SNEH PRAYAS

Sneh Prayas- Who are you?

Sneh Prayas is the Gujarat chapter of a National level NGO "Prayas".

It has tried to restore childhood to all those children who are on the brink of starvation and deprivation.

Prayas associates itself with 80,000 neglected, street and working children in different parts of India.

Children that Prayas works for are fighting everyday for survival as rag pickers, shoeshine boys, street vendor, domestic helpers, or even as beggars.

Many of these children are subjected to violence, abuse and exploitation, which initially result in disorientation and delinquency ending up in a life of crime and resulting in social disintegration.

 In India, as per GOI there are 12.6 million under 14 children engaged in
child labour.

Civil society places the number of child labour at a more realistic 40

million.

70 per cent of children in child labour are in agriculture. Some children are forced to work up to 18 hours a day, often never leaving
the confines of the factory or loom shed.

69% of child labor work in agriculture sector; 9% work in the industrial

sector; a staggering 22% work in the service sector.

Every year 22,000 children die in work related accidents.

After, evaluating and thoroughly analyzing our findings we decided to extend our scope to 3 problems that we felt were hampering the productivity of Sneh Prayas. These 3 problems are as follows: 1. Sneh Prayas inability to retain Volunteers.

2. Low morale and productivity of the Volunteers.

3. Sneh Prayas inability to advertise and popularize its cause and fight against child labor. (For ease we will refer to these as Problem I, II & III respectively)

Inability to Retain Volunteers

Supporting Data: In the pie chart below we will see how maximum of the workers interviewed are only about 3 months old, this foreshadows how high the attrition rate of volunteers at the NGO is.
Distribution of experience of volunteer's surveyed 1 volunteer 2 volunteers

More than 3 Month's More than 6 Month's More than 1 Year More than 2 Years 4 volunteers 18 volunteers

Probable Reasons for Occurrence of Prob. I

As per the questionnaire most of the volunteers affirmed the fact that Sneh Prayas was not able to give them the exposure they desired. When asked about the role played by the top management in assisting them, most volunteers thought the managements involvement to be unsatisfactory. Out of the 25 volunteers surveyed 11 thought the trips planned by the NGO were poor in quality, whereas another 11 though of them to be just satisfactory.

Thus, from the data gathered we can deduce that the main reason for this high attrition in volunteers could be attributed to the lack in morale and motivation in the volunteer work force.

Probable Solutions to Issues raised in Prob. I

1. Start a system of recognizing volunteers that do exceptional work for the NGO. This can be done by announcing awards such as Volunteer of the Month/Week/Day as the NGO would deem fit.

2. organize small seminars every alternate day where the organizations top most officers should address the young volunteers. This would be a very good way of keeping the volunteers motivated. will help raise awareness as the speakers of these seminars would be people who are highly regarded by these volunteers.

3. Instead of giving the volunteers lectures on moral behaviour it would be more helpful to practically imbibe moral values in them. to do this there are many co-operation and moral conscious development drills and games available online. management could adopt any such drills or games that may suit them and train its volunteers in a new fashion.

Perceived Results if Suggestions are Implemented

We believe that the following changes will be experienced by the management of Sneh Prayas if the previously mentioned suggestions are implemented in their absolute, intended form. The advantages evolving are as follows: Increase the interest of volunteers as they will feel motivated Increase the overall productivity of the volunteer workforce Volunteers will become more active as well as aware of social welfare Morale will increase manifold Healthy competition will be introduced which will affect overall productivity Considerable increase in workforce as it will be easier to retain workers Decrease the time spent by the organization on training volunteers

Low Morale and Productivity of Workers

There are numerous reasons for low morale and productivity. We just saw ways of increasing morale and productivity. But, there is another issue which has been raised when the questionnaire was studied. It is more of a question. Is the management supporting and helping its volunteers? What rapport does the top management share with their grass root subordinates? This is what the volunteers felt:

Involvement of Top Management & Assisstance provided by them

N m e o V lu te r's u br f o n e

Excellent

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

10

15

20

Here we see how most of the volunteers feel that the managements involvement with them is unsatisfactory. This is a matter of grave concern because the engine of this train seems to be out of line from the other compartments. Here we see how the volunteers feel that they are unguided and thus eventually the morale of the volunteer starts to decrease. This is a matter of grave concern for the management as, an issue like this seriously hampers productivity of a volunteer and thus reflects negatively on the organization. The solutions to these have already been mentioned in the above slides. Implementation of these ideas is an equally important task. Thus we will discuss ways in which implementation can be improved and optimized.

1. Establish a chain-of-command. Set a clear chain-of-command with a formalized decision-making process. Make sure the process is simple so that implementation does not become stalled. Ensure that defined processes are properly being followed by continually monitoring the situation.

2. Develop success indicators. Identify the standards that will be used to measure the success of the program.

3. Employ techniques that ensure constant communication The communications should include performance reports, successes, accomplishments, feedback, inputs, and comments.

4. Regularly collect feedback from participants and assess if the goals are being achieved 5. If goals are not being achieved, evaluate and change the process. 6. Allow open communication. Listen to feedback from all parties involved in the process; they may have more effective solutions to implement part of the plan. If the management holds to these world renowned steps of implementation of a program, then it will definitely be able to formulate many successful programs. These programs when directed towards the common goal of increasing volunteer loyalty and productivity will give birth to a whole new class of motivated and efficient volunteers.

Its Decision to not Advertise Itself

From the data we have been able to accumulate some very interesting information. This is about a potential rift in the management as to whether Sneh Prayas should advertise itself. Two very serious arguments have been put up by two members of the top management. These views are as follows: 1. Advertisement would be a waste of money as its opportunity costs are very high. 2. Advertisement will be a rewarding investment as it would increase donations and thus help increase operations.

ARGUMENT AGAINST ADVERTISEMENT Money will not be used for an objective that is not mentioned in the mission or vision of the NGO. Higher opportunity cost of advertising would be to use the same money to further improve the living conditions of other children in need. Will not divert the NGOs attention from the main objective of making its stand more strong at the grass root levels ARGUMENT FOR ADVERTISEMENT Advertising would popularize the NGOs campaign and would thus lead to more donations. The opportunity cost argument of other opinion is invalidated as more donations would in turn lead to an increase in the opportunity to expand operations. Thus, eventually in the long run the NGO will be able to help many more children as its funds would increase and eventually so would its capacity to support more and more children.

Our Approach: To finding a Solution

In the year 2010-11 Prayas has managed to raise funds totalling to Rs. 44,561,474. Its total income on the other hand has been equal to Rs. 10,319,842. There are many modes of advertising, the two cheapest ways are through bill boards and through announcements on radio. The costs for these range from Rs. 15,000 1,00,000 for both radio or bill boards. We feel that for an institution that is able to raise funds amounting to approximately Rs. 45,000,000, an investment in advertising would be only 0.5% of its total capacity to raise funds. From the data represented above, we can be sure that investing in the cheapest advertising will not be detrimental to the overall operations of the NGO, and thus advertising would be a lucrative option for Sneh Prayas. (Figures may not be perfect, thus a bigger range has been created to give the best estimate.)

In our survey we asked volunteers about what they felt should be a priority for Sneh Prayas in the near future. We found that the maximum amount of 8 out of 25 volunteers seemed to think that advertising to increase awareness should be a priority for Sneh Prayas. Other answers given are represented below in the Bar Graph.
Suggestons made by Volunteer's
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1

Number of Volunteer's

Increase the Number of Volunteers Increase help in Affected Areas Advertise to Increase Awareness of Child Labor Other

As we conclude we would like to stress upon the following issues: It is very important for the management to become more interactive with its volunteers. It is very important for the management to concur upon strategies to increase volunteer morale. The management must understand that keeping a good rapport with the volunteers is the only way for it to increase its efficiency and in turn its degree of operations. Sneh Prayas is an institute; lucrative enough to advertise and popularize its campaign, and we believe it should start advertising itself as soon as possible. The organization must also make use of the implementation strategies we have suggested as it is very important for them to match their implementations with their intentions.

The top management at Sneh Prayas did not co-operate with our assignment and thus no data could be gathered from them. Subjective questionnaires would have yielded more diverse results and would have increased the credibility of our report. Unfortunately, the volunteers did not react well to subjective questionnaires as it would use up more of their time. Thus objective questionnaires had to be resorted to. The on site manager was not given authority to formally answer our questions, thus data gathered in Appendix III is a result of the recapitulation of what Mr. Bhavik Jain talked to us about. Thus, it may contain a certain bias of the team member who has tried to record the whole conversation on paper. Due to lack of resources we were not able to ascertain the exact cost of advertising, thus a greater range is provided in the report to give an approximate estimate.

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