Finding the "fun" in fun(d)raising

If you are reading this blog, you probably know that Prajnya is in the middle of its annual fundraising drive. We're trying to raise Rs. 300,000/- towards this year's 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence.

Trying to raise money is a serious affair. It's serious because money is a key instrument that enables people to do what they wish to do. It's serious because our work is serious. It's serious because one is driven by need and held back by inhibition. It's serious because asking for money is not pleasant. I read somewhere about cold-calling being hard. I think asking the same people again and again is also hard. Asking for money is hard, period. For some of us, who grew up in a time when nice girls did not learn how to talk about or negotiate money, it has taken effort to be able to ask on someone else's behalf, but it's still unpleasant. And while our greatest need is for fundraising help, volunteers will come in and say, looking at their toes, "Just don't ask me to ask people for money."

But money makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? It makes programmes and events possible. It makes it possible to purchase electricity, Internet and water. It makes it possible to anchor talent in work they might believe in passionately but not be able to do for want of a livelihood. So, someone has to raise funds.

It has to be done, but why can't it be fun?

I am sure others have read those (mostly American) comics where children and adolescents sold lemonade and washed cars to raise funds. We're in a context where children do that to feed their families, so let's return to the drawing board. In India, we see a lot of fundraising concerts. The main performers may volunteer their talent, but there are dozens of related costs that cannot be wished away. The return to the organization is minimal, and honestly, does not seem worth the effort. I prefer what we have done; used the art of the performer to try and communicate our message in a different language, and made the experience available to whoever is interested. Events during Joy of Giving Week are an attempt to make giving fun and attractive.

We have had people try to raise funds while doing something that was enjoyable--ideally, for them and for others. So last year, through the year, we had Hollaback! Fridays at Vivanta by Taj Connemara which offered us an outreach opportunity but also got us a small percentage of the proceeds of those evenings. During the fundraising campaign, Neela Thamara from Kurnool sold a special collection of shopping bags and shared the proceeds with us. The year before that PERCH contributed a percentage from the sale of the soundtrack CDs of their production, Miss Meena. 

But how do you make fundraising fun for individuals? What are ways in which a group of friends can undertake fun projects that can also be fundraisers? I turned to the Internet to look for the lists of ideas I was sure were out there. Here are some lists I found, in no particular order:

1. Signup Genius  has this list of 50 Fundraising Ideas.

Some might work in India, like:

• "9. Buy a Meal – Volunteers donate homemade meals to sell." This could work in the large IT/ITES companies where hundreds of young people live away from home and eat in food courts. It could work as a meal served in a home and also as a special 'canteen' on a specific day.

 On the other hand, this list suggests:

• "40. Spa Night – Offer to have female volunteers give manis, pedis and 5 minute massages at a Women’s Night Out for donations." Why female volunteers and why only for women? So, moving on!

2. World Land Trust lists "20 Easy Ways to Fundraise." 

I really like some of these.

"1. Get Active Choose something challenging, maybe walking 5 miles, swimming 100 lengths or even eating 50 doughnuts and get sponsored to do it." This is something that could be adapted, but finding that sponsor is not easy. It would work for bored children being challenged to do something constructive and parents who want to create a good incentive for them.

"6. Go Without  Give up something you would really miss, like sweets, TV or your mobile, & get people to sponsor you for each day that you manage to go without." This would work in our culture. The idea of giving up something as a mannat or after a life-changing event is very much part of our culture. Imagine if someone were to pay you for each day of abstinence? Especially, if they wanted you to give it up in the first place.

"19. Be Creative For those talented artists out there; design a Christmas card or other craft that is easy to make lots of, and sell them to your family & friends." This is also a great idea if you have kids at home. For the price of paper and felt pens, you could have busy kids, a full new set of custom-made stationery that they can sell to friends and family in order to donate the proceeds.

3. This Pinterest board has one idea that caught my eye; it's from another website.

 

This is a "made for India" idea. And yes, we may adapt it for Prajnya. All of us above a certain age hoard glass and plastic bottles and containers and we habitually re-use them. If the team could collect bottles, we could put Prajnya stickers on and people could simply collect their loose change and then donate the collection to us. But you know what, this could also be a project that our friends could start for us! It doesn't need more from us than the logo .jpg? Anyone who has scrimped and saved and gathered their coins for real use will tell you they do quickly add up. 

4. SheKnows has a list of 101 "Fun Ways to Raise Money."

A list that has 101 items is surely a list with an Indian soul. I like several of these ideas; they're meant for those who are running marathons to raise funds for breast cancer, but will work in other contexts.

• "45. Movie Party: Host a movie party at your house. Every time the word "walk" is said in the movie, everyone antes up 1 dollar in a donation bowl. Have pizza donated and ask for a suggested donation at the door." How can this not work? Adapt away--a Tamil film with a donation for every "punch dialogue" or even better, to raise awareness, Rs. 100 for every sexist phrase used in a film in any language. That should quickly raise a few thousand rupees and start some very interesting conversations. "54. Movie/TV Marathon" is similar but a marathon of many films/episodes.
• "46. Theme Dinner: Hold a theme dinner party for at least 10 of your friends; donation 50 dollar a person. Spend just 20 dollar per person on food and you've raised 300 dollar in donations. Better yet, have all of the food donated!" There must be gifted cooks out there and hospitable friends who can make this work.
• "57. Game Night: Host a game night; Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Poker, Bridge, Bingo. Serve donated food and drinks. Ask for a suggested donation at the door." A possibility!
• "74. "Loose Change Day": Ask your child's school to have a "Loose Change Day." Make a flyer
  encouraging each child to bring in loose change from their house to be donated. Encourage the 
  math classes to assist with counting, predicting and rolling the change. This is a great way to  
  involve the entire school. You can hold this event multiple times; every week or every month." This could be a class project or a club project.
• "77. Dress Down Friday: Ask your boss if you can host a "Dress Down Friday." Employees buy a button and get to dress down on an assigned day." Lots of companies already have casual Fridays but maybe that could be tweaked to be a "Wear Red" day or something like that.

Many years ago, when we started Prajnya, I read and re-read the Global Fund for Women's "Women's Fundraising Handbook," entranced in particular by what seemed like simple things one could do within the community (listed on page 8). Take a look at this resource, if you haven't seen it. I think there are several useful things in there--but it is ultimately a resource for serious fund-raising.

And what I now want is a way to highlight the "fun" in fundraising. I want people to feel like they like us and like our work, and fundraising for us would be a fun thing to do. I want whatever they do to also be a meaningful process--so I particularly like the idea of the movie night where they think about sexist language or something like that. The actual amount raised doesn't matter as much to me as that process, but yes, the process of raising funds should not be so expensive as to absorb most of the gains of the exercise.

Do share your ideas! Let's make fundraising a fun adventure rather than an onerous undertaking--because that's when it can become a community effort rather than the weary petitions of anxious non-profit managers. 

Anthems

Today, we celebrate five years of Prajnya. Prajnya started as a response to things I felt needed doing, that I could help do, in my head, and today it stands outside my head looming large over me, grabbing physical space around, monopolizing my brain sometimes, with a significant group of volunteers who also own Prajnya and a very large extended community who support and keep in touch with us. Wow! You cannot imagine how hard it is to believe.

I feel, at the same time, somewhat tattered and exhausted. Like a person who has fought through fire, wind and rain to walk down the world's longest wind corridor with a large, open bag of cotton-wool intact. Or something like. You get the idea. Embattled, exhausted. And in recent weeks, as we've planned our celebration, getting to something like excitement and exhilaration.Music has kept me on course.

I want to doff my hat to four songs that I rarely listen to but that since childhood, have been my idea of how to life.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain, The Sound of Music 

The Sound of Music was the first film I saw, I am told. And this song has been a part of the soundtrack of my life forever. The words are rich with meaning, and a gentle nudge even when I am really fed up, that nothing's over yet.

The Impossible Dream

I first heard this song on a tribute collection of Glen Campbell songs that someone got me. It never fails to draw me up beyond whatever moment I am in, towards something else, something more important than I am. So here it is, almost the version I first heard.

Somewhere over the rainbow

And what keeps me on this road is the belief, no doubt some would label it delusion, that "there's a land... where troubles melt like lemondrops." And it's up to us to find that land and bring it to where we are.

And closer home, two songs that resonate in the same way.

Jeena isi ka naam hai

The words echo the ideas that 'Vaishnava janato' spells out--living is about giving. I like that idea. Sometimes I also like receiving, but on the whole, giving is good! And it's another thing that the tune takes me straight to another Raj Kapoor song with an entirely different mood, 'Aasmaan pe hai khuda.' I still like this, and would list it over many other Zindagi songs with the same philosophy.

And finally.... (why are you surprised?)... Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haarke

What's left to say? Except, "Thank you for the music"! :-)

Founder's Blues: Losing the point, losing the way

There are days--many days--when I cannot remember what the point of Prajnya is.

We do a lot but it is so removed still from things at the core of our vision that it is hard to relate the purpose of our daily activities to the form we imagine for our main work.

We have some limited success at fundraising but not enough for anyone to be devoted full-time to this work. Which is one reason our full-time research and school training programmes are not in place.

We communicate across every medium possible. But when people we think are close to us still seem unsure of how to describe us, I wonder how effectively I communicate.

And people. We have an enviable community of volunteers, who take time to do things with us out of interest and conviction. We look like frugal spenders because we spend their time free of cost.

And underpinning this free volunteer labour is hours and hours of my time, to do the boring tasks and the pesky things and patchwork and mopping-up of every project. I cannot remind or ask people to do anything too often, because they are volunteers. Yet, I must act in consultation and cannot decide things on my own. Somehow at that point, the work they do feels like a personal favour, not a social obligation they are choosing to own.

That is the founder's responsibility. Credit for success is shared. Responsibility for every failure is still mine alone. That is fine.

But the thing that is breaking me now--and it may be politic to hide this but I think it is important to document as a reality of this moment--is that is that none of it feels like it is enough. Nothing I do is good enough. And I cannot remember what this is for? What for, all this? It worries me that I do not know why. It worries me a lot. Losing the point of Prajnya, I lose the point of everything else in the present moment.

This is Trishanku Swargam--can't return to your life, cannot proceed towards the afterlife. This moment is very real. I want that registered for the future--for those who want to do something like this and for those who may someday see Prajnya as a steady success. This moment is real, and this moment is horrible to live through.

Fee-fi-fo-fum: Donkeys, camphor and Chennai colleges

This is a ranting post. Bewarned!

***

Three weeks ago, Prajnya organized an intercollegiate quiz for which ten teams signed up and three teams showed up. One college professor apologized but there was no explanation or apology from any of the students at all.

***

Today, I went to Women's Christian College, which is having a 'National Seminar' (something colleges have in Chennai that I don't fully comprehend as a category) on domestic violence. I had been invited to judge their poster contest. In spite of their students ditching our quiz just a few weeks ago, I kept my commitment, rushed through my morning work to show up at 8:15 am. as requested.

The professor who invited me nodded vaguely as she ushered the keynote speaker on to the stage. As the proceedings unfolded, some instinct made me think I should ask about these posters I was supposed to judge. Perhaps the instinct was prompted by the fact that when she thanked the invitees who were attending, she mentioned neither my name or Prajnya's.

I sent a message through a colleague who was off-stage (my contact professor was on-stage with the 'dignitaries'). She did not know anything about posters or my having come to judge them--ominous, already. I asked whether the posters were ready for me to see right after the keynote. The reply sent to me: There were no entries so there was no point my waiting.

I am actually not easily insulted. I have too much tolerance and tend to have empathy for people in many kinds of situations. I don't stand on ceremony and I think I am fairly unassuming by today's standards. But today, I am. Very, very insulted.

If there were no entries, this cannot have come as a surprise after my asking. What would it have taken to send me an sms? Or, to look at me this morning when I said hello, and say, "Oh my god, I totally forgot to call you!" If I had seen genuine regret at such a moment, I would have actually found it amusing and understood the stress of organizing something. But no, it was a casual, no point in my waiting.

No point in my coming. No point in my trying to work with such people. No point in expecting students to behave better when teachers are like this.

No point at all.

***

This is not the first time WCC has been cavalier with us. Yes, they sent teams to our first two quizzes but the students always looked long-suffering and as if our quiz was actually beneath their station. They had a team in our police-student interaction last year, but again this year, they ditched the quiz.

Worse, we have invited professors--with a formal letter--to our programmes. They have said leave was sanctioned, got directions and just not showed up. No explanation or apology.

And now this. I am so furious. If you think this is a post filled with negativity, let me tell you I am being painfully polite and parliamentary. If I was a person of greater virtue, my thoughts would have far more destructive consequences.

***

And WCC is not alone. Stella Maris is the same. Communication within the college seems to be non-existent. They don't believe in responding to things. Their students make rash commitments they are unwilling and unable to deliver on. Loyola is a lost cause. MOP Vaishnav has an enthusiastic principal which makes a lot of difference, but she cannot be her students or her professors. And she cannot be everywhere. Let's not even talk about the University.

Up and down an alphabetized list of Chennai colleges, it's the same story. Disinterest. Apathy. Rudeness. Inability and unwillingness to communicate. Incompetence. Professors are like this; how will students learn?

Except for Queen Mary's College. I am even afraid to write this--meri hi nazar na lag jaye--I don't want to jinx this.

***

But the self-confidence is great. We are so great. Chennai people/students are so smart. Tamilians work so hard. Chennai this. Chennai that.

But don't ask us to keep a commitment. Don't ask us to communicate honestly and promptly. Don't ask us to write a paragraph that you can understand in any language. Don't ask us for anything--we take all offers and requests to be petitions to which we respond like feudal lords with empty titles.

***

For Prajnya's sake, I stop myself over and over from really writing what I think about where I am. I have done so today as well, erasing text that I just typed. But the one thing that is clear to me is that Chennai's colleges are pointless programming options for Prajnya and frankly, last resorts for recruitment as well.

Perhaps this post is impolitic as well, but frankly, to read my blogpost and to take umbrage takes more efficiency and energy than I have seen displayed on campuses here.

***
My father used to tease, when we refused to try new vegetables or dishes: "Kazhudai-kku teriyuma kalpoora vaasanai?" (What does the donkey know of the fragrance of camphor?) Chennai colleges, I say this to you today.

Funding failure is charity!

"Charity stands on its own. Big time charity should tackle things that will fail. When you succeed in everything that you do in charity, you are attempting things a little too easy." 
(Warren Buffett in this press interview.)

Horses, water and Queen Mary's College

Posted first at the PSW Weblog.


"You can drag a horse to the water; you cannot make him drink.”

I cannot write a report about the 2011 quiz without remarking on the participation issue. We invited almost 40 colleges. 10 colleges registered after an official invitation and poster went to the principal, calls were made to the union secretaries and to our friends in the faculty. The students were supposed to register at 2:30 p.m. At 3:30, half an hour after the first round was scheduled to start, only three teams had registered.

Our volunteer made a round of calls, only Ethiraj picked up. They weren’t going to come, but did not think it important to let us know. The Stella Maris and WCC cheering squads–barely three-four people anyway–showed up. The teams did not. We still have no calls or email messages from them.

For Prajnya, this is not an isolated experience. We have the same problems for every programme we conceptualise for students. This is the first time that we have faced it on this scale for the quiz.
Apathy in itself is lamentable. After all, these are the people to whom we plan to repose a great deal of responsibility in the very near future–work, family, social. But the lack of consideration and the absence of accountability are far more frightening to me.

These are the people who will work jobs? Have children? Run the world? What if they don’t feel like showing up one day? Will they just leave work and family in limbo? Every single student carries a mobile phone and has an email account. They could not call or email or sms us to say they would not be coming?

We are a small non-profit and invest very scarce resources into creating opportunities for students, from whom our only expectation is that they should bring themselves to the programme. For yesterday’s event, we had prepared three substantial quiz rounds, plus back-up questions, which took about five long days of serious preparation, even with contributions. More than one person worked on this quiz. Our volunteer made innumerable calls and a few visits in between his classwork at the University. We ordered snacks for fifty. Used up our small stock of printed certificates (which we cannot reuse now) to prepare for 20 participants. And how do I describe the loss of morale for all the people who were so enthusiastic about this programme? They are also young, and I want them to continue to feel like whatever they contribute matters.

Why the Prajnya Team loves Queen Mary’s College

As a contrast to this picture, I want to tell you why we love working with Queen Mary’s College. Queen Mary’s in its time was a very prestigious institution, but that really is history. Today, South India’s first women’s college is a very poorly resourced, poorly maintained institution, but with the gift of teachers who are unbelievably dedicated and students who are hungry for opportunities. Whenever we suggest an opportunity to them, they are enthusiastic and fuel the programme with warm and eager participation.

For yesterday’s programme, we had hired their hall. When I walked in to set up, there was a small group of students sitting quietly, with the professor we usually work with. They were very subdued, in low spirits. One of their colleagues, a young hostelite, was killed by a speeding vehicle when crossing the road in front of their college… injured a few days ago, succumbed to her injuries the day before the quiz. They said, hesitantly, we are in no mood to participate, we will help you set up. I cajoled them into putting up a team.

And they did. They stayed. They participated. They smiled and did not let on to the others that they were grieving. They were good hosts to those who had come to watch. Principal, professor, students, staff… made us feel like we were welcome and that they valued this event.


The principal had spent long days at the General Hospital while her student battled death. The professor we work with had coped in the hostel with grieving girls and police questions. The principal stopped by as we set up to apologize for not coming—she was patently exhausted but gracious. The professor stayed through the quiz, to offer us moral support.

This is college spirit. This is the real stuff.

And when the quiz participants told the quiz master, they wanted careers in social work, I wanted to say to the college and parents: you did really well raising these girls. They fill me with hope when others in their generation make me very afraid.

We are proud to have in the Prajnya Archives photographs of flag hoisting on Independence Day 1947 at Queen Mary’s. We are proud our quiz in the centenary year of the observance of March 8 as International Women’s Day was in this college, full of spirit.

Founder's Blues: Sometimes you wonder why...

Sometimes you wonder why you bother. This week, I have been wondering why I started Prajnya.

Entrepreneurship, business or social, is a very lonely experience. So is a scholarly career. Stuck between both, trying to make them work, I wonder why I bother with the work that benefits me the least. The scholarly career holds a lot of space, maybe is predicated on a healthy sense of self-doubt. Building an organization requires you to fake confidence most of the time. Confidence in your vision. Confidence in the society where it is rooted. Confidence in those around you.

Actually, you have to fake confidence that there are people around you. Most of the time you are alone. Trustees, partners, volunteers, potential donors, resource persons, even beneficiaries and end-users... they appear and disappear. Cheshire cats. Scarlet Pimpernels. Desert mirages. You think you imagined them. You imagined them in order to indulge your delusion/ego/both. I am pretty sure I did.

Today, I cannot remember why I started on this road.

***

We could have created Prajnya as a Section 25 non-profit company, a society or a trust. We chose the last route because it offered the most freedom. The auditor warned me repeatedly that it would be very hard to shut down.

So here I am. Without an easy road ahead. Without an easy escape.

***

And no answers. Don't ask me about "no answers," I probably can't answer that.

It's a vicious cycle--no money, no people, no office, no space, no hub, no community, no support, no money, no people, no office... you pull off miracles in the first year or so, and then it becomes really hard. Your presence, reputation and workload increase much faster than your resources. And certainly, they have taken a toll of my physical, fiscal and inner resources.

***

Some weeks, I really can't remember why this seemed like the thing to do. What was my expectation of myself? What was my expectation of others?

To be very honest, my worry all along was embarking on this course in a city where I have no friends. But here I was. And I wanted to start before I was too old to take a risk. I still don't really feel like I have friends here--almost eight years after I moved and five years after Prajnya's deed was executed.

***

I take great comfort, even pleasure in reading about the teething troubles others faced--from Rukmini Arundale to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. I seek courage in their continuing growth and success. But I am neither unique like Rukmini Devi nor enlighted like Sadhguru. Does that diminish my survival prospects and those of Prajnya?

***

Like Abhimanyu in the chakravyuha, I figured out how to get in. I cannot go further. I cannot get out. I will not be rescued. And I will not be martyred. Middle-aged female Abhimanyu.

***

But if tomorrow you told me to pull down the shutters, could I? Would I? (And believe me, if I chose to do this, the same family that now supports me, would celebrate my release from anxiety and stress as well!) But would I?

I don't know. I can't remember why I chose to do this, I can't think of why I cannot leave.

I can only write this post in the hope that someday it offers comfort to another person in my situation.

Yardsticks to trip over?

NGO accountability is a huge issue these days. For funders, government and the public, good governance becomes a measure by which to praise or berate the social sector. For the social sector, trying to regulate its own affairs, it is becoming a set of rigid standards based on an essentialised model of what NGOs do.

Take a look at this article by Vijay Nadkarni, former deputy director of Credibility Alliance, in a special issue of Agenda on civil society in India.

This week, Indian Express has carried a few articles on this question, that I am blogging here mainly to bookmark for later and clip.

NGO non-governance, Indian Express, July 8, 2010.
Mandakini Devasher Surie, Watching the Watchdogs, Indian Express, July 10, 2010.
Ratna Sudarshan, Learning to ask, Indian Express, July 17, 2010.

Standards for NGO governance appear to be derived from existing standards in government and the corporate sector, both of which, if truth be told are not always stellar examples of upright accounting or transparency. In principle, this is a wonderful thing, and the reason many organizations have sought out affiliation and accreditation.

However, there are two self-defeating aspects to this. First, the checklist of standards is rigid across different kinds of organizations in different stages of development. As Ratna Sudarshan points out, the rubric "NGO" includes a wide range of organizations: think-tanks from IDSA to Prajnya; welfare organizations from a village SHG to a PRIA, etc. The same standards of integrity must apply, but apply in different ways. For instance, in Prajnya, we really have no employees who could take leave or have travel allowances, nor an office where they could sign a register. What would we do with a personnel policy we could not apply? Of course, we should have one, and there should not be arbitrary human resources standards in our organization, but for that standard to apply, we should have both humans and resources first!

The second, more worrisome thing, is that rather than developing an optimistic approach that assumes NGO boards want to do things properly and then mentoring them in that direction as they grow, the growing community of governance monitoring agencies and consultants seems to carry with them the "guilty until proven innocent" assumptions of the government and the general suspicion about NGO motives that the corporate sector has.

To whom can NGO boards turn for help in the circumstances, even as these standards are becoming influential in funding circles?

As a non-profit founder, a citizen with a vested interest in good governance anywhere, and a political scientist who is fascinated by how regimes of different sorts acquire the backing of a consensus and then move forward, these are matters that concern me profoundly.

Founder's Blues: What's my story?

I do not understand why such a fine idea as our Education for Peace Initiative is so hard to talk about. I have spent a lot of time (as I usually do) wondering about what we (I) say and do not say that is so uninspiring.

I got to thinking about the campaign against gender violence for which it is possible to at least raise individual donations. People are not moved as much by what we say as by the memories of a person or an incident that it evokes. I think. It is certifiably a good cause.

So is peace education. And lord knows, it should take no marketing outside of the news headlines. Why would 14 year olds elect to fight in violent insurgencies? Why would high school kids pick up the gun on small playground disputes? And short of the gun, think of the many verbal hostilities children learn by the time they leave school. We should all be seriously upset by this. But we are not.

It is hard to narrate these things as a story, I think. Yes, it's true these things happen, but I don't know if I can narrate the teenaged suicide bomber's life as a familiar anecdote. And if I say, children are carrying guns, is that a child that lives in my building?

I could come at it from the experience of the two people whose brainchild this has been, but we are the very fortunate. We come at peace education from a sense that we who have been so lucky as to have grown up around farsighted educationists and very liberal parents need to share this privilege. We share two convictions: 1. We can make a difference through our efforts and 2. The way to do that is by teaching children peaceful ways of relating to each other and living with differences. 

We could come up with a variety of personal anecdotes about the peace-teaching people and experiences we have had, and we have to some extent in our occasional blog: http://prajnyaforpeace.wordpress.com/. But it's not the same as Abc, aged 8, beat her little sister, aged 4, to pulp because there was cream in her milk.

So now I am going to embark on a search for the story. And test some of them here, bewarned.

Founder's Blues: Fundraising, the BYOI party!

That's what it is. Fundraising is a "Bring your own imagination" party. Little wonder then, that it must be one of the world's worst attended gatherings!

I can write up the invitation in any format you name. I can strategically deploy the words you currently love. I can break up my 'ask' into children's portions or lump them together to sound impressive. I can give you a multicoloured brochure or an academic's document full of jargon.

I can speak to your heart. I can orate to your conference hall. I can make you a jazzy powerpoint. If you gave me money, I could throw it down the drain to make an animated film about my funding needs. I could even write a song and sing it for you, with the refrain: Tum ek paisa de do, voh dus lakh dega! (Or, in tune with our current needs, tum 6 lakh de do, voh 60 crore dega!)

I can share my vision with you in the medium of your choice. Bur if you have no imagination, I have no cure for that but prayer.

Founder's Blues

I've been meaning for ages to blog about the process of setting up a non-profit think-tank. Not so much because I have any great insights to offer but because someone else doing the same thing might stumble upon my blog and think, "Okay, I am not alone in this universe! There are other insane, misguided and obstinate people out there, whose egos won't let them beat the retreat that the rest of them urges."

So right there: Some qualities that it takes to found something when you have nothing more than your own skill-set and a clear vision. A healthy degree of insanity that allows you to boldly go where only Star Trek has gone before. An ability to selectively edit out the cautionary advice you get--and where I am, where answers to all questions begin with either "That's not possible" or "That's very difficult"--this is especially important. Obstinacy that makes you stay the course in a way that's true to your vision and not "what someone else does" or "what funding agencies like." And an ego that won't let others be right, even if you have to bend the universe to your will.

I would say that Prajnya is the natural adult version of an institution-building imagination I have always had. I am not just rewriting history to say this. Every cousin, aunt, uncle or schoolfriend that has been subject to my school prospectuses and architectural blueprints for a campus would attest to this. My school dream borrowed from all the school story-books I loved and my vision for Prajnya grew out of all the other think-tanks and dreams I have encountered.

And yes, I do use the collective 'we' when I speak about this in public, but the reality is this is a dream that found its first agent in me. So this and related posts will inevitably be very personal.

So where do I start with this? I won't do this in a linear mode because really it would not be fair at this stage to narrate the back-story of Prajnya in any particular way. Ultimately, this will be a story of many stories and many people.

What I do want to write about are moments like the one I have been this morning.

I have before me a fundraising proposal to write. It requires imagination, knowledge of the field and a tedious amount of detail to be worked out. Inevitably, we are leaping in the dark on that detail. The chicken-egg problem here is that we cannot actually be sure of the detail till we have money. We cannot get money without writing as if every detail has been finalized. So we sit down, the 2-3 of us that are usually available for this, and imagine a house of cards.

We will do X in January. We will do Z in February. So-and-so and So-and-so2 will do this with us (never mind, that they still have no idea). Jane Doe will evaluate this. Etc. Etc.

That's what all grant-seekers do. No big deal.

The catch: We actually don't have any full-time people on our payroll. So even the 'we' is an iffy 'we'. So as the person who is always there because the dream is in your head, you start to think: Okay, what's the point? Who am I writing this proposal for? Who cares if I do this? Who else is at all invested in this?

The hardest part of founding and building something is that it is very lonely. And this is both ironic and worrying, because an institution-building is a team effort--not just during public programmes but every single day. And I don't want a codependent relationship with Prajnya. It's very hard even for the founder to stay motivated when the team remains virtual beyond a point.

Prajnya is teaching me to live in the moment--the human, financial and material resources I have at any moment are all I can count on. That has spiritual virtue but in the real world, it is very difficult. I have not learned how to live this lesson yet. I worry less about what will happen--I have enough faith in whatever's brought me here to know that Prajnya will become what it should be. But I have a hard time staying motivated. My conviction on specifics wavers. My faith in anyone outside myself is easy to shake and it billows and folds like a light curtain caught in a resentful wind. And I need a lot of cheerleading which we all know is mostly unavailable in the adult world.

This is a downer of a post in some ways but this is not an easy process. And as I said, I hope my being candid will give someone else solace: You are not alone. All of us have to remember that we started on this course because we had faith in ourselves and in our dream. We need to remind ourselves (and each other) of that, oftener than we do.