The most recent installment of the Notes from the Field series on the Aid Watch blog was written by a “veteran NGO leader” from Nepal, Scott MacLennan. In it, he decries the absentee management and outright deceptions of large NGOs, arguing that “Only small NGOs it seems are able to actually get out in the field and get their hands dirty making things happen.”
I disagree. I disagree passionately. Only competent, well-run NGOs are able to make things happen, and those factors are unrelated to size. It comes down to the skills and qualities of the people running the NGO. An organization can influence this by the way it selects people. This is wholly unrelated to size.
To further argue my point, I’ve made a handy list of the pros and cons of small and large NGOs:
Large NGOs:
Pros
- Have a certain base level of competence because of their broader experience.
- They can more easily expand or supplicate successful projects.
- They usually have enough staff that if a country director in Nepal leaves they can pull someone from, say, Sri Lanka rather than leave the post vacant while they hire.
- They are used to the requirements and mechanics of donor bureaucracy, and that lets them get started more quickly and not be bogged down in paperwork.
- They generally have more experience with financial controls and are usually better at it.
- They may have enough different projects to leverage their presence. For example, I once threatened a local official that we’d cancel laboratory skills trainings if they didn’t allow a child health campaign.
Cons
- They can be inflexible.
- They can have a lot of bureaucracy that stifles change.
- They may lose their personal touch – it’s just work to them.
- They generally have a higher percentage of funding from government donoirs, which limits their programmatic options.
Small NGOs:
Pros
- They tend to be more flexible and able to change directions quickly.
- They tend to be emotionally committed to their work.
- They are generally funded by small private donors, which means they have many more choices of how to use their money.
- They are often very connected to the communities they serve.
- They can be more innovative.
Cons
- They may be short on technical background, or have more good intentions than useful knowledge.
- They may not have enough experience to realize they are reinventing the wheel, or worse yet, reinventing a flat tire.
- They may not have dedicated finance and administrative staff, which means financial accountability is weaker.
- If a staff member leaves, they have to advertise and hire to replace them – no pool of people to draw on.
That list makes it pretty clear that it’s not the size of the NGO that matters. Different kinds of organizations have different strengths. What matters is now an organzation uses those strengths and overcomes its weaknesses. Size, in this case, doesn’t matter.
************
Chosen because, well, it was pretty. And this is a hard concept to illustrate.
I love the fact that you don’t just disagree, but you “disagree passionately.” Well done. Although I’m sure you could have made the lists even longer.
Size might matter. Personal observation (and I really need to marshall the data on this) is that once organisations reach a certain size, the transaction costs of performing solidify into the sort of bureaucracy that prevents them from operating effectively in the way they did before. Economies of scale mean that they can do some things better (deliver large scale food aid, for example) but the grassroots stuff will happen at the margins and not be built upon. Different sizes are good at different things – the problem comes when people don’t recognise that.
I think you’re right Alanna, and in large organizations I believe efficiency depends on how autonomous sub-divisions are. If they’re very autonomous, they can function almost like their own separate organizations. This is usually good for efficiency and morale, but can lead to incoherence and inter-departmental rivalry.
For large organizations with lots of field offices, I think having the right kind of people in charge of working with the field offices is crucial, crucial, crucial. You need people who work fast, cut through red tape instead of put more up, and are honest and forthcoming with field staff about what can and cannot be provided to them.
If you have the wrong kind of person working with the field offices, their photo will end up on the lunchroom dartboard and they’ll be the subject of crude and/or violent happy hour conversations.
Not nice, but nonetheless true.
Really balanced perspective, even if it’s argued passionately! I had this very argument via Twitter (@fighthunger) – tough job using only 140 characters… but you’ve summed up my view point really well here. I’ll simply link to this post next time the topic comes up! Thanks 🙂
[…] great post on why size doesn’t matter (for social change orgs, that is) http://bloodandmilk.org/?p=1322 (via […]
[…] posting by Alanna Shaikh on the great blog Blood and Milk (Alanna has also recently started the blog Global […]
[…] posting by Alanna Shaikh on the great blog Blood and Milk (Alanna has also recently started the blog Global […]