For most people, charity is incidental. But it could easily be a regular social commitment as well. The difference between the two is similar to buying a meal for an irritating urchin at a red light to get rid of him or helping him earn a living.Going beyond the predictable hawking of greeting cards on New Year's Eve, CRY (Child Relief & You) has devised innovative fund raising schemes, which suit all pockets and varied preferences, to convert the incidental donor into a committed contributor.
Under the most popular schemes, the education of a child can be sponsored for Rs 400. Sponsoring the education and health of a child costs Rs 700. And more than one child can be sponsored.
``Businesses can adopt a CRY supported points out Vice Admiral (Retd) H Johnson, an advisor with CRY. Thomas Cook is funding Vanchit Vikas to take care of the children of prostitutes. Sponsors may even opt to support a project located near a plant or in a particular region, like the owner's ancestral place. Bangalore-basedMotorola supports Sneha, a project working for the uplift of tribal and rural communities in the backward districts of Karnataka. ANZ Grindlays underwrites the bill of the Navjyothi Development Society's educational programmes in Delhi.
In either case, the sponsor has the option to bear the entire project cost, or merely the expenditure arising out of education, health or vocational training programmes, etc. Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd chose to sponsor only the health component of four CRY supported projects in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal.
Adds Johnson: ``People who find it burdensome to commit to a project may go in for cause related marketing events to get some returns.'' The principal associates the product promotion campaign with CRY against some percentage of profits. For example, once, Benzer collaborated with CRY to kick up a marketing campaign on Children's Day. CRY was offered the main window to display its products, and also given 5 per cent of the day'ssales.Alternatively, a corporate can simply promote CRY products: Hyatt Regency sells CRY cards to its guests. Similarly, a corporate may provide a platform for CRY: Damania Airways hostesses once invited its passengers to contribute to CRY.
The simplest way, of course, is to make straightforward donations.
Particularly to the corpus fund, the Child Development Fund, which has grown to Rs 2.50 crore since 1983. The fund is invested in government approved securities such as UTI, HDFC and ICICI.
It's not necessary to contribute in cash only. CRY also maintains a Material Bank. One can donate new or partially used material of good quality to the bank. The material may be in the form of educational material, unused notebooks, stationery, recreational material, healthcare equipment, clothes, bedding, etc. For example, Reckitt & Colman donated a large stock of Dettol for CRY's health centres, and Camlin donated educational material for schools. Computers in CRY's Delhi office have been provided by HindustanComputers Ltd.
``Services can be also offered,'' emphasises Johnson. Blue Dart provides free courier services between CRY's various offices in India. Ambience and Clarion take care of CRY's advertising. In their individual capacities, professionals may volunteer their time and skills. Others may sell CRY products or provide mailing lists.
These contributions need not be without material returns necessarily. Corporates can talk about their community activities in the publicity material. Some philanthropic partnerships even make business sense.
Vulnerable victims
46 per cent of the people in India live in absolute poverty. 71 per cent people have no access to sanitation. 15 per cent people have no access to health services. 38 per cent of the total population of India is below 16 years of age. 33 per cent births are attended by trained heath personnel. 33 per cent infants are born with low birth weight. 53 per cent of under-5-years children aremalnourished. 34 per cent children drop out before grade five. 33 per cent children below 16 years of age are forced into child labour.The State of the World's Children, 1998; Human Development Report, 1997; Human Development in South Asia, 1997.Daring to dream
Even big dreams have humble beginnings. From Rs 50 put together by Rippan Kapoor and six friends in 1979, CRY (Child Relief & You) has over 40,000 members today, enabling it to reach out to over six lakh underprivileged children. In the process, it has added to its meaning in the lexicon. Today cry is not only a loud expression of pain, grief or any other strong emotion,Resisting the temptation to launch CRY as an implementing agency, Kapoor nurtured it as a support agency for child development initiatives undertaken by individuals and organisations all over India, which may be in the area of education, healthcare, vocational training, awareness campaigns, income generation or community organisation programmes.
SaysJohnson, ``The projects are supported financially as well as non-financially, which includes imparting training, material disbursal, information dissemination, communication networking, extending professional expertise, or providing networking support.'' Ashray is one such NGO that gets support from CRY for working with street and working children. Says Reshi Vashisht, general secretary of Ashray: ``Apart from the financial support, they also offer non-financial support whenever we need it.''
Every project supported by CRY is carefully selected and evaluated by the programme support division, which comprises experienced social development professionals. They visit the project sites regularly to understand the issues at hand, provide guidance and professional inputs, organise relevant training programmes and monitor the impact of the work. Adds a consultant with British Airways, a CRY supporter, who prefers to remain anonymous, ``They also do monitoring of the projects, for which we neither have the time northe expertise.'' CRY also makes presentations to the sponsoring company's board, management and staff on the project and its contribution to the beneficiary community.
Most importantly, CRY organises visits for the management and staff to the project sites to help them build personal relations with the end recipients. As per CRY's 1996-97 annual report, its expenditure was mainly on education (39 per cent), health (16 per cent), project administration (16 per cent), community organisation (6 per cent), income generation (2 per cent), and others (21 per cent).
The expenditure was bankrolled through individual donations (56 per cent), product income (22 per cent), corporate donations (13 per cent), interest and dividends (7 per cent), and corpus (2 per cent). Even multilateral funding agencies like the Ford Foundation, the Norwegian Agency for Development and the Mitterand Foundation have provided CRY crucial grants from time to time for infrastructure and capacity building.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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