Genuine NGO in India working for the blind and visually impaired
By: Akash Agrawal
Tags: Ngo, Ngos In India, Visual Impairment, Blindness, Social Enterprise

Genuine NGO in India working for the blind and visually impaired

What defines genuineness and how to compare and evaluate one NGO against another, especially when donating or volunteering Akash Agrawal Jun 27·5 min read

Imagine your last encounter with someone who is visually impaired(VI) or completely blind. You must have rushed in to help anyway possible, may be with navigation, crossing a street, time check etc. OR it could also be that while surfing Youtube, you accidentally came across a plea like below.

You feel sympathetic, disheartened, helpless, and may be even blessed for yourself.

As you rewind and play this scenario in your head, keep yourself in their shoes, you feel overwhelmed with sadness, sorrow, embarrassment for not doing anything about it, yet.

YOU WANNA HELP !!

Where? NGO or find some blind in your vicinity ? How? volunteer or donate ? How to identify an impactful NGO ?

Collaborating with a NGO would be holistic, comprehensive, far-reaching, and should be easy. Sadly that’s not always the case, dare I say most of the NGOs do not abide by the same selfless principles they started with, serving for the community with utmost transparency. Unlike their counterparts in the for-profit sector, they are not held to the same scrutiny. While it is true that NGOs must not be compared on the same criteria, they can still be evaluated on metrics like transparency, accountability, responsiveness, donor engagement, utilization of funds, weekly newsletter etc. This is exactly what I will be attempting. It will instill trust and confidence in both beneficiary and benefactor while also allowing a NGO to stand out for their extra ordinary and selfless work.

Background

I spent weeks scraping the internet finding few genuine NGOs which work primarily and closely with visually impaired in India. I researched and read in details about 150 NGOs serving blinds that popped on search engines like Google, Facebook(FB), NGO Darpan; campaigns run on crowd funding platform like Ketto, Milaap and also NGOs which have been featured on entrepreneurial platforms like YourStory.

Evaluation Metrics

There is no defined/standardized metrics to compare NGOs. Most of them are working towards a long term and holistic impact, but nevertheless their transparency in this journey should allow us to weigh one against another. I have developed a scoring sheet of total 10 points which aggregates both objective and subjective analysis of a NGO.

Website(1) — A website is the first landing page for anyone learning about your initiative, outreach, achievements, user stories, ways to contribute etc. So it’s crucial for a NGO to have it detailed, inspiring and easy to follow.

Regular Update(1) —Its crucial to regularly update your audience on the journey to instill trust and welcome feedbacks, via mediums like blogs, newsletter, Facebook, Twitter etc. Working in silos or secrecy is not ideal in this sector.

Annual Report(1) — Summarizing your year worth of effort in an Annual report is a great way to reflect for NGO.

Balance Sheet(1) —Since NGO are supported by big corporates as well as small individual contributor, they should feel obliged to share bits and pieces of each $ accrued and spent.

Donor Engagement(1) — If I, a donor, know that my contribution helped in restoring someone’s eye, or helped with their education, share with me a picture of that beneficiary. I will be satisfied and come back.

Ask(1) — A NGO should be able to raise support not just via donations but also via volunteering activities, internships etc.

Responsiveness(1) — A NGO should candidly communicate with people asking questions, raising concerns, inquiring more about the great work, etc.

Transparency and Genuineness(3) — A social effort must be genuine and transparent or it undermines the belief in the system, loses out on supporters and most importantly, the needy are deprived of hope they desperately seek to survive and do their best despite challenges.

Criticism(-) — Media articles on corruption or misconduct, unanswered complains on consumer forum, mistreating a beneficiary; puts the whole foundation of NGO in jeopardy.

Approach

In an effort to gauge each NGO, I spent hours perusing each NGO’s website, their feeds on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, their Annual and Financial report(whenever provided). Each NGO is unique in terms of size, age, focus, geography, etc. I also contacted them seeking few basic information that was missing on their website and looked at some media coverage they have received in past, good and bad, local and national. At the end of this exercise, it was fairly visible to me, which NGOs are aspiring for transparency and diligently carrying the noble work.

Below I highlight the best NGOs working in the sector of visually impaired