REFOCUS CSR RESOURCES FOR SUSTAINABLE IMPACT
Through Community Partnerships & Capacity Development
| Current Scenario: Traditionally most funds made available by companies for corporate social responsibility commitments are directed at providing identified inputs as per community articulated needs in areas of education, sports, healthcare, water, sanitation, livelihoods, skills development, and basic infrastructure. Little thought was given to the maintenance of assets created in the communities or sustainability of the improved services or the kind of ownership. |
Community Role: Time has come to deploy these funds strategically with clear outcomes in mind in terms of sustainable change and improvement in quality of life of recipient communities. For this to happen, capacity of communities needs to be developed to plan for themselves; contribute and become active partners in development efforts; becoming owners of change and the assets created; take full responsibility for maintenance and continuity of the services made available.
Leveraging Through Twining: Often the CSR funds support activities or provide inputs already available under multiple government funded programmes and schemes resulting in duplication of resources and efforts. At the same time, missing but essential elements in the implementation of government-sponsored programmes remain unattended. If the gaps in implementation of government programmes were filled professionally, it would lead to manifold gains, sustained beyond the intervention period. This aspect has received little or no attention of CSR departments of corporations so far. The tremendous leveraging effect of strategic investment of CSR resources when twined carefully with available government programmes could geometrically increase their impact. With professional dissemination of the processes and achieved results, such strategic interventions would show the way for countrywide replication by these government programmes, resulting in so far unimaginable impact of the relatively small CSR funds. It is time to use CSR funds as catalysts of change, oiling the lumbering government programmes and adding much needed momentum to them.
What we can do……
Vimarsh Development Solutions can partner with GAIL (India) Ltd. to carry out all or some of the below listed interventions:
I. Review of CSR vision, policy, strategies and plans followed by their strengthening to meet future challenges;
II. Orientation of organisation staff to CSR plans, drawing their interest and support, making CSR a organisation-wide commitment and an effective measure for organisational development;
III. Develop champions and executive groups within the communities to plan, manage and monitor intervention activities;
IV. Capacity development of community based champions and executive groups to plan, manage and monitor community development interventions;
V. Holistic (re)assessment of community needs, available infrastructure, resources, skills, potential, level of linkages with government programmes and market forces;
VI. Participatory identification of solutions, ideation of locally relevant intervention strategies and intervention activities;
VII. Secure community contributions and commitments of ownership for agreed intervention activities;
VIII. Establish/strengthen institutionalised mechanisms for inter-sectoral partnerships of community based executive groups and government programme functionaries;
IX. Handhold start-up of joint planning of CSR activities with the government programme functionaries, identifying implementation/ programmatic gaps to be filled with CSR support while optimally drawing upon available government programme resources;
X. Support the communities to secure government programme resources as per communities’ development plans;
XI. Assist the communities to implement their plans, helping their concurrent monitoring, review, adaptation to situational requirements;
XII. Documentation of implementation processes and their dissemination within the Corporation staff to develop affinity and understanding of the social good brought about by the Corporation;
XIII. Dissemination of the processes and results to promote replication, rollout and positively impact state and national policies with accompanying recognition of the Corporation’s stellar role;
XIV. Professional management and accounting of CSR resources with indicator based output and outcome linkages.