GSIF Post #7

List ten non-obvious assumptions about your target customers (or organizations) that you need to validate.

1. Target/Desire for Indian companies to engage in CSR
2. Target/Desire for Indian NGOs to utilize CSR given by companies towards their own aims
3. How organized companies are currently around engaging in CSR spending?
4. Is there a need to help bridge the gap between companies and NGOs, and do both organizations acknowledge the gap?
5. Companies as being essentially profit-driven entities – do they have other motives?
6. NGOs as being essentially issue-oriented, social change movements – do they have other motives?
7. Are companies independent from the influence of the government?
8. Are NGOs independent from the influence of the government?
9. Assume that companies/NGOs we select operate in Mumbai, do they have any other activities beyond this area?
10. How do they view outsiders (like our group) stepping in and giving them advice based on our research, for best CSR practices?

List ten hypotheses about your project that you need to test during fieldwork.

1. Which issues are getting the most funding?
2. What is the type of funding? Short-term, long-term, project based, etc.
3. How much money is from corporates versus other donors (foreign, individual, govt)
4. Are there differences in how much money companies give based on size, sector (extractive/technology), consumer or B2B, by ownership (family, publicly listed, led by women/men, cooperative, public sector)
5. Anything that the datasets and in person interviews can tell us about NGOs themselves- which kinds, how much of the spending goes to NGOs and how much is spent in other ways?
6. Are there regulations for how NGOs spend their money?
7. Is there a way to measure social impacts of CSR spending beyond NGO profits? How can we truly see a change (greater efficiency in education, better resource allocation, empowerment, organization)?
8. What partnerships work? What impact do NGOs have on companies? Companies impact on NGOs?
9. What does a successful partnership look like? How are these partnerships different from those that have failed, or have not lasted as long-term?
10. Who establishes the goal in the partnership between the company and NGO? How is this goal defined?

What do you think you bring to your team? How has your perception of your own strengths and weaknesses changed over the course of the class? Please be specific.

To my team, I believe I bring a strong skill for organization and thinking of the bigger picture, as well as trying to assess everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. In my past and present experiences on various teams, I can appreciate the value of cohesion and staying on the same page while striving towards our shared goal. At the same time, it’s important for every person to have a strong personal motive to be engaged on the project. My perceptions of my own strengths and weaknesses have been highlighted more over the course of this class, where I see myself being able to multitask more than I thought possible, as well as developed a stronger sense of constantly seeing the larger picture when becoming frustrated on a challenge in the every day to day tasks.