Monday December 15th, 2003
I had a SNV meeting over dinner at Chez Jacky’s. We discussed CODEVIR collapsing, a flyer that the SNV may want me to do for them after they saw the Tontine flyer I did for the GECEC, and well, general business ignorance. The dinner as usual, consisted of bushmeat, fried plantains, and rice. Also, as usual, it was good. So, this afternoon, Charly showed up and told me that the SNV was interested in a flyer, and could I work up an estimate. By dinner it was done, and I brought it up. We discussed it for a bit. Rolf, who I like, but in a kind of isn’t he cute patronizing way, talked about the difference between graphic desing and communications, as if I had no idea what what that would be… or more succinctly, as if I was a graphic designer. I smiled and nodded. I just want their business. During dinner the discussion got a bit more complex. We discussed the imminent collapse of CODEVIR, and they made it clear that we should not confuse a “case” with the whole Community Forest experiment. I pointed out that it was one thing to say that when you are in Bertoua, and the other partner in this venture is even farther away…We are here. When CODEVIR has problems they come to see us, and more importantly, they come to see Charly, taking a lot of his already fragmented time. I also asked them what kind of responsibilty do they feel towards the success of the CODEVIR project. Jaap went off. He got very defensive… sucker. Fell for my trap. I said: I’m not telling you, I was asking you. If you feel you have none, then let us know so that we can make appropriate adjustments to how we work with them.. that is to say: not work with them. That was our bomb. Without support, CODEVIR wasn’t worth our time. This worked, and we started talking about solutions. It became very apparent that Jaap, who I also like, really didn’t do a good job. He said stuff like: “how could we have known that they needed management training”, and “it wasn’t my fault that the buyer I had lined up in Duala went out of business”. Wow. That is the SNV’s expert market consultant. He’s been here 7 years, and I’ve been here less than 4 months, and I already have a better grasp on what isn’t working. Not to say that knowing will make it easier, it just means that there will be a whole brand new set of mistakes to make. So, as I said, we started talking about solutions. At first, they thought it was another bid to get money from them.. but I said.. “no, we don’t care who does this.. as long as it gets done”, and “frankly, we don’t have the time to do all of this”. That seemed to work. Rolf countered with: this money that you are loaning to CODEVIR isn’t yours so don’t get to uppity. Fair cop. When the posturing died down, we talked about two main holes in the whole Community Forest project: creating a market, and business management. So now the identification of these problem areas are not confined to this blog. Oh.. one last note. At one point in the conversation, I was offering suggestions on how we could build a market for Community Forrest wood, and basically said something about being a broker (one of the problems with the whole community forest idea is that no one took into account that the major buyers won’t want to have to deal with 50 new small sellers… duh). Jaap said: we were already being accused of having something to gain from this, so we backed off. I asked why, what is wrong with you (the SNV) getting something out of it? He was stunned, and we didn’t persue it further.. but this is a big philosophical problem here. Is the problem that people make money off of their work, or is it what they do with the money they earn? I mean, I’m not being stupid. I understand why they say that they try to stay away from the whole arugment of: what is your cut in all of this? You can always retreat to: we have no monetary interest in this, so we are not a threat.. but bottom line, no one here trusts that, and everyone here knows that they have an interest.. it just isn’t monetary. Ironically enough since their budgets have been cut, they probably would have been more sustainable if they had had a more clear interest.
Posted by mrsclean at January 20, 2004 05:31 AMMotive counts for a lot in terms of credibility as far as I'm concerned. After all, there are many things that George W. Bush has done of which I approve. However, I've never trusted his motives and therefore, I see him as both a problem and a threat. Even if there is nothing explicitly wrong with profiting from work that also helps others, any orgnaization that is perceived as having tainted motives will suffer for it (regardless of whole truth of the situation) and rightly so if there is truth in the perception. So, to even approach that idea is walking a dangerous line. Unless the organization in questions is willing to openly state that their intention is to facilitate prosperity while sharing in that prosperity to some degree (a difficult proposition to believe in any case) and hence become something other than a traditional charitable organization as we understand them today, then they would do best to stay clearly away from being perceived as having a profit motive.
I see what you are saying. Interests are interests and monetary interests are just part of a whole spectrum of interests, but people understand interest in money. They understand the profit motive. And they are right to distrust the intentions that lie behind the profit motive. If we have learned anything form the last century in our own culture, it should be that.
Posted by: locke at January 21, 2004 04:47 AMthree brief comments:
-When charity is institutionalized, the institution's will to survive tends to outweigh the charitable drive when push comes to shove. I mean, how many charitable organizations do you know that have announced that they are closing due to moral conflicts?
-Can you have a single motive? In this case, I don't have a problem with the stated motive of charity, I just don't believe that they are being honest (maybe even with themselves) about all of thier motives... like survival. I mean, the SNV does something to keep its funding, right? It gets/needs something from the organizations that it is working with
-'good' people do 'bad' things and 'bad' people do 'good' things... and as far as Mr. Bush goes.. why don't you trust his motives? Could it be because the stated ones don't match the actions?
Posted by: mrsclean at January 23, 2004 05:29 AMThe very danger of allowing charitable organizations to become institutions is that their will to survive will overshadow their purpose. One could argue that survival in the short term will facilitate good works in the long run, but that is a very treacherous tact. Instead, as you point out, the need is for honesty in intention and action. Support for a charitable cause should be garnered based on its true motives and actions. When support for an organization dries up, it serves no one by cleaving its pitch from its works, nor by going into business for itself.
Posted by: locke at January 23, 2004 04:24 PM