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| Money. Money. Money. |
If solutions are known, need $$. If solutions are knowable, need evaluations. If solutions are evolving, need entrepreneurs.
This comes from the William Easterly school of thought: Aid is (mostly) bad, so let's give up on it and hand it over to the entrepreneurs, and then let the free market sort it out.
Let's look at Mama Pamba as an example. Mama Pamba is going to be Meaningful Volunteer's third fair trade project. Mama Pamba is a fair trade fashion label that will empower many women in the small rural parish of Buyaya in Eastern Uganda.
We're are doing it in a completely non-profit way. The only people who will benefit are the women who make the garments.
Here's the kicker though. Might Mama Pamba be even more successful if I (for example) has a personal stake in it? Might I work just that little bit harder to push Mama Pamba into markets so that I could personally make some money?
Furthermore, could we even sell shares in Mama Pamba to people who are socially aware? We would have further pressure on us to succeed so as to return a profit to the shareholders?
These are not rhetorical questions. I am interested in any feedback people have.
Needless to say, the women in Uganda would get first priority on any money earned. We would ensure that they would first get a living wage first and then a cut of the profit. Other stakeholders would divvy up the remaining money.
These are very, very tough questions, and ones that I most definitely don't have a solid answer to within myself.
ReplyDeleteMy immediate reaction is that in your particular case, working towards a profit is not going to make a difference in your effort level. I've seen you work over the years and the motivation comes from a genuine place within of wanting to help.
The question is more economical than ethical, me thinks. Which economic model will benefit the women the most? Which will bring in more money and yet protect all those involved? These are questions better brought to someone with greater knowledge in the area of business/economics.
love,
h
Ah...one last question: Which economic approach is more sustainable?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback Heather.
ReplyDeleteI think both approaches will benefit the women as they are the first priority. No one else would ever make a profit before they did.
Grassroots Uganda continues to hum along with out any profit for Bzungu (white people/foreigners).
I've been thinking about this topic for a while now. Just how does a non-profit survive without - by definition - making a profit.
Were there enough volunteers to fill the programs, would you be making enough of a salary from the non-profit? Would the non-profit economic model be an issue if there were more volunteers?
ReplyDeleteI think it's an issue related to balance. To expand the benefit we could adapt market approach. But it means also less related stakeholders will get involved and becomes to spend more money to administrivia to support the real purpose.
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, to keep small organization will be better but also it means it will limit the beneficiery.
Not sure this could be an answer to your question or not. =)
Salary? What's that?
ReplyDeleteYep. If we had more volutneers, everything would be sustainable.
The MV business model revolves around volunteers.
No volunteers => No volunteer fees => No admin costs being covered => No MV
At the moment, we just aren't getting enough volunteers. We're hoping that once we build the school, start Mama Pamba and a billion other cool projects that the vols will start flowing. Our close compensator has placed 14,00 vols.
One recent change in vol recruitment is that whenever we sign up a vol, we issue press releases in the vols home town. Hopefully this will generate some positive buzz.
I think we'll be fine in the medium term. Short term we are struggling, but it is coming together.
Long term, the world is going to hell in a handbasket so it doesn't matter what we do.
CK: Thanks for the feeback. There is - alas - no easy answer to these questions. Our medium term plans are too expand into Ghana and Nepal. No Senegal on the horizon yet!