From http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karmayog/message/58628
Tue Jan 5, 2010
Subject: About Karmayog - our answers to 9 review questions
Tell us about yourself and what you do:
If a friend were to describe your accomplishments in up to three sentences, what would he or she say?
"Karmayog is one of the best things to have emerged from civil society in India over the last few years. Karmayog, established in 2004, uniquely connects (through online and offline methods) people and groups who would otherwise not get connected to each other. This is of particular value in a democracy like India's where sustainable solutions to society's problems can only be found though the collaboration and involvement of all stakeholders viz. citizens, civil society groups, corporates, academicians, media and government."
Karmayog endeavours to be the one-stop resource centre for the social, civic & developmental sector in India. Karmayog enables interaction and dialogue on any social, civic or developmental issue, and through this, helps people reach solutions to the problems that are affecting them. It is simple, effective and zero-cost for any user.
"Karmayog is the place for any concerned citizen to voice their opinion, and also for government, media or experts to invite and receive citizens' views on different issues. I recommend that all IAS officers as well as all students either in school or college join Karmayog to learn about a variety of topics and work towards social transformation. "
What other achievements would you like to share? 1.. Karmayog CSR Ratings:
Companies have tremendous strengths; they have extremely capable people, technology, access to money, the ability of geographical reach, etc. The Karmayog Corporate Social Responsibility Study and Ratings of Indian Companies was undertaken to explore and understand the role that corporates are playing and can play in finding meaningful solutions to the problems facing India today, and is the first-of-its- kind of study anywhere in the world. The CSR Study and Ratings have been conducted for the past 3 years and has been very well-received internationally. Details of the CSR activities of these corporates are available on the Karmayog website for comments and responses.
2.. Donate Books, Receive Books
This is an all-India campaign to enable any person from across the country to connect with and donate books to any public library, school, college, hospital, NGO, Trust, etc.
Any person can donate books of any type to organisations who have posted their appeals online, or can also donate the books to Karmayog to forward. 150 appeals from across the country have been made so far, and over 2700 books donated to Karmayog itself, and several thousands more have exchanged hands directly. Similarly, over 1600 donations of material (such as clothes, furniture, toys, medicines) all across India have been enabled through Karmayog.
3.. All-India NGO Profiles and Needs Requests
Karmayog has the largest on-line directory of 18,500 NGOs in India, Each NGO listed in the Karmayog directory gets a free, permamnent web-section with a unique 'url' that can be used by the NGO on its letterhead, as well as a facility to upload information about it's work, project proposals, volunteer appeals, etc. as well as etc. Over 3700 such documents have been posted so far. Karmayog thus helps smaller and lesser known NGOs to increase awareness about their work, and to get support through volunteers and donors. Karmayog has an initiative called the "Karmayog NGO-of-the-Month" where one NGO is selected and profiled every month and an appeal is made to the Karmayog group to contribute at least Rs. 100/- to the selected NGO.
4.. Discussions, interactions and support systems
Karmayog has an active discussion group of 55,000 members who exchange emails daily, a mailing list of 2,00,000 members, over 2000 registered volunteers and useful information on over 350 civic and social issues in 80,000 pages on the Karmayog website. There are also experts on different subjects who give free advice to any posted queries, as well as 3 active Karmayog Chapters in the cities of Baroda, Hyderabad and Chennai.
5.. NGO Coordination Committee for Mumbai Floods
In 2005, Karmayog helped to establish an NGO Coordination Committee that worked closely with BMC and Mantralaya on relief efforts after the Mumbai Floods. The Karmayog website and network was used effectively to disseminate information, appeals and offers of help. This experience gave Karmayog valuable insights on how government works, and the role and contribution that citizens and NGOs can have in making government work better.
6.. NGO Council, Mumbai
The learnings of the NGO Coordination Committee led to the formation of the NGO Council of Mumbai, which is a group of NGOs that came together in order to work collectively with government on many issues. The NGO Council contributed 2 laws to the city of Mumbai: the MCGM Solid Waste Rules and the Local Area Citizen Group Charter.
Karmayog also developed an online complaint form for civic issues - this is the SATYA (Suggest an Action to Transform Your Area) form. Nearly 1000 forms have been filled so far and displayed on the Karmayog website as well as printed and forwarded to a dedicated cell in the BMC for further action.
7.. Mumbai Pact Against Corruption
Karmayog and the NGO Council partnered with the Anti Corruption Bureau for a year-long programme titled the Mumbai - Pact Against Corruption (M-PAC); M-PAC aimed to involve each individual in the fight against corruption as only the active participation of citizens and the community against corruption can eliminate it. Karmayog also developed the Corruption ROKO (Report On Karmayog Online) form, an online form to complain against corruption in any government department in India. Nearly 250 detailed forms have been filled so far from all across India. Karmayog's anti-corruption initiatives have attracted the attention of anti-corruption groups and organizations from across the world. Similarly, an online form for Consumer Complaints, titled WARN (Write A Report Now), has been developed; over 250 forms have been filled, with each giving suggestions to consumers on how to take things forward.
All the forms on Karmayog (SATYA, ROKO, WARN) have been designed to be complaint as well as suggestion forms so that a systematic approach to the problem is achieved, thus enabling solutions to be found and adopted.
8.. Support and Access to those who need it
The Karmayog network and platform provides support, access and reach to the many individuals and smaller NGOs who are implementing projects, conducting events and looking for support from donors, media and others.
Tell us about your enterprise. We believe that everyone has a role to play in society and that this role is essential and we all need to play it if we want society to change and improve. But it is often difficult for us to play this role due to constraints of time, information, access, etc.
Karmayog enables any individual to plug into any social issue of his or her choice and interact with other stakeholders (such as government, NGOs, etc.) who are working on that issue. We enable this via our website, through email, through a discussion group, meetings, formal and informal partnerships with government and other groups and through Karmayog Chapters in other cities.
We strongly believe that doable solutions to the problems that affect society can be found only with the inputs and participation of all stakeholders, especially ordinary citizens. There is an inter-connectedness between issues that must be included as a factor while working at solutions, and citizens who face the issues provide the best inputs in all such cases..
To bring about lasting change and improvement in society, the policies and programmes of government must be created and framed in a way that reflects the needs and realities of society. Hence the inputs of citizens and NGOs is critical and Karmayog works to be the bridge that will enable better policies and programmes to be made.
The greater part of Karmayog's work and effectiveness is online and through the Karmayog website. The Karmayog website contains well-researched sections on over 350 social and civic causes. Each section has all the basic and necessary information on any issue that would enable any person interested in that issue to take the next step. The section lists relevant government laws, connected NGOs, support groups, relevant websites and books, help lines and other resources, etc. Each section also attempts to have one expert who volunteers to answer queries on that subject. These sections are researched and developed by Karmayog in-house, by volunteers, and by a mix of both.
We see Karmayog's role to be that of a faciliatator, providing key linkages between different groups of people working on the same issue and bringing these groups together, or at least getting the inputs of all such groups, before solving any problem or issue. Karmayog itself does not try and become the expert for any particular cause or issue, rather Karmayog would enable any person to find the individuals and groups working on any issue.
What led you to start your enterprise? Tell us how you went about starting it, how you bootstrapped it, funded it, hired your first team etc. Yes, we would like to know all the details. Steps:
1. Seeing a gap in reaching the social sector
I realised that unlike in almost every other sector such as business or government or academia, there is a dearth of both formal or informal networks in the social sector, that would enable ordinary citizens or those from outside the sector to easily understand, support or join in to any kind of social issue.
2. Linking NGOs to supporters and beneficiaries
Karmayog was started as an on-line networking platform between NGOs and anyone needing help or offering help to NGOs. I used the experiences and resources that I had from my business, Findstone.com, which is a B2B portal for the marble and granite industry to set up Karmayog. I personally had little or no experience of the social sector myself, and started out by holding meetings once a week at my house, where individuals and people from different NGOs would come and talk about their work and concerns. This was followed by hiring a small team for Karmayog, of 2-3 persons, who then visited NGOs in Mumbai and started understanding their work, their needs and how Karmayog could help them. Karmayog was able to provide linkages between NGOs themselves, often for the first time, despite their having worked on the same issue for several years.
3. Forming a network to work collectively and strengthen each other
Several experiences like the Mumbai Floods in 2005, for e.g., where Karmayog set up an NGO Coordination Committee, showed the need and value for bringing together the many NGOs working separately on the same issues. Karmayog then established the NGO Council to be a representative body of Civil Society Organisations and the NGO sector in Mumbai comprising a mix of organisations with complementary expertise encompassing different concerns.
4. Linkages with Government to make better policies & programmes
For any work in the social or development sector, the government is the key player, and hence NGOs must partner with and support Government and influence policies and programmes that will bring about change. The NGO Council worked closely with the government for over 2 years; specifically the BMC and the Anti Corruption Bureau, and this experience gave us very valuable inputs on how government works, and how citizens can work together with and support government on any issue.
5. Resources and Reach from Corporates
In 2007, Karmayog started looking at the contribution and work of corporates in various social issues and we found that a lot of very good initiatives are taking place across the country. This led to the Karmayog Corporate Social Responsibility Ratings of the 1000 largest Indian corporates in 2007, 2008 and currently on for 2009. This is the first such study of its kind in the world.
Thereafter, Karmayog continues to build on these various initiatives through online and offline methods.
What is unique about what you do? Why do you think it is game changing? There are many things that need to be in place for even a single individual to get involved and try and bring about social change. We at Karmayog try to get insights about what these are and how to enable them. This requires many actions and initiatives to be undertaken, where each initiative is independent but also part of the entire matrix. E.g. the Karmayog Discussion Group, the NGO Directory and the CSR Study are all independent initiatives, but through Karmayog, these come together to create a whole space where social change is enabled and happens for individuals and NGOs. This is the unique feature of Karmayog - understanding and bringing together the different pieces of the puzzle that will form the whole picture.
Karmayog is thus a platform that enables one to communicate; the platform also automatically connects one to the larger community which is active in the issues of your interest, so that one can join, support or know about their activities and work. If any person wishes to do something to improve society, the platform and network exists and is available - through Karmayog.
There is no other such resource available with all the information, resources, contacts, all in one place along with the tools for interaction. Karmayog provides access to those who have no access, and connects people who otherwise cannot connect with each other.
When one first comes across Karmayog, one finds oneself suddenly transported into a space where people are actively improving the world. For any individual struggling with any issue, Karmayog offers hope. Karmayog enables one to bring out all the goodness in us and to take positive and constructive steps to improve society and in the process to improve oneself.
Each person who comes into contact with Karmayog changes personally, gets sensitized about more issues and gets inspired and energized to act with the support of like-minded persons.
There are 2 game-changing aspects of Karmayog:
- Karmayog brings together in one place all the elements needed for changing society
- Karmayog enables any person to get involved and continually change oneself and through this transform society
What is the current scale of your enterprise? What are your revenues, how many customers do you serve or people you add value to etc All India NGO Directory: 18,500 listings (1300 from Mumbai itself)
Discussion group: 61000 members
Mailing list of 2,00,000 people
80,000 pages of information in 350 sections on the Karmayog website.
Staff of 6 people
Impact and reach to thousands daily.
Is your enterprise profitable/sustainable? Please provide relevant details to validate this.
Everything offered through Karmayog is free and accessible to all. We do not have a revenue generating model.
We endeavour to keep our costs low by using software to manage, record and document the data and interactions on Karmayog. We try to work towards needing minimal human intervention from our side to facilitate the interactions on Karmayog. We have tried to create a space where people who need help also help each other as they try and reach a solution, thus eliminating the need for a person or organization to actually hand-hold them through the process.
Karmayog is self-funded. We also receive a small amount from online advertisements and donations. We work with the belief of matching our needs with our work; so far we have had the funds to do what we need; should we in the future need more funds, we would raise the amount needed.
How would you measure the impact of what you do? Everyday through the emails that we receive, through the calls that we get and through the visits of and interactions with people, we see the huge impact that Karmayog makes for individuals and NGOs in resolving issues or taking things forward.
The philosophy of Karmayog as per the Gita says that one must engage in one's work without looking towards the fruits of that action. We believe that when one starts measuring impact, one needs to then chase goals for that impact, and when we do that, we leave behind and lose a lot of opportunities that are invaluable. So we believe that Karmayog must work with the flow, and respond to the needs that arise from both within and outside the organization.
For us, each initiative that we take up is like a building block that is part of the larger picture, and hence for each initiative, we decide a milestone and once we have reached that, we move to the next initiative, because we have at any point of time, many different issues to take up.
Why do you believe your enterprise is important and needed? There is no one providing leadership in society today and the world's problems are now too complex for any set of experts to solve alone. Government, industry and media are no longer playing the type of leadership roles that was expected and needed from them. Therefore each individual must get involved in changing society and contribute towards an improved world. Karmayog enables this to happen and is hence a vital and important enterprise.
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