NHRD Journal - National HRD Network

education). In reality, most NGOs do not
have people who can belong to this part.
• The fifth and last part is the Support Staff:
all those who provide indirect support of
work. In the context of NGOs this can include
Accountants, Drivers, and Office
Administrators.
Mintzberg's Structure and Indian NGOs
As indicated above, most Indian NGOs operate
with just three parts of the organization: the
Strategic Apex, the Operating Core and the
Support Staff. Mintzberg terms this as the
'Simple structure' where work is done through
direct supervision, without a prominent middle
line. The major implications of having just three
parts to NGOs are as follows:
The Strategic Apex is forced to play the role
of the Middle Line too. In other words, the
Leaders of the organization spend time
directly working with the Field Workers:
guiding, controlling and training them. In
addition they perform roles of fund raiser,
net worker, strategist and overall monitor.
The lack of Techno-Structure means that the
NGO is limited in the kinds of projects it is
able to handle; or there is a lot of trial and
experimentation. Interestingly, many NGOs
try to solve the problem of a missing Techno
Structure and a Middle Line by hiring
individuals who are both technical, and can
play the middle management role. This works
+
Figure 2 - Structure of a typical Indian NGO
for small organizations, but as they grow
there is substantive pressure to grow both.
The shortage of enough number of Support
Staff means that the NGO is usually delayed
in completing its audit, and sending its
reports to donors. This in turn delays (and
over time, reduces) the availability of funds
to these NGOs.
The Path Ahead
In a growing India, NGOs need to meet the key
challenges. We would like to suggest 2 sets of
key interventions needed for this:
• Build and strengthen the 'Middle Line' - This
is a key area that needs to be constructed
right. It can be done in the following way:
• Strengthen institutions and
organizations that educate, train and
groom caders that become the Middle
Line - Premier institutions like IRMA that
were supposed to focus on NGOs and
Cooperatives have not lived up to their
promise. Students from there tend to opt
for corporate sector jobs. There is a need
to encourage many institutions to have
programs in NGO management, so that
there is a broadening of the channels to
get talented people into this sector.
Ex: IFMR, Chennai and Banyan
Academy of Leadership in Mental Health
have tied up for offering an MBA
specialization in this. Bringing in a larger
number of fresh recruits in the sector will
also challenge traditional beliefs held by
the sector. This can lead to fresh thinking.
• NGOs have a focused program to train
young graduates/post graduates - Pradan,
a Delhi based NGO working at the village
level have had a successful Associateship
program, similar to the 'management
Trainee ship' running for two decades now.
Dhan, a Madurai based NGO, has set up a
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November 2007 NHRD Journal