Blog Assignment: Use of social network analysis in Philanthropic activities - Bharath Gorur Manjunath

I come from India, a developing country which has the second largest population in the world. The huge population along with economic and political situation brings numerous problems with it; poverty, numerous diseases, lack of education, corruption, uneven distribution of wealth and so on. Government alone cannot fight against every problem and hence NGO’s and various organizations try to support government through various campaigns to fight the problems mentioned. A lot of resource and money is required to fight the basic problems and NGO’s necessarily do not have every resource.

Then how do these organizations get the resource and funding? They find people and for-profit organizations who have similar aspirations and get them on-board in this fight to make the country, a better place to live in. Many industries like Reliance, Wipro etc., have their own unit which does this philanthropy works and many more support other organizations. Individuals who are interested in the philanthropic works support either the bigger NGO’s or a smaller one which they know and is close to the place they live.

There are very large number of such organizations in India right now and when I was working, I used to get a lot of calls from organizations to support them. Some were reputed, whereas others were unknown. I had read reports of fake NGO’s which collected money from people and vanish overnight. Many private institutions open NGO’s to evade tax and these NGO’s do not do any work other than helping the owner save tax. Even after people supporting the NGO’s, it is unclear about how the money was spent as many NGO’s look suspicious. Many, who support do not know where the money went after they donate and several such scams exist. I have been on the receiving end of such scam as well.

Then, how can we solve this problem of fake NGO’s and track the resources spent by the NGO’s?

We can use Social Network Analysis to solve this problem. Through social network analysis, we can build a network of NGO’s and donors. We can record all the data of the NGO’s and the work done by them and link the donors to them. Thus, donors will have a clear picture of the NGO and the work done. This way, we can bring more people on-board who look that there are developments happening with the philanthropic activities.

The main data required for this analysis are:

Ø  List of all philanthropic activities

Ø  List of NGO’s and area of philanthropic activity

Ø  Donors list and personal and interest details associated with each NGO

Ø  List of initiatives taken by NGO

Ø  Network of donors within specific NGO and between NGO’s

The data required are a bit hard to find. A lot of surveys are required to get the data. NGO data can be obtained once we gather the list of NGO’s operating. Their activities and initiatives can also be found out as these organizations present the data when asked for. It is the donor’s data, which presents the challenge. Many donors wish to be anonymous and such people may not help providing the required data. We may have to spend more time with such people to explain the benefits of such a network and this will be a challenge.

The main benefits of such a network are:

Ø  NGO’s list will be available to everyone and the work they do will also be public

Ø  Donors can look the work done from their donations

Ø  This in-turn will increase the interest in many to do philanthropic activities

Ø  No scams and fake NGO’s

Ø  Friends and family of a donor will be influenced to do philanthropic activities, thus increasing the network effect

Thus, with such a network developed, we can measure the strength of ties between the NGO’s and their donors. The density between the donors and their personal network will help in developing the network and thus the growth can take place. With such a network, when everyone is aware of the fact that work is being done, more and more people will jump in and help out the organizations. Thus making the world, a safer, secure and happy place.

Bharath Gorur Manjunath