Body formed to register, regulate NGOs

Nabil — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:15:58 +0000

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee has expressed concerns over the existence of fake non-governmental organisations, which are regularly receiving funding from multiple sources.

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Special Education also took notice of 12 different laws under which NGOs are registered, both at federal and provincial levels.

As a result, the committee constituted a five member subcommittee under the chairpersonship of former social welfare minister and MNA Dr. Attiya Inayatullah to review all these laws.

The subcommittee was also tasked with coming up with a proposal under which a single law could be formulated for NGOs’ registration throughout the country.

The new law would also suggest a mechanism whereby performance of NGOs could be effectively monitored. The NA committee met here at the Parliament House on Monday with Rubina Saadat Qaim Khani in the chair.

Interestingly, the committee was informed that in serious violation of rules, a stenographer of the National Council of Social Welfare has been found running an NGO. However, the committee could not provide the name of even a single NGO that is receiving funds but not doing any work on ground.

The committee also expressed its reservations about the non-compliance of its chairperson’s orders regarding the postponement of a meeting of the scrutiny committee on distribution of funds to NGOs prior it’s briefing to the NA committee.

On this the committee directed the Social Welfare and Special Education Ministry’s secretary to conduct an inquiry and report back within one week.

Earlier, the ministry officials briefed the committee members on the presence of 12 different laws which were currently being followed for registration of NGOs and the possibility of their conversion into one law that could be more effective in monitoring the performance of this sector.

They said under the present laws which were meant to register and control NGOs, it was difficult to keep checks and balances on their working.

It’s worth mentioning here that registration and monitoring of NGOs have long been an issue in the country and successive governments attempted to streamline their working but remained unsuccessful. The main issue revolves around the funding of NGOs from international donors.

The government wants to channel the funding through the finance ministry, whereas representatives of the civil society believe that direct involvement of government agencies would prove harmful to their smooth running.

Therefore, the issue is still pending and once again a committee has been constituted to look into the possibilities whether a mechanism could be evolved for effective management of NGOs in Pakistan.

Source:: The Dawn News

When Life Exploded

Nabil — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:25:23 +0000

Billy didn’t stand a chance. His father, both a drug addict and alcoholic, physically abused him, his siblings and his mother. At a young age he was forced to protect his mother from his father’s outbursts. He was the adult in this fragile home. He wasn’t loved or protected.

As a young teen, Billy found acceptance, friendship, and brotherhood in a biker gang. He assumed a new identity—Bear. Bear was tough. With a new-found confidence and community he abandoned all rules and authority. He became involved in organized crime. This was a small price to pay for the family he found in his biker gang. Then, his criminal involvement put him behind bars.

After serving time in prison, Bear left his biker gang to clean up his life. He became a father and highly invested in his daughter’s life. He fell in love and married. For two decades life was good.

In 2000 “life exploded,” says Bear. His daughter died in a tragic car accident. His mother passed away. He divorced his wife after he discovered she was cheating on him with one of his closest friends. In one year Bear lost all he had lived for.

Bear used drugs to ease his pain and quickly was addicted. He turned to The Salvation Army Harbour Light for help and successfully completed their drug-treatment program. He moved to Vancouver Island and stayed clean for the next five years.

During these five years, Bear suffered five heart attacks. Both his physical and mental health deteriorated. He refused to deal with the inner demons and deep emotions that initially lead him to drug use. Before long Bear reconnected with old friends and started using drugs again. He wanted to get clean and found himself back at The Salvation Army. This time he went to Belkin House in Vancouver.

Belkin House is a modern, residential program facility where the homeless, hungry and broken can find true peace and healing. After treatment for drug

addiction, Bear started a long-term treatment program consisting of holistic transformation. Through extensive counselling, a loving environment and lots of support from friendly staff, Bear rebuilt his life at Belkin House.

Bear experienced healing from the many painful events in his life. He gave up his street name, Bear, and reassumed his original name, Bill. After two years at Belkin House, he now lives on his own and The Salvation Army housing team is assisting him toward living in a long-term seniors’ residence.

Says Bill: “The Salvation Army didn’t give up on me. They gave me a second chance. They’ve helped me stay drug-free. I am on the right medication for my mental-health issues. I have lost weight. If you are willing to listen, you can learn a lot at Belkin house. It changed my life.” [ salvationarmy.ca ]

Whole Foods Market Shoppers Donate $1.8 Million to Empower the Poor

Nabil — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:32:08 +0000

Each year, Whole Foods Market shoppers have the opportunity to donate at the registers and empower the poor through microcredit during the annual campaign. This year, the goal was to raise $1 million and customers donated $1.8 million – wow!, Whole Planet Foundation will now be able to reach impoverished communities in South America that supply Whole Foods Market stores with product. Last year, your donations enabled Whole Planet Foundation to fund microlending projects in Africa, supporting the very poor in Kenya and Ethiopia where Whole Foods Market sources coffee. Every dollar goes a long way.

Sub-par but not subprime

Nabil — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:46:23 +0000

Mar 19th 2009 | LONDON AND TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

Lending to the poor has held up well but it is not as safe from the credit crisis as its champions hoped

A GLOBAL credit crisis caused by subprime mortgages is hardly the ideal backdrop for a business making unsecured loans to poor people without a credit history. Yet big microfinance companies, which do exactly that, seem to be in rude health. Mohammad Yunus, the unflappably optimistic founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, a microfinance institution for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is adamant that business remains unscathed. “We have not been touched in any way by the financial crisis,” he said on a recent visit to Japan. “The simple reason is because we are rooted to the real economy—we are not paper-based, paper-chasing banking. When we give a loan of $100, behind the $100 there are chickens, there are cows. It is not something imaginary.” [More...]

What Facebook Can Teach Your Company

Nabil — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:29:50 +0000

Most companies will eventually have social media strategies, which means facing tough issues over who owns and controls content. Can Facebook’s recent stumble over terms of service inform your strategy and keep your customers sharing powerful information about how to use your product or service? Consider these four principles:

Allow users to own their content and identity.
This core principle of Facebook builds trust with users and should be preserved and amplified.

Make all “sharing” options default to the most conservative setting.
Many of Facebook’s defaults allow extensive sharing of activity. Numerous problems could be avoided with more conservative options.

Create a better infrastructure for anonymity and tracking of content.
Allow users the option to remove any of their content in the future, including things they’ve sent to others.

Don’t sneak up on the audience.
Engage your audience before you make a change. Much of the anger about Facebook’s recent changes could have been avoided if they’d been clearly announced in advance.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “What Facebook’s Stumble Can Teach Your Company,” posted by John Sviokla.

Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

Nabil — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:05:08 +0000

Your behavior can energize—or deflate—your entire organization through mood contagion. For example, if you laugh often and set an easygoing tone, you’ll trigger similar behaviors among your team members. Shared behaviors unify a team, and bonded groups perform better than fragmented ones.

Mood contagion stems from neurobiology. Positive behaviors—such as exhibiting empathy—create a chemical connection between a leader’s and his or her followers’ brains. By managing those interconnections adroitly, leaders can deliver measurable business results. For example, after one executive at a Fortune 500 company worked with a coach and role model to improve her behavior, employee retention and emotional commitment in her unit soared. And the unit’s annual sales jumped 6%.

How to foster the neurobiological changes that create positive behaviors and emotions in your employees? Goleman and Boyatzis advise sharpening your social intelligence skills.

The Idea in Practice

Identify Social Strengths and Weaknesses

Social intelligence skills include the following. Identify which ones you’re good at—and which ones need improvement.

Craft a Plan for Change

Now determine how you’ll strengthen your social intelligence. Working with a coach—who can debrief you about what she observes—and learning directly from a role model are particularly powerful ways to make needed behavioral changes.

Example: Janice was hired as a marketing manager for her business expertise, strategic thinking powers, and ability to deal with obstacles to crucial goals. But within her first six months on the job, she was floundering. Other executives saw her as aggressive and opinionated—as well as careless about what she said and to whom.

Her boss called in a coach, who administered a 360-degree evaluation. Findings revealed that Janice didn’t know how to establish rapport with people, notice their reactions to her, read social norms, or recognize others’ emotional cues when she violated those norms. Through coaching, Janice learned to express her ideas with conviction (instead of with pit bull–like determination) and to disagree with others without damaging relationships.

By switching to a job where she reported to a socially intelligent mentor, Janice further strengthened her skills, including learning how to critique others’ performance in productive ways. She was promoted to a position two levels up where, with additional coaching, she mastered reading cues from direct reports who were still signaling frustration with her. Her company’s investment in her (along with her own commitment to change) paid big dividends—in the form of lower turnover and higher sales in Janice’s multibillion-dollar unit.

This HBR In Brief presents key ideas from a full-length Harvard Business Review article.

Harvard Business Review – Be A Better Leader, Have A Richer Life, Stewart Friedman

Nabil — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:45:51 +0000

Social Media for Social Causes Study: The Results

Nabil — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:49:23 +0000

This post is co-authored by Qui Diaz, Beth Kanter and Geoff Livingston, who are working on a special project, dubbed “Philanthropy 2.0″ to provide non-profits the information they need to best serve donors and advocates.

While the social web has been a fantastic place for nonprofits to harness the long tail of giving with movements like Twestival and the Case Foundation’s Giving Challenge, high dollar donor cultivation has not been prevalent. The goal of our Community Philanthropy 2.0 survey one month ago was to determine whether there is potential for nonprofits to cultivate significant donors online (defined as someone who gives $1,000 or more), and how that can be accomplished. More…

Twitter: Hottest Among Working Adults

Nabil — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:17:06 +0000

According to a new study by Nielsen Online, the fastest growing users of Twitter belong to the 35-49 age group. This finding debunks the popular conception that this microblogging network is adopted primarily by a younger demographic. The report, which tracked the habits of “Twitterers” (or Tweeters) in February 2009, also notes that the 62% of users access the platform from work versus 35% that access it from home only.

Another interesting finding: Unique visitors to Twitter rose from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the members communities category for the month. Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240% and 228%, respectively.

Follow me on Twitter! @nabiluppal

Micro-loans for Americans?

Nabil — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:15:15 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) — When the economic downturn took hold last autumn, the management team at non-profit Kiva.org made a calculated bet to curb investment, anticipating that donors would slow the volume of small loans they make to entrepreneurs in the developing world. That slowdown never came. Now, the non-profit site is racing to keep up with user demand even while planning to bring its unique form of charity to the U.S.

Nearly 500,000 users have lent almost $65 million, interest-free, to developing-world entrepreneurs through Kiva.org. The nearly four-year-old site received a major boost during its early days from a wave of media publicity (including FORTUNE’s The only non profit that matters) and the very public endorsement by former President Bill Clinton. More….