NGOs across the city say that they too now are facing recession blues as funding has taken a beating.
Neeta Khajuria, general secretary of Mobile Crche says, “We run mobile crches for construction workers’ kids. We are a service industry NGO and so need funds to continuously run the crche. The global financial meltdown has affected us adversely with corporate and individual funding taken a sizable dip.”
Khajuria says the NGO gets its funding from four main resources government, foreign funds, corporate houses and individuals. “We get about Rs 9 lakh under the Rajiv Gandhi charity scheme. Then there are builders who contribute funds. But biggest contributors to our corpus are corporate houses, foreign donors and individuals. Though so far they have been very generous, this year their donations have taken a dip,” she says.
“Mumbai marathon is a good way to earn funds. Last year, we earned Rs 32 lakh during the event, but this year we managed only Rs 10 lakhs,” Khajuria says, adding, “This in itself shows the grim reality.”
Simantini Duru, of an NGO called Avehi Abacus, says that the donations flow may shrink further.
“Though the situation is not very bad as yet, the crisis will rise in the coming months. To deal with the present situation, we are rationalising and prioritising projects. If the worst happens, we will shell out money from our own pockets to make sure important projects are not stalled,” said Duru. “Considering the gravity of the situation, some government aid would be very helpful,” adds Duru.
For The Samaritans group, it is the time to do some serious out-of-the-box thinking to get the money flow. “Thanks to the money donated by well-wishers previously, we held charity shows for depression patients on how to deal with emotional crisis. But this year, it is not so. I guess in these times of economic crisis, people are not charitable anymore,” says its director Dr Freny Mahendra.
In this hour of crisis, everything boils down to maintaining healthy relations with your counterparts, having transparency in your work and getting noticed. “We hope that the conditions will improve in the coming months. But in order to survive the slowdown, it is necessary to get noticed as massive advertising campaigns are not our cup of tea. We will instead indulge in mouth-to-mouth publicity, small scale awareness campaigns and public networking,” says Khajuria.