My Overall Life Intention.

My intention in life is to find ways to offer business development services to organisations such as NGOs, non-profits and public and private sector companies which are www.workingforgood.com , or at least want to move in that direction. What seems apparent is that writing proposals and applying for grants is all well and good, but this model of funding is flawed in that the organisation is then dependent on the donor for support. Take for example a telecenter in northern India which was setup to bring the advantages of technology to people that previously did not have access to such resources. After three years the project was not yielding the sorts of results that the donors deemed acceptable, and by then it was more 'fashionable' to donate money to children with aids in Africa. The funding stopped and so did all the good work, and the telecenter was left to gather dust, and the people it was designed to serve where left no better off. Earlier this year I was afforded an incredible opportunity to help organise and partake in a UNDP conference on e-government and e-governance for the Asia-Pacific region - with what they called a 'pro-poor' focus. As the conference when on, and the case studies were discussed, it was clear that the keys to development are: capacity building and sustainable development. I took the opportunity to ask the panel why the focus was on 'pro-poor'. Sadly nobody had any answers for me. I cannot fault the desire to help poor people, but looking at the system as a whole it would seem as though what is happening is people are 'giving with one hand and taking with the other'. Would it not make sense to 'enable the enablers' rather than repeat failures like the northern India telecenter example? We need to focus on development that is sustainable, and it can be made sustainable through capacity building. I mean lets get our priorities straight... if you only have a million dollars to save the world with, that's all you've got, and that's you mission... where do you start? Helping the poor may well be the best place to start, I'm not suggesting it isn't, but I want to know is why, and I want to know what the return on investment is? How soon before the people the project is designed to help see benefits, and once those people see benefits, how long before they can return the favour to yet more people? I don't wish to favor anybody based on his or her financial status, rather their overall suitability for developing as an agent for positive change. I don't see why we should help somebody just because they are poor or favor somebody just because they are rich. Lets forget about money and look at what works practically. This is a serious business and should be treated as such. We need to be business minded if we are to achieve real results. Yes we need to rely on donors initially, just as a child must depend on its parents, however, parents invest their energy knowing that after a period of time the child will be able to walk on its own two feet and support itself. This is how I would look at any investment of anything, be it time, money or any form of energy.