshop, Chris spoke about megatrends
affecting people who do fundraising, marketing and communications in the
international relief and development sector.
Chris defined a megatrend as a “large-scale recognizable change to
accepted norms or assumptions about how people organizations or governments
will behave in the future.”
He went on to identify some megatrends NGOs need to be
aware of.
The Philanthropy Environment Has Changed
World Vision has discovered it is more expensive to acquire a
donor than before, and they leave more quickly.
These new donors are less attracted to long-term pledge-style
giving. such as child sponsorship.
At World Vision, support for child
sponsorship—it’s hallmark product—is declining. People are no longer willing to make 3-5 year commitments.
New donors consider a donation an investment, and they want to see
results.
They want to participate, not just donate. They hate it when
someone says “trust us—we are the experts.” They want to be involved. We need
to invite them into the discussion about how and what we do.
World Vision’s research into donors also shows that these new
donors aren’t seeking a long-term relationship with a charity. The older cohort
of donors want to "marry" a charity—be donors for life.
But the
new givers are more interested in a one-night stand: Give once this year, maybe
next year. But no commitments beyond that.
Poverty Message Isn’t Connecting
Canadian NGOs talk a lot about poverty and helping the poor. But
maybe that message doesn’t work anymore, Chris said. People have heard it forever, and maybe growing tired of it.
Chris suggested we might have more success talking about resiliency—the ability
to withstand shocks and bounce back from disaster.
He said that people might understand this better than
poverty, since the new generation of donors, unlike the older ones, have never
experienced poverty or hardship. (e.g. the Great Depression.)
Although they can’t relate to poverty, these donors can relate to
vulnerability, and the need for outside help to overcome challenges or
disasters—things like the Fort McMurray wildfires, flooding or storms in
various parts of the country, or just a personal loss.
Helping someone come back from a disaster, or being equipped to
better withstand a shock, is more relatable than talking about poverty, Chris
said.
He asked: Should we brand ourselves as vulnerability reduction agencies,
rather than anti-poverty organizations?
A Blending of Non-Profit and For-Profit Efforts is on the Rise
Chris indicated that a social enterprise approach to development
is on the rise—corporations seeking to make a profit while helping the poor.
NGOs could partner with businesses to help them do this well, maybe even take
an equity stake in the enterprise.
He went on to say that corporate donors have two pockets. We
mostly reach into charitable, or foundation, pocket. But that is becoming
emptier. What about reaching into the one that is full—investment portfolios?
NGOs have not asked businesses to channel their investments into
our work to get a return. This could be attractive to businesses, high net
worth individuals, mutual funds, and insurance companies that want to do good
in a business-like way.
Disruption & Disintermediation
He noted how new businesses like Arbnb, Uber, Amazon, Etsy,
Crowdfunding have disrupted traditional businesses. Their genius is to bypass
traditional ways of doing business by connecting people who want to supply something
with people who need it (disintermediation).
NGOs are not safe from this kind of disruption and
disintermediation. They can also be leaped over. The day is coming when people
in Canada can connect directly to NGOs in the south—they won’t need us. Someone
in Kenya with a smartphone could launch a crowdfunder to raise $1,000 for an
enterprise—all he needs is 100 people giving $10 each.
Already, an organization called GiveDirectly is enabling
people to give cash directly to the world’s poorest people. Its vision is to
bypass traditional top-down NGOs, with all their costs of doing business, and
give money directly to the poor.
Chris noted that NGOs are not universally loved like we used to
be. There are some harsh critiques out there, like the book Dead Aid.
Click here to read Are Non-Profits Ready for Disintermediation?
Other Trends
Other trends Chris noted include how the centre of NGO action is
moving south (Oxfam is moving headquarters south.) And western governments are
indicating they will require NGOs to have more southern partners for their
work.
There is a vibrant southern church, and partners there are
developing more expertise and capacity.
And there is more wealth being generated in countries that are
middle income. NGOs might be able to raise money there and nourish local
fundraising capacities.
At the same time, southern governments are becoming more critical
of southern NGOs, wanting to see more western government money given directly
to southern NGOs (instead of first passing through Canadian organizations).
Then there is the move to giving cash, instead of physical aid.
Many NGOs are not technologically sophisticated to use cards and phones for
e-transfers of money, nor have they developed good systems for tracking.
It’s a changing universe, in other words. (And we hardly touched on communications.)
They may or may not prove 100% accurate, but NGOs (and other charities) ignore
them at their peril—better to be planning ahead than caught unprepared.
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