Dear everyone who’s ever thought of starting an NGO
Don’t do it. You’re not going to think of a solution no one else has, your approach is not as innovative as you think it is, and raising money is going to be impossible. You will have no economy of scale, your overhead will be disproportionately high, and adding one more tiny NGO to the overburdened international system may well make things worse instead of better.
Now that you’ve ignored me, here’s the rest of my advice:
1) Make your bones. Go work for an existing NGO that addresses the same problem, or one like it. Learn from the existing knowledge in the system so you don’t waste time re-inventing the wheel. If you’re not qualified to work for an existing organization, you’re probably not qualified to run your own.
2) Identify a new funding source. If you’re just going to compete for the same donor RFPs and RFAs that everyone else does, you’re not bringing anything new to the world. If you didn’t get that grant to reduce child mortality in Liberia, another organization would. The children of Liberia benefit equally either way. If you can bring new money in, then you’re having a genuine additional impact.
3) Hire experienced people to work with you. There is a certain charm to a bunch of inexperienced people trying to change the world together, but a group that combines new ideas and actual experience can produce genuine innovation.
4) Your finances are probably the most important part of your NGO. Your donors will want to see your financials before they give. Your projects will require a steady stream of reliable funding to succeed. You can’t do good if you can’t pay your bills.
(photo credit Mosieur J.)
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:18 am
5) Make a plan of what you want to achieve. Be realistic on that.
6) Apply for a licence in the respective country you want to work in and date it back to 2000.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 am
Amen! I wish people would focus more on collaboration and recognizing the difference between wanting to start a new program versus wanting to start a new organization! There is a lot of work involved and quite frankly the field is a little cluttered.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
I think there’s an ego gratification to starting your own organization that can blind people to the practical realities, like making a plan or deciding if it is truly necessary.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I’d like to see NGOs choose to shut down. To hear someone say, for once, ‘We’re done here’ and close. There is no shame in that,on the contrary: I think there is honour in recognising that a] you are duplicating what is being done, and not being so egotistical as to think you have to keep going; or b] that others are doing the job better than you; or c] you have fulfilled your mandate and it is time to close shop and go home. As it is, most NGOs are like presidents: they are voted out on a low, they don’t leave on a high. They die slow deaths of irrelevance and inefficiency.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Phil, that’s a really good point. I’d also like to see more NGOs merge to avoid unnecessary duplication.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:40 am
Well said Alanna! And Phil great point…the analogy that NGOs are similar to politicians is right on point.
January 29th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
[...] In the rush to engage on Haiti, a lot of well-meaning groups are jumping in to help. Some are brand new, and some have never worked on a disaster like this before. Most of these groups are going to be useless. Some will actually do harm to themselves or others. A tiny minority will have a positive impact. I wish those odds were better, but they’re not. [...]
May 1st, 2010 at 9:47 am
[...] observations like how the work of NGO’s is impeded by a culture of “being nice”, why you shouldn’t even bother starting an NGO and if you choose to anyway, how to succeed. In my view, there’s nothing more ridiculous [...]