The yes and no's of fellowship programs

All through the past 14 years of work in the sector, I saw Fellowship Programs (FP) very closely. I remained a staunch supporter of Fellowship Programs both as an insider that is when I worked in an organisation that provided fellowship as well as an outsider that is as part of a donor organisation. I would not go into the details of why we need FPs as there are umpteen discussions around it. If any of my readers want to pick my brain on the subject, I am game! But here in this piece, I would rather focus on fellowships to develop people's organisations. Now here I am taking the proverbial big leap of faith (if you would like) and actually saying that people's organisations are important to sustain empowerment. And yes I am saying that people's collectives are the long term answers to the "white elephants in their old age" called NGOs. Let me not get carried away here. Lets talk about Fellowship Programs.

In this write up I will focus on sangathans (people's organisations) as I had the opportunity of working directly with these groups from time to time and then move on to intermediary organisations, the ones that support fellowship programs. I must mention here that I gained greater insight into the program after I created a bit of distance rather than when I was into it. As they say distance makes you to become romantic again about your first love. One disclaimer though, all my information is dated much like all my information on my first love.

Lets first talk about “Fellowship support for creating a movement" as some people call it. I would call it fellowship support for facilitating people’s organization (sangathan). I interacted with a range of them. My experience says that an organised community can support activities of the sangathan such as regular and annual/bi-annual meetings, training in various forms, rallies/sit-on protests but it can not support the middle class activists, who in turn is needed as the mainstream governance funcctions are created in a way that a skilled intermediary becomes essential. This means whereas the sangathan sustains itself at the village level, the central activities can not be supported by the community fully, as the area of operation grows. Especially if the activist demands more than daily wages. 

Lets look at how Kashtakari Sanghatna (KS) of Dahanu, Maharastra has survived since 1975 without institutional donor support. KS had a constant influx of central pool of middle class activists. Some people including the founder members have stayed forever whereas many other highly qualified people came and served the sangathan for various periods of time and moved on. These middle class activists were paid minimum wages by the sangathan. Something that one can also see in MKSS, Rajasthan. The sangathan members (mostly tribals) pay a yearly subscription. They also contribute money to the sangathan funds when they achieve a collective major victory that brings monetary benefit to them. For example, gaining back a piece of land from the illegal landlord. At the same time, the middle class activists also take up short term assignments and put their part/whole of their incomes in the sangathan funds. These are highly motivated people. KS comes very close to being a people's institution that supports itself. Kashtakari Sanghatna is a highly politically conscious structure. Its understanding/agenda gets richer by the point of view/ information brought in by the middle class activists but it does not get influenced by the flavor of the day.

The second example I would bring in is Sarvahara-Jan-Andolan. This is one of my most favorite sangathans because of the elaborate structure that it has put in place. It supports 50% of its central activities by raising funds by various other means including raising funds from supporters in Mumbai. It is a highly structured sangathan that works in three tiers. Every year they take up an issue for internal churning and strategy building. This topic is then discussed in each village, distilled and taken to the next level. Except one Marathi activist from Mumbai, all the others are local. They literally developed with the sangathan. The time that I am talking about, they had fellowship support for about 10 activists from an intermediary organisation. SJA receive regular support from students and teachers of SNDT and TISS. I wish this never end and more individuals support this effort to reclaim dignity of Katkari tribes. 

The third example is Adivasi Mukti Sangathan, Sendhwa. Except one middle class activist and some office administrative expenses, almost everything was supported by the sangathan itself. The other activists were supported in kind by sangathan members. 

I am of the firm opinion that in this type of work, limited support for the middle class activist should be the only thing for which support should be accepted from and intermediary organisation but anything beyond that is “funding” in its true sense and it comes with all its cons. Otherwise, the "NGO-ization" that is feared much by these sangathans, is almost complete.

2.         I would now talk about intermediary organizations (NGOs) involved in long term fellowship supprot. I would take example of two organisations. One of them is a well-known fellowship support NGO in which I have worked for a long time and I can claim to know it quite well. For everyone's benefit lets call this NGO, "S". 

Firstly, S' fellows in general are highly dependent on it. While working in the organisation, I defended that this is good as the fellows do not have to worry about raising funds but not anymore. S fellows’ dependency on the organisation make them highly vulnerable to changes in this organisation, called S. These changes ranged from changes in policies on how one sangathan would be supported and as what entity to the shift in ideological position, which at one point in time changed like the flavor of the month. 

Secondly, the absence of clear articulation of what the intermediary organization as well as the fellow would do, the organization S, could virtually present anything as success. Whether it was by default or by design was very difficult to judge by an outsider. And then there was the magic of collation. For example, 104 fellows working in 2000 villages could produce 20,000 some or the other benefit. Who cared whether it was only 10 per village and some of the villages were as tiny as 20 families in all!! To call the bluff, one had to be privy to 41 plan of action every year and check 41 reports at the end of the year to be able to come to a conclusion regarding this. Not too difficult to make sure no one gets too interested in checking all of them. 

Thirdly, here are huge scopes of unprofessional dealings. Fellowships could be terminated and continued on the basis of personal rapport, if it is not clearly mentioned in the policy why and how will a fellowship be terminated. And this brings me to the next point..

A strong board can make a heaven and hell difference in this kind of organisation. I had the good fortune of supporting an intermediary organisation that had a strong board which kept the organisation true to its mission. I never envied the Executive Director's role as he had a tough time negotiating the thin line he was given to walk on but the board members were around, nevertheless. 

Finally, one can debate whether assuming the character of an NGO necessarily translate into de-politicization. After all de-politicization was the greatest fear. The fear was to turn into a paper tiger. I would like to believe that it did not happen in the case of a wonderful organisation in Chhattisgarh wherein 4 ex-fellowship holoders came together to form an organisation. With the income tax norms in place that every fellow who is receiving anything other than a personal fellowship would have to register under 12A. Almost all the S's fellow-groups had to be registered as societies.  They would have to go through audits and prepare annual reports. I then do not see the resistance to access funding for specific issues. On the other hand, as an intermediate organization is funded on the basis of its fellows' work, if the former penalizes a fellow group for accessing funds from some other source for specific issues, the real intention becomes a matter of suspect.

3.         I would still uphold the need of FP for building/strengthening civil society, especially in regions where civil society almost does not exist as well as around issues that need support but so far received almost no attention from civil society. FPs, however, should only be supported when they are short term and consists of fellowships only. Funding will always come with the vision (read, whims and fancies) of the donor, be it an intermediary or the real big ones.

           

            I am aware of the dilemma of an intermediary organisation as 3 years seem to be little time to build capability of a fellow to become independent. This is especially so when the fellow comes from a severely socially marginalized section, but the cons are too many when there is no specific period for availability of the funding. 

4. From my experience I would suggest everyone who is trying to support an intermediary organisation dispensing fellowship support to ensure the following:

i.          Presence of a strong Board and a clearly articulated vision behind the FP by the Board.

ii.         Presence of a team (not one person) that has been involved in the issue that is being proposed as the central issue for the FP. Absence of “field work” by the organization per say should not be a deterring criteria. Please look at the fields of those involved as fellows and assess if these can be used as training grounds on the chosen issue.

iii.        Presence of clear guideline for induction and termination of a Fellowship.

iv.        Presence of a clear guideline for mentoring. Mapping the growth of each fellow.

v.         Lastly, I really can not no-give this piece of advise, Indian donors should try to reach out to as many small partners as possible using bigger groups as hand-holding partners, if need be rather than routing the money through them for a definite period with a focused aim of strengthening governance in civil society.

This brings me to the end of today's piece. Yes, I know I did not cover fellowship support for new/path-breaking ideas but then I could not fit it into today's discussion. Let that be another day...another time..