Tuesday 5 April 2011

Confessions of a sham NGOite

Money is a prime driver of our emotions.
It takes a trick or two to reach to the bottom of a scandal.Journalists put up a lot of hard work uncovering the truth.
Seems like something landed on my doorstep without having to have asked for it.
Meeting people is a hobby and uncovering the truth is what I like to do.
This chance meeting with a person opened my eyes to the happenings in the NGO world. A world that is decorated from the outside with words like goodwill and corporate social responsibility but is also the biggest scandal of all especially in India.
All you need is a website and some advertisement to attract gullible foreigners into giving their money for a so called good cause.
This person I met was quite candid about it.
This person with his wife setup a website and was backed up by a  chartered accountant (C.A).The CA put in some donations to the NGO.
The person running the NGO dressed the website with snaps of them visiting villages and teaching young children for free.They also put testimonials of donators happy  with the ground reality.
The money that came from the CA was 100% tax deductable.He got  80% of the money back from the NGO thereby making 80% on his investment and also a cool 100% tax deduction in his business returns.
The remaining 20% was pocketed by the NGO.  
Meanwhile the word spread in US and other countries about the good work done by the NGO.Money started pouring in.
This is how the scandal continues.
CAVEAT EMPTOR....

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