Passionate Profession

(Published in The Bengaluru Pages March 2009)

One of my earliest memories takes me to the dingy Godhuli Cinema Hall in Asansol, just across our little house, where I, four year old, am sitting on Gopalda’s lap, watching ‘filums’ being ‘cut’ to fit into the timings of the four shows. My jaws wide open, my eyes stuck to the screen I would watch the black and white images on the screen with complete awe. We would then rush to the tiny machine room, collect the pieces that have been cut and bring them home for my view master. Gopalda and I would stick these cut pieces together to create our own stories where gods and nagins fought, princesses danced around palaces and the villains got a thorough beating from the heroes. My first love affair, my first rendezvous with the arts still holds me captive.

Working for arts philanthropy though, happened quite by accident. After spending years with the corporate sector and running a business, I was looking for something that would make more sense to my life, make me feel less like a bonsai. When a friend spoke to me about the fundraising job at the India Foundation for the Arts, about eight years ago, I thought why not give it a shot? In the mean time, I had completed my masters in dance together with my MBA, had acted in the theatre, was writing a bit and thoroughly enjoying every art form I could lay my hands upon. As I started working with IFA, a bit gingerly at first, getting paid a quarter of what I used to earn, I realized, I knew so little about the not-for-profit world or about the state of the arts in India. I began to learn and apply those learnings as quickly as I could. And today eight years later, I still see myriad challenges facing the arts that needs to be dealt with.

It’s impossible to discuss the various areas of needs in the arts or suggest ways of engaging with them or even talk about the range of work that IFA and I are involved in, in one article. What I can do instead is talk about a few of the issues that I am concerned with at a professional and a very personal level in the arts.

It worries me to see that spaces for the arts and culture, hubs where addas would happen, performances would take place, artists would huddle and discuss and work in our cities are diminishing at a tremendously accelerated rate. Residential buildings, malls and office spaces are eating away the few spaces for culture that we had simply because the arts on its own cannot compete with the pressures of the market reality today. Thus Bangalore has just one Rangashankara and Mumbai just one Prithvi. While on the other hand since visual arts and Bollywood has suddenly made its mark felt in the Indian economy, galleries and multiplexes are mushrooming across cities. Unlike cities in the west, where the Mayor’s city policy contains a cultural policy, the governments in our cities have no concern for the growth of a vibrant arts scene for our urban spaces. Infrastructure for the arts thus seems to stunt the growth of the arts in our cities. The newly set up Theatre Infrastructure Cell at IFA (funded by the Tata Trusts) is an initiative to better the environment for performance in the country and has taken on itself to commission research, take out publications, advocate and actually support infrastructure projects that will help performances. We also intend to interface with urban development departments to make available spaces for the arts in the very planning of cities.

Another area of concern that I have is the diminishing role of the arts in our education system. The vocationalisation of education in this country is creating a generation of mediocre workforce. While we sing and dance about our new found bastions of the IT and the BPO industry, we forget that we are just glorified clerks and factory workers in these fields as well. We don’t produce creative new products, we just manufacture, at a cheap rate, what is already there. And even there China probably beats us. One of the reasons, I feel, we are not producing a generation of creative thinkers and doers is because there is no scope for creative growth in our education systems. The arts, which stimulates creative growth and makes a wholesome individual has been completely removed from education. I am not saying that it is necessary to produce more violin players and poets than engineers and maths teachers, but I believe that appreciation of poetry and music will make better and more creative engineers and maths teachers. Thus my interest in the arts education programme at IFA. Here we are trying to infuse the arts in primary and secondary level education through empowering teachers with the knowledge and tools that are required. This happens to be a programme in which I spend a lot of my time and energy since I believe that if one learns to explore, widen the horizons of one’s mind and opens oneself up for the arts at an early age, a lot gets taken care of later.

Being part of the student political movement in Kolkata very early in life, I have a natural pull towards the arts that challenge status quo, chronicle our conflict ridden histories and raise issues that concern our social political thought processes. Supports for such often controversial expressions in the arts are difficult to come by. They often cannot be programmed for support either, since their very nature is defiant towards traditional means of support. However, as individuals I believe we must support such expressions that question our ways of thinking and pushes us to reexamine our comfortable ways of being.

I have also realized over the years of working in arts funding that funding is not enough. We have to build many arts and culture institutions in the country that are not totally dependent on government or private funding. There is a need thus to build capacity within these institutions to use their core competencies to create revenues. They need to develop economic models for sustainability and diversify their sources of funding and revenues. The recent tax laws in the country has made this even more difficult since the arts now do not fall under ‘charitable activity’ and any income other than donations might be taxed. Thus the need to be find more creative means of survival. This seems to be the most challenging area to me and I work with organizations among IFA’s grantees and outside on various projects on sustainability.

So, my love affair has continued. I have learnt that the arts heal and bond, express and question, challenge and open new doors. I am one of those lucky ones for whom passion and profession is so entwined that I can happily say I live for what I do. My family and friends worry about what this choice of mine might hold for me ultimately. But they are also coping with the fact that needs, aspirations, dreams and destinies mean different things for different people.

But for me, my journey today is more meaningful in itself and I don’t really care about the destination any more. To quote Constantine Cavafis, a Greek poet from his piece Ithaca, “You arrive not expecting more wealth, than the riches you have gained along the way”.

Good for the Goose, not for the Gander

(Published in Raiser's Ask, The South Asia Fundraising Magazine July 2010)

Different donors have different reasons for giving, and deserve reports customised to their needs.

We human beings are good at showcasing ourselves in different ways. When we meet, for the first time, the parents of the person we love, we try our best to make them see that we’re honest, upright, have decent jobs, warm families, and will keep our partners happy. Bumping into a potential boss at a party before the actual job interview, we floor them with our passion for our work, our track record and belief in hard work. To the investor who has bankrolled our company, our words sound like the sweet ring of the cash register. In short, depending on whom we’re talking to, what our relationship with them is, what they expect of us and how deeply involved they are in our lives, we choose to highlight different aspects of ourselves in order to gain and build trust.

Distinguish between your donors

Why is it, then, that when it comes to donors, we lump them under a ‘Funder’ category and generalise their expectations? Building accountability towards our donors is also about building trust, and how we report on our spending of their funds forms a very significant part of that trust-building exercise.

I have raised funds from many kinds of donors – foundations, family trusts, corporates, individuals who live in India and NRIs. They have given funds to run programmes, underwritten specific projects, added to our corpus and supported fundraising events. In the process of meeting, discussing proposals with or just chatting over coffee with them, I have discovered one thing – each of these donors worries about very different things. Their motivations for giving are different, as are what they look for in an organisation they would like to support and the information they want from us.

Customise your reports

Precisely because each relationship with a funder is unique, building trust with them involves a different set of exercises in reporting every time. It wouldn’t be fair to generalise the expectations even of the various categories (foundations, corporations or individuals). While figuring out the specific needs of the donor is something that we do as we build the relationship, there are certain patterns I have noticed.

Foundations, for one, are keenly interested in the content of the grant. They want facts and figures, and in my opinion, probably understand the language of the development sector the best. They know the field well - therefore, they’re more understanding of challenges and shortcomings.

Corporations, on the other hand, need to understand what kind of mileage they might get from doing their good work. So, they would want to know how you gave the project publicity through media or your own newsletters. A report to a corporate donor would benefit from using less development-sector jargon, more corporate speak, and visible acknowledgement that reflects their brand image.

Individuals, however, prefer a more personal approach to the report. Often, individuals funding a project are also looking at educating themselves in the process. Hence, they would like you to go into interesting details, nuances of the projects and lessons learnt. Human stories work really well here, because the individual donor would love to know how his or her personal involvement has made a difference to someone’s life.

Audited financial data, however, needs to be a part of every report for every type of funder. All donors want you to be transparent about how you have spent their money. They want to see supporting evidence where possible.

Think out of the box

We often think that ‘reporting’ to our donors means producing a written document with required details and sending it to them at mutually-agreed-upon intervals. This, of course, is a necessary formal process. At the same time, I have often seen that informal ways of ‘reporting’ work well with various types of funders.

Phone calls to announce a new milestone crossed in the project, a chat over a drink to discuss a challenge that the project is facing, or even a quick email to say that everything is going just fine, make the funder feel that you consider them more than financial investors in the project. They feel in touch with what’s happening. It builds trust.

PS: Use common sense

Keep in mind, of course, that the approach you take with each funder will depend on where you are on the relationship curve with them. It’s a relationship like any other – you don’t want to scare away a new one by being too earnest, or let boredom creep into an old one!

The 10 Commandments for good report writing

1. State clearly why the funds were given and what they were supposed to achieve with specific reference to deliverables agreed upon.

2. Mention all the terms and conditions laid down when the funds were given.

3. Indicate the period for which you are reporting with dates and whether this is an interim report or final report.

4. Against each of the tasks set, report clearly what you have achieved and how.

5. Mention openly what you have failed to achieve and why. Indicate the specific challenges you have faced.

6. Always give correct and audited facts and figures. Also attach a financial report.

7. Unless given a prescribed format by the donor, use your creativity to make the report interesting with pictures, tables, graphs, story insets, appendices which are clearly marked, media coverage you might have received for your work, testimonials from your beneficiaries, quotes from staff monitoring the work, etc.

8. Check report for all errors in language, grammar, spelling and formatting. Make it easy and pleasurable for the donor to read.

9. Add your future plans at the end. You never know, the donor might be delighted with your report and want to fund you again.

10. At the end, acknowledge people who have helped you, evaluators, volunteers, specific staff members and the donor you are reporting to.