Posted by William Makepeace '14
In the spring of 2013, I embarked on a School for International Training (SIT) study abroad journey to India, Senegal, and Argentina. It was during the 5 week time period spent in Delhi that I fell in love with India and decided to commit to spending the following summer working at a Mumbai-based non-governmental organization (NGO). When I arrived in early June, it was my first time living by myself for an extended amount of time, and it is no overstatement that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Luckily, despite being a carefree 20-year old traveler with little sorted out at the time, I was fortunate enough to meet people that helped me forge an incredible summer that would go on to become the basis of my senior Anthropology capstone project.
My ethnographic study of NGO relations in India is based on my experiences and observations working at Dasra, a Venture Philanthropy NGO that conducts research, capacity building, and creates networks for grassroots NGOs and philanthropists. My work in the Portfolio and Business Partnership departments put me in contact with many NGOs working for education, street children, and anti-sex trafficking. I conducted over 20 online initial assessments and visited 6 NGOs for more in-depth information. I kept wondering, however, why there are so many NGOs (approximately 3 million in India) with similar altruistic goals, yet they don’t collaborate to tackle those problems on a large scale. My study examines the internal and external pressures that prevent collaboration between NGOs and the various reasons for the existence of a fragmented the social sector. Ultimately, my research suggests that that donor competition, intra-organization social dynamics, and external structural pressures fragment horizontal networks (NGO-NGO) and indicate that bottom-up NGO development continues to be guided by ‘top-down’ agendas and forces.
Below are some photographs that illustrate my summer in Mumbai.
My ethnographic study of NGO relations in India is based on my experiences and observations working at Dasra, a Venture Philanthropy NGO that conducts research, capacity building, and creates networks for grassroots NGOs and philanthropists. My work in the Portfolio and Business Partnership departments put me in contact with many NGOs working for education, street children, and anti-sex trafficking. I conducted over 20 online initial assessments and visited 6 NGOs for more in-depth information. I kept wondering, however, why there are so many NGOs (approximately 3 million in India) with similar altruistic goals, yet they don’t collaborate to tackle those problems on a large scale. My study examines the internal and external pressures that prevent collaboration between NGOs and the various reasons for the existence of a fragmented the social sector. Ultimately, my research suggests that that donor competition, intra-organization social dynamics, and external structural pressures fragment horizontal networks (NGO-NGO) and indicate that bottom-up NGO development continues to be guided by ‘top-down’ agendas and forces.
Below are some photographs that illustrate my summer in Mumbai.
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