⇒ In the COVID-19 pandemic, the biggest problems faced by the NGOs were financial stress and unpreparedness for technical support.
● How did they face Financial Stress?
Given that the typical sources of funding such as philanthropy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are now flowing towards COVID-19 relief and healthcare-related work, there are concerns among nonprofits regarding the long-term sustainability of their programs and organizations.
● What about unpreparedness for technical support?
Most organizations shared that they had been procrastinating on digital technology adoption in their operations and the sudden lockdown caught them completely unprepared. Due to the lack of digital skills within teams, many are struggling to work remotely. Nonprofits that had already introduced digital technology in their operations and programs are finding it easier to cope.
● Lack of proper networking:
For some NGOs it is difficult to network. Having a poor network with pairs can lead to a lack of communication if non-governmental organizations do not disclose what they are doing for a certain community, efforts could be duplicated, conflicts about the ways a certain problem should be faced in a region could arise, and they could be missing the opportunity to learn best practices from other NGOs.
● Lack of Credibility:
This is perhaps the most plaguing issue for NGOs operating in India. During the last few years, numerous organizations have mushroomed which claim to work for the cause of helping poor. Under the garb of being an NGO, these NGOs often mint money from donors. In order to generate the right quantities of funds to execute their projects, it is vital for NGOs to function like business entities. But NGOs should not become pure businesses either. There is a need for a rating system to be in place for NGOs which ranks them on the basis of the seriousness of their work and their openness to getting audited and scrutinized.
.⇒ With so many NGOs working in India, there are several problems that have been raised:
● No possible sync between all the NGOs working. ● Lack of Tech Support for NGOs is a big problem in India. ● A lot of Fake NGOs make it difficult to donate.
NGOs often struggle to market themselves. Owing to the challenges discussed above, it’s a daunting task for NGOs to come up with the right communication to connect with their potential donors.
⇒ And it’s not just about donations alone. NGOs also have a tough time in campaigning – that is spreading the word about their cause(s) effectively and striking a chord with the masses.
⇒ It is vital for NGOs to register in the minds of their existing and potential donors that they are into doing some truly serious work for the cause they stand for.
This is perhaps the most plaguing issue for NGOs operating in India. During the last few years, numerous organizations have mushroomed that claim to work for the cause of helping the poor.
Under the garb of being an NGO, these NGOs often mint money from donors. In order to generate the right quantities of funds to execute their projects, it is vital for NGOs to function like business entities.
But NGOs should not become pure businesses either. There is a need for a rating system to be in place for NGOs which ranks them on the basis of the seriousness of their work and their openness to getting audited and scrutinized.
● Give India ( https://www.giveindia.org/) :
Give India exists to alleviate poverty by enabling the world to give. Established in 2000, it is the largest and the most trusted giving platform in India.
⇒ It enables individuals and organizations to raise and donate funds conveniently to any cause they care about, with offerings including crowdfunding, corporate giving, cause marketing, and philanthropy consulting.
⇒ Give India's community of 2M+ donors and 250+ partners have supported 2,200+ verified nonprofits, serving 15M+ people across the country.
● Uday Foundation(https://www.udayfoundation.org/about-us/)
⇒ Encourage people to contribute by making a small in-kind donation as they feel contribution towards this cause not only gives them immense satisfaction but it also connects them with Indian culture where donating food, clothes & water is termed to be a very noble gesture.
It is only based on a single organization and only one type of donation whereas our website connects all different kinds of donations for anyone who wants to donate.
A functional website with all the basic frameworks has been created till now. All from scratch including the UI/UX, Frontend, and Backend. NGOs can log in and register themselves and list out their campaigns which could then be displayed on the main page for visitors to see.
A strong backend consisting of a server on PHP which helped us deploy our site on the server. The database is created using mysql and writes queries in such a manner to get data from different APIs. A basic authentication service for the login and sign-up page has also been incorporated into the website.
● Highly functional Web Application that provides a platform for NGOs all around the country. This solves the lack of technical support faced by them.
● Since the web-app would contain both donate and volunteer options, it would also solve the problem of finding trusted NGOs since all users and NGOs on the app would be registered only after they provide authenticated IDs.
● It would also help increase their reach to the people who are likely to donate which would directly solve the problem of financial crisis.
Done by Hardik, Aditya and Ameya
● Designed the signUp page, Home page, About Page, Campaigns, Blog, FAQ and Contact Page for our Web app using figma.
● Incorporated maker.io plugin to run tests on a localhost. Maker.io plugin helps to make designs responsive for all screen sizes.
● Referred colorhunt.co for design templates.
● Implemented smooth scrolling feature.
● Tried to maximize the User experience while using the Web app.
Done by Abhinav and Utkarsh. A comprehensive user flow diagram with architecture was brainstormed and created by Abhinav & Utkarsh. Initially, we took ideas from the team and implemented those in a flow diagram. A Logic based approach with UX in consideration to plan out the user flow and the architecture. The architecture was simplified to the most atomic level to reduce extra load on the website and increase efficiency. Initially the user would open the Homepage. From this homepage, the user can sign up as an NGO or as a volunteer or to donate. If the user has already registered, they can opt for Login. Whenever an NGO lists its list of campaigns it will first show up on the MY CAMPAIGNS page where the admin will approve them. After the approval the list would be stored in the backend of the website.
Done by Margik, Abhinav and Bhumil.
Margik Bhatt:- I had contributed towards two main components of our website. One being the MY CAMPAIGNS Page and the other being the feature of the latest campaigns and featured campaigns. Whenever an NGO lists its list of campaigns it will first show up on the MY CAMPAIGNS page where the admin will approve them. After the approval the list would be stored in the backend of the website. This list will then be shown on the latest campaign tab of the website’s main page. And in-case if a special campaign is to be listed it would then be transferred to the featured campaign tab as well.
Abhinav Pandey: I contributed to the content and navigation part of the homepage for frontend. The architecture was simplified to the most atomic level to reduce extra load on the website and increase efficiency. The user has two options to either sign up or to login. Various other useful information was made available on the homepage with various categories that the NGO’s will run campaigns on. A user can click on his/her selected category and find NGOs with similar campaigns in the same category. For the dashboard, Once a user sign’s up, the user is taken to the dashboard from where new campaigns or existing running or pending(for approval) campaigns can be viewed.
Bhumil Modi: I made the landing page of the website , it is the first page where the user will land when he/she opens our app. Also there is a login page that will come when the user clicks on the login button on the home(landing) page. There are 4 main components on the home made that I contributed to , first is the hero section where there is brief about our app , below that there is a section where we show what kind of charity that we support and what campaigns we have done on the website. After this there is a part which is connected to the My CAMPAIGN page made by Margik. In this part we list out all the active campaigns with the help of stored data for My CAMPAIGN page. Also we have a section which shows the brief of the campaigns running currently and also gives an option to see campaigns according to the categories.
Done by Ashwin and Utkarsh Ashwin & Utkarsh: Majorly contributed in developing the backend for our project which includes :
- Created a server on php and deployed our site on our server
- Create a database using my sql and wrote to query to get the data from the api in particular format
- Created an Auth service for login and sign up page .
- Created Web Panel to manage various stuff on the website, includes managing campaigns, blogs, about, footer, header, etc
- Created Mailer system which send confirmation, contact mails to person from website (In Process)
We are aiming to build a web app that provides a platform for all NGOs all around the country. This would help them overcome issues regarding lack of technical expertise and would enhance their reach around the country, which would be beneficial for both the NGOs and the people in need. Our user authentication system may as well help the organization to verify the legit user and also help them establish their trust in the market.
- “Challenges Faced by Indian NGO’s” , https://www.savethechildren.in/others/challenges-faced-by-ngos-in-india/
- “Working of NGO” , https://vakilsearch.com/advice/what-is-an-ngo-and-how-does-it-work/
- “Human Support for NGO” ,https://m.economictimes.com/news/india/ngos-social-volunteers-may-be-called-in-for-assistance-during-covid-pandemic-jitendra-singh/articleshow/82606526.cms
- “Front-End PHP” , https://licreativetechnologies.com/blog/is-php-frontend-or-backend/
- “UI design using Figma” , https://www.toptal.com/designers/ui/figma-design-tool
- “Google Authentification” , https://docs.bettyblocks.com/en/articles/1012838-setting-up-google-oauth-2-0-authentication
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