NGO sector gets a corporate touch-up

When Ingrid Srinath, an MBA from IIM-Calcutta, quit Lintas in 1998 as general manager and joined an NGO, CRY, she was sure she won't be let down.

Today her counterparts in Lintas earn more than double her salary. Despite a package of Rs 1 lakh, that too after salaries were hiked recently, Srinath does not regret her decision.

"I was looking for more significant work. CRY was an NGO which understood marketing and the concept of brand," she says.

Times are changing with more and more NGOs trying to lure management professionals for top posts at competitive salaries. CRY's annual revenue is Rs 50 crore. Of this, Rs 8 crore is spent on salaries. The CEO gets Rs 12 lakh.

The salary gap with the corporate sector is huge but is narrowing.

CEOs with management background have helped NGOs like Give India grow, COO Pushpa Aman Singh says. A management graduate, she worked in the financial services sector for eight years before changing career. "I am paid Rs 90,000," she says.

The income of the NGO in the last financial year was Rs 12.5 crore of which Rs 11.5 crore was raised through events. Salary expenses were 56.15 lakh a year while it spent Rs 1.7 crore on other expenses.

"Give India has a financial services approach. My former company used to raise retail resources to lend to the middle class", she says.

"Give India used the financial services model to connect NGOs and donors . I used whatever I learnt in the corporate sector," she says, adding, "The work here is fulfilling."

"CEOs in corporates earn between Rs 25 lakh to 35 lakh but the satisfaction here compensates me," she says.

VANI, a network of 200 NGOs hired an IIM graduate as its CEO. PC Pandey earns around Rs 60,000 per month and says he has no regrets. "The travelling I do, the goals we achieve through our activism make up for the deficit in income," he says.

Akhila Sivadas of the Centre for Media Advocacy and Research says more professionals are joining the sector and hence expectations are higher. "We also have chartered accountants," says Sivadas, who founded the NGO and earns Rs 50,000 per month.

Suman Sahai, who started Gene Campaign in 1993, finds NGOs running on corporate model unacceptable. "The NGO sector shouldn't get coopted by that model," says Sahai, who does not take any salary from Gene Campaign.

Rajmangal Pandey, chief functionary of Association for Development says the management model is welcome, "It is, however, only for big NGOs. You need financial resources to have a professionally qualified CEO. We cannot think about it," he says.

This is something for the FCRA NGOs, he says, meaning NGOs which get foreign funds through the Foreign Currency Regulation Act wing of the home ministry.