It’s a position I have held for some time now: The government should own responsibility for driving systems change and the process of reinventing itself when needed.
Having said that, however, public entities and public servants face certain constraints. Outside capital and civil society can help them work around these to achieve the government’s welfare goals. While they cannot substitute for government, they can play the critical role of catalysts. Which, if I remember my high-school chemistry correctly, cannot make something happen that would not have happened anyway. Catalysts speed things up. So, philanthropic funders and nonprofit partners can help good ideas become public services, making their support far more valuable than is commonly understood.
The government needs philanthropists and civil society
Public officials operate under intense legislative, judicial, media—and now social media—scrutiny. This disincentivises them from experimenting or taking risks. If a pilot or programme fails, it is hard to justify the waste of public resources. This is where risk capital, in the form of philanthropic money, can come in and help the government try out innovations and new ideas. If a solution works, the government can scale it. If it does not, there is still valuable learning gathered without using public and taxpayer money.
Impact at the scale nonprofits desire can be achieved with the government’s vast machinery, reach, and funding.
There is also the question of technical competence. Government procurement processes are structured for standardised goods and services at competitive prices and not for scarce or high-value expertise. While civil servants have a more robust understanding than anyone else of what works on the ground, they may not have the capacity to stay updated on cutting-edge technologies such as AI or have the creative skills to produce training video modules. At the same time, we cannot expect leading technology experts to join the government. The opportunity cost for them is too high. The government needs to identify ways to bring those skills and expertise into play.
Additionally, to see a solution through to the end, you need sustained effort and continuity from a core team. Over the course of the initiative, transfers and changes in key personnel in government departments can become setbacks. Nonprofit teams, which are relatively less vulnerable to such rotation, can act as the institutional memory and carry the baton through such transitions in welfare programmes.
From a nonprofit’s point of view, their resources are modest relative to the scale of the problem. Impact at the scale they desire can be achieved with the government’s vast machinery, reach, and funding. Every rupee and each nonprofit staff member that comes in unlocks large concomitant budgetary outlays and government employees can be engaged to scale impact at many levels.
Even though the potential, possibility, and need for tripartite arrangements between the government, civil society, and philanthropy to solve for societal issues is large, the number of such partnerships is still relatively limited.
All three legs of what I call the tripod face challenges. There is not enough philanthropic funding coming in, nonprofits do not always have the organisational capacity to work at this scale, and there is limited openness on the part of the government to engage with external players. Ideally, all three need to be pushed simultaneously. If one leg drags, it stops the others from moving ahead.
The underlying issue is that there is often some mutual suspicion. Just as CSR and philanthropy is sceptical of the government’s ability to execute programmes, government officials are often unsure whether an outside partner is genuinely public-spirited or simply in it to further their own interests.
We can learn from earlier tripod models
We can build a model that helps overcome these challenges and creates enthusiasm and buzz around it, just like we did with public–private partnerships (PPPs). Introduced in the 1990s, PPPs enabled the government to expand the scope of public services by encouraging private sector involvement via viability gap funding or by sharing of revenues. Over time, this template spread and became much the norm for delivering public infrastructure. It was taught in training academies and was written into business-school case studies.
Philanthropic and civil society partnerships with the government can take the same route. At this early stage, it is important to create demand for this tripod model by increasing visibility for it.
Reputed philanthropists who support the idea should be vocal about their intentions. They should also help spread the message at various levels of society and the government. The government, for its part, should create a structure and architecture for it. Standardised templates for funder–nonprofit–government partnerships with model memorandums of understanding (MoUs) could also be a useful way to make the framework actionable. We should also showcase success stories. When successful partnerships are normalised, the supply of philanthropic capital and skilled people will follow.
The government is cautious, and for valid reasons
One of the biggest impediments to government engaging closely with philanthropies and civil society is that there are no well-defined metrics within the system for vetting these two categories of partners.
The scope and mode of work is a long conversation, and requires a negotiation between the parties involved.
Given their accountability to the country’s citizens, public officials need to be careful while evaluating the background and credentials of the funders and nonprofits. Decisions, therefore, tend to rest disproportionately on reputation: word of mouth, media coverage, and references from individuals already known and trusted within the system. This, however, works against newcomers and start-ups who may be innovative and have good ideas and models, but not the backing from names known within the government system.
The scope and mode of work is also a long conversation, and requires a negotiation between the parties involved. At times, the government may set the goals and ask an implementing nonprofit partner to bring their skills and capabilities to deliver on it; at other times, a funder and nonprofit may bring a proven solution to the table and persuade the government that it is worth adopting at scale.
From ‘take it or leave it’ to ‘give and take’, there can be a wide spectrum of arrangements, which makes it harder to templatise and standardise these models. Who brings what to the table? Which geographies will we work in? Who will staff the initiative? Which partner will provide the project management unit (PMU)? How long will the engagement last? What happens if either side is unsatisfied?
The use of data in these systems change programmes adds another layer of complexity as there are considerations of privacy and confidentiality. For instance, will nonprofit partners work with information already in the public domain or seek access to unpublished data that sits within the government?
All these factors are non-trivial, and it takes many iterations for a systems change solution to find a form and shape that aligns with the government’s priorities while also furthering the mission and goals of the nonprofits and funders involved.
Nonprofits will need to engage deeply and continuously
Partners seeking to work with the government can greatly aid the process with realism and preparation.
Engagement: Nonprofits must understand that the government is not monolithic and not everyone in the hierarchy will immediately buy into a new idea. Nonprofit teams should aim to get different levels—leadership, middle level, operations—on board. Multi-level alignment also helps de-risk changes in key personnel. If a champion of the programme leaves, this multi-pronged approach ensures that there will still be others to support and drive it.
Priorities: Nonprofit partners should always keep an eye on what the higher echelons of the government are focusing on. There are many verticals that partners can bring value to—health, education, nutrition, mental health, climate change. They could even help build government capacity across states and sectors in areas such as use of data, tech, and AI.
Timelines: Scaling with the government means that the numbers involved are large. Clarity on scope and timelines is essential because open-ended arrangements can end in a quagmire. The project should envision realistic deadlines and metrics for evaluating milestones.
Partners need to decide early whether they are running a proof of concept that the government will scale independently or if they are committing to stay engaged all the way through. If an organisation intends to work across geographies, they should ensure they have the bandwidth and staff. If they do not think through the details, it can cause dissonance and even disruption.
It is also important to not over-promise or over-commit. It is a delicate balance that requires discipline. Nonprofits should be clear about what they can and will do, the inputs such as people and technology they require, and the funds they need.
Philanthropy has a key role to play
Systems change programmes work best when there is external CSR or philanthropic funding. It is highly unlikely that the government will open its exchequer for this model. A financial decision where the government funds the nonprofits involved raises too many questions. Also, philanthropists should provide funds to the implementing nonprofit, and not directly to the government.
Philanthropists, on their part, should be prepared to support with patient, risk-tolerant capital. There are no guaranteed outcomes, financial or otherwise, and effectiveness takes time. Funders should be comfortable with this approach.
In short, funders may need to do more than just set money aside. They may need to stay more engaged for the best outcomes with their contribution.
While the three parties concerned should have checklists to ensure the programme is on track from each of their vantage points, it is important to understand that nothing can be perfect and there is no point waiting for perfection before starting or during the programme.
We need to get moving. Even if we make mistakes, we can only learn from them. There is a wide spectrum of impact waiting for nonprofit–funder–government partnerships. In my many decades of experience sitting within the government, I know that these three vertices can and should co-exist if we are to see change at a systems level.
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Know more
- Read this article about working with the government.
- Learn how public-private partnerships can be made more successful.
- Learn more about systems change.
