A Study on

Evolution & Present Structure of

AID-INDIA

Submitted to:

Dr. MuktaKulkarni
August 25th, 2010

Atish Negi (1011303) Deepak Nanwani (1011308) Divye Bansal (1011312) Nitumoni Borah (1011335) Ritesh Ritolia (1011346)

Table of content

Table of Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. AID-India Origin & History Scope of t e Project Met odology Early Days: The Beginning & Initial Structure Expansion of AID & change in Organizational Structure AID-India: Initial Working Model & Structure AID-India Expansion AID-India Chennai Chapter AID-India Delhi Chapter AID-India Kolkata Chapter AID-India Bangalore Chapter Critical Analysis Recommendations Appendix I List of References Appendix II List of questions for primary data

02 03 04 04 04 06 07 08 11 13 15 16 17 18 19 20

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1.

AID-INDIA Origin and History

Association for Indias Development (AID) was founded in 1991 by Ravi Kuchi anchi He got his Bachelor in Technology from IIT Mumbai and thereafter went to the US to pursue masters and PhD from the University of Maryland. During his early days in the US as a i g p liti , pti , p v t student, he often observed groups of Indian students di d oth i that plagued India. But he soon realised that these groups, all having great moral intentions, were lacking when it came to concrete action to tackle thee issues. He s wanted to make a difference by putting his ideas into practice. And this was the motivations behind AID. The vision of the organisation was "problems are interconnected, so must be the solution." Since then the organi ation has matured into an enormous volunteer movement with over 50 chapters in US, India and Australia and more than 1000 volunteers wo rking in various capacities in various projects. In the US it is registered as a non-profitable organi ation.

In India there are tenchapterslocated in various metropolitan cities. The organi ations prime objectives are sustainable, equitable and just development by fighting corruption and through various constructive projects. AID in general and AID -India in particular focus on various issues like education, agriculture, energy, health and fighting corruption among others.The organi ation structure is dynamic and has changed drastically as the organi ation has grown and as the number of social initiatives has gone up. The o rgani ational structure and the decision making hierarchy varies between the chapters in different cities.

EDUCATI -ON AGRICUL -TURE

HEALTH

AID
ENVIRON -MENT WOMEN EMPOWE -RMENT

LIVELIHOOD

SOCIAL JUSTICE

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2.

SCOPE OF T E PROJECT

The project is aimed at studying the evolution of AID-India as an organization and the formation of its various city chapters. A unique part of this study is the difference in the evolution mechanism of the various Indian chapters. Since AID-India has its roots with AIDUS, the same has too been discussed in brief. Further the scope includes the study of present organizational structure of AID-India and the strengths and weaknesses of the structure with respect to the objective and vision of the organization. We have not discussed the various projects undertaken by AID-India in details as a part of this study due to limitations of space. The stress has been on studying the structural form of the organization, decision making and the culture.

3.

MET ODOLOGY

We have referred to both primary data (interviews and project site visits)as well as secondary data (websites and project reports).Extensive study of the evolution and projects of AID-India has been done using the website of the organization. The secondary sources of data also have been the regular project reports that come out in various periodic AID publications. At the same time to study the evolution of the chapters in India, we have spoken to various volunteers as well as coordinators/presidents of various chapters across the country. All of these interviews lasted 90-120 minutes extended over various sessions. Name of Person PrachiAggarwal AnirbanMudi Viraj Gupta Himanshu Singh Ritesh Lohia Posi ion in AID-India Chapter President, Chapter volunteer coordinator Website Coordinator Volunteer Volunteer Founder/Secretary Chapter Association AID Delhi AID Delhi, AID Bangalore AID Noida AID Noida AID Kolkata

4.

EARLY DAYS: T E BEGINNING AND INITIAL STRUCTURE

As Ravi Kuchimanchi(AID founder) set about trying to find like-minded people who could help him in putting his ideas and plans into action, he came across a group called A ti
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Indi .Although the groups members were very enthusiastic when it came to discussions and debates about the issues plaguing the Indian society, there was no concrete action. So Ravi Kuchimanchidecided to call for support for a project called Village Education Project. The project aimed at adopting a small village education project in India and hiring a suitable teacher to teach the children and the adults alike. He called for donations and a coordinated effort in order to execute the project. His initial call for volunteers got enthusiastic response. This project was a non AID project being run in India. RaviKuchimanchi and his friends decided to provide monetary support to the project. Some people volunteered to take care of functions like accounts while others decided to donate generously. RaviKuchimanchi, along with a couple of friends, kept track of the donations and took care of the logistics from the US itself. The project was closely monitored and funding was sanctioned after a lot of diligence on project scope and impact. This initial group of a dozen or so volunteers were an essential driving force when AID grew in size and expanded across US. While some of these core group members have returned to India to work with AID-India, the others are still working in the US and are actively involved in fund raising and project evaluation activities. The major points to note about the initial structure of AID-USare highlighted below: liz ti n in the and Even as AID began, there was littl organization. Everyone who contributed to the Village Education Project was associated with AID in a way. There was nohi hy of authority, centralization or specialization. People voluntarilytook the initiative to coordinate the various activities of the first project. The basic driving factor was enthusiasm towards the cause of the organization. The size of the organization was very small and there were around a dozen people who were working on the project directly. The others were simply donating funds because they identified with AIDs goals and vision. The culture was that of trust and driven by a common commitment to work towards eradicating the basic problems of the Indian society. The organization was driven by a shared valuethat the problems Methods of Control facing the Indiansociety were interconnected and in order to alleviate them, a concerted effort was required towards all the issues simultaneously.This was essentially belief system control, as there were no formal rules and procedures to control the people. Since the organization had a flat hierarchy (consisting of only volunteers), formal control procedures would not have been effective. Decision making Ravi Kuchimanchi used to organize regular weekly meetings (by the name of Community Service Hour or CSH) which could be authority attended by anyone who was interested in the working of AID
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Structural Contextual Dimensions

people from inside the university campus as well as people from nearby residential areas. People took up various duties voluntarily and all major activities were discussed during these meetings with everyone. The decisions were taken jointly by the group and there was no central decision making authority. Conclusions about the initial structure AID started out as a loosely knit group of people bound together by little else than a common goal and a vision. From 1991 to 1994, AID was mainly composed of people who could identify with the vision of AID and worked towards the cause without any promise of material returns a typical case of a non-profit organisation. The main purpose of AID during this time was to raise funds (mainly from college students) and support NGOs in India. Occasionally, when some AID member visited India for personal affairs, he made it a point tovisit project sites and gets a feel of the actual ground work being done in AID funded projects. The functioning of the organization at this point of time did not require a formal and centralized structure. The core group managed the collection of donations and disbursed the funds on behalf of AID. The initial growth of the organisation followed the entrepreneurial phase of evolution as given by L. Greiners model of organizational growth. However after a strong leadership was instated, the organization kept growing in line with the operational charter set by the leader. Owing to the nature of the organization and the flat structure, there was no crisis of autonomy in subsequent periods. AID didnt necessarily follow the successive phases of evolution and revolution as suggested by Greiner.

5.

EXPANSION OF AID AND CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

The CSH meetings were regularly attended by some people from outside the city. As more people came to know about the organization, they spread it in their social circles. Consequently, with people taking initiatives, AID grew out of Maryland Campus and spread to other cities. The initial publicity was mostly word of mouth. Later on university students and other AID volunteers started staging playsto highlight the issues faced by the Indian poor and also tell people about the work done by AID in the Indian villages. The new chapters started out as a group of people brought together by the vision of the parent organization. They called themselves AID chapters, but there was no concept of centralized management. The donation to a chapter was directed towards the regional chapter offices. Soon volunteers started publications and newsletters with local level circulations. Some of these publications like AID NEWS became very popular and thus brought in a large number of new volunteers.
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As the number of chapters grew, volunteers from the AID core group(the first few volunteers from the Maryland Chapter) visited new AID chapters and made presentations to keep them connected to the AID philosophy. This was to share the vision and values of the organization and introduce them to the culture of the organization. The main purpose of AID at this point was to fund the on-going peoples projects/movements in India. Soon AID had central headquarters in US and all the donations started getting directed there. The core group(mentioned above) took the decisions regarding the funding of projects in India, in consultation with the other members. This growth continued for around a decade and resulted in funding being directed to over 100 projects all across rural India. One of the volunteers Mahendra Verma returned to India to join IIT Kanpur as a faculty member. Here he got together a group of student volunteers to organize construction workers on campus and teach their children. He also started collaboration between AID and Ja riti an NGO, started by college students, specialising in developing and deploying low cost IT enabled solutions for rural areas. Soon other initiatives started (like the Lodhar School, a community school project near Kanpur) and within no time there were AID projects running all over the country in partnership with various NGOs. A lot of other activists in India who belonged to various social sectors visited the CSH meetings in US and this had a deep influence on the ideology of the organization. And soon Ravi Kuchimanchi returned to India in 1997 along with BalajiSampath(very active core group member) to work full time from India itself. Interestingly this had another impact on the chapters in the US. As more and more AID volunteers came to India, more people across the US got motivated by the idea of their own volunteers working on the Indian grounds. This inspired a growth spurt and within a few years there were close to 25 chapters across the US.

6.

AID-INDIA: INITIAL WORKING MODEL AND STRUCTURE

In 1997, BalajiSampath registered AID-India in Chennai. The initial structure of the organization in India (as AID-India) was dependent on the kind of developmental projects that were taken up. AID volunteers realised that there was a lot of strength in the peoples movements in various regions across India they had a much wider support base and a much wider impact. Thus AID decided to be associated with these ongoing peoples struggles initially. They started by expressing solidarity with these movements fight against corruption; struggle to get a village electrified and even to set up a school.Agitations, petitions (with or without legal recourse) or simply funding an ongoing project; these were all part of the initial working strategy of AID-India.AID-India started as a learning organization, trying to carve out a social niche for itself. The hierarchy was flat and the main
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aim was to partner with NGOs and learn as much as possible about the actual ground work in the field of social initiatives. At the same time, they tried to get as many volunteers as possible, build a support base among citizens and gain public trust before they could begin their own projects. As more and more volunteers joined in, AID-India expanded its base to cover close to 1000 villages in Tamil Nadu. This expansion and growth has been covered specifically under the Chennai chapter. On basis of his learning from the US chapter, a certain degree of formal structure and control was brought to table by BalajiSampath. However the organization at large remained a loosely bound unit with the vision being the key driving force.

7.

AID-INDIA EXPANSION

Growth of Chapters Gradually, as AID-India movement expanded throughout the country, numerous city chapters were formed on the lines of AID-US. The first seeds of these chapters were sown as volunteers moved across the country and brought together like-minded people in their respective regions. Meetings were organised on lines of the CSH meetings in the US. As these groups of volunteers started working on developmental projects in their regions, the regional chapters of AID-India were formed. AID-Chennai was the first chapter to be started out of India in 1997. Soon after, Bangalore chapter was started; but the growth of two chapters presents a study in contrast. The Chennai chapter, under the guidance of BalajiSampath, gradually evolved into a formally structured organization. On the other hand Bangalore chapter, which started out at around the same time as the Chennai chapter, has been limited in its growth and scope of its projects. The primary reason for this has been the lack of leadership; Chennai chapter had BalajiSampath, who was both experienced and passionate towards the organizations vision while Bangalore never had a charismatic leader in its initial phase. The Delhi chapter started in 2004, much later than the Chennai and the Bangalore chapters but it evolved with a formal structure right from the start. This was owing to the fact that the key founder was an active member of AID-US and replicated his learnings during formation of AID-India Delhi Chapter. The Kolkata chapter was the last to start from among all the chapters that have discussed in the report. The chapter started as a loosely knit group of volunteers. The lack of dynamic leadership and lack of volunteers meant that the Kolkata chapter remained restricted to partnering with NGOs and doing a few small scale projects.
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The evolution and present status of these chapters have been discussed in details in the later parts of the report. Present Leadership & Executive Structure Currently there are ten officially recognised regional chapters under AID -India. The total volunteer count is over 1000 and AID-India has taken up more than 365 projects till date in 18 Indian states. The executive structure of AID-India has three levels of leadership.

Board of Directors (3-7) Executive Board (8-1 ) Chapter Executive Committees (8-18)
!

The board of directors at apex carries the responsibility of strategic supervision of the organi ation. They are responsible for decentrali ation of the activities and empowering the executive board and the chapter bodies. They also oversee the election / nomination of the members of the executive board. The executive board is empowered by the board of directors to oversee project and efforts of s various chapters. The executive board members are considered officers of AID, as opposed to officers of a chapter of AID, and have overall responsibility for strategic management of AID-India. At the chapter level, there is an executive committee which is responsible for carrying out all the tasks of a chapter and for meeting the objectives of the organi ation. This three-tiered interlinked leadership process creates a wholesome balance between the need for focus and freedom, and the need for supervision and control. A sixpage by-law document details the structure & membership criterion of the board of directors, executive board and chapter regulations.

Culture The organi ation operates in a dynamic environment and need to respond to the changes in the external domain. The organi ation has a strategic focus on its volunteers, who constitute its key resources.

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External

Adaptability Culture

Mission Culture

Strategic Focus

Clan Culture

AID
Internal Flexibility

Bureaucratic Culture

Stability

Needs of Environment

The stories of Ravi Kuchimanchi, BalajiSamapth and other key members are often used as narratives within the organi ation to motivate and instill enthusiasm within the volunteers. The inclusion of Gandhijis caricature in the logo of the organi ation reflects the mission of the organi ation.

Jeevansaathi&SaathiProgram In recognition of work done by its volunteers and to motivate them further, AID -India came up with a concept of Jeev thi, Associ te Jeev saathi and Saathi programs. This is a rite of enhancement followed in AID-India. The Saathiprogram is aimed at recogni ing and honouring outstanding social and environmental activists in India. The program creates a mutually enriching relationship between AID and the saathi and entails not only support in the form of a stipend, but also non-monetary involvement and strategic support from AID volunteers. Saathis are referred to AID by their associates in India, volunteers across AID or existing Saathis and Jeevansaathis. After evaluating the work of the potential candidates they are conferred the Saathiaward. Saathis are a source of great inspiration to AID volunteers, and provide insight into development processes. AID so far has 26 Saathis. The Jeevansaathiprogram was initiated in 1998 to enable and encourage AID volunteers to engage in full time social work. It is an honorary title presented to only a few individuals who commit themselves to work on development issues by being a part of AID's network and opening up new directions for AID to explore. These Jeevansaathisguide the volunteers in
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#" " " "$ # "

the US based on their experiences of working in India. At present there are 6 Jee ansaat is working with AID-India.Ravi Kuchimanchi (Founder of AID) and BalajiSampath (Founder of AID-India) are most senior AID Jeevansaathis. Swades, a 2005 bollywood film that became a symbol for non-resident Indians interested in Indias grass root development was inspire by the life of Ravi Kuchimanchi. Kiran Vissa (Narmada Bac aoandolan), RavishankarArunachalam (IIT Chennai, Project Eureka), RanchaDingra (Compensation to Bhopal gas tragedy survivors) and AravindaPillalamarri (marketing k adi)are the other Jeevansaathis.
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8.

AID-India Chennai Chapter

History & Evolution When BalajiSampath came to India and founded AID-India in 1997 he chose Chennai as the location to function from. Consequently, Chennai functioned as the headquarters for AIDIndia (and later on also became the centre of Chennai chapter). The primary focus of Chennai chapter was on ensuring quality education for every child in Tamil Nadu. And the structure too evolved keeping this strategic focus in mind. The chapter decided to classify its work broadly under five teams:
y y y y y

Primary Education (reading and counting) Secondary Science Education Pre-primary Education Libraries and Community Learning Initiatives Life Skills and Health Education

Slowly, additional teams were added as the work expanded. These teams worked on designing their respective course material and structure. Thus we see as the organization diversified, specialization set in. A certain degree of formalization also came in as coordinators were appointed for the various projects as well as for the broad level initiatives The executive boardof AID-India appointed a core group (CG) to coordinate all of the education initiatives in Tamil Nadu. This core group looked after the day-to-day activities of AID-India in Tamil Nadu planning, making strategic decisions, and managing all of the education programs and periodically reported back to the executive board. The CG was the management team directly responsible for the project implementation and management. The scale up in the organization and the consequent increase in the number and kinds of people working with the chapter increased the complexity of decision making and its implications. The earlier Core Group was too small to reflect the different levels of people
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&

and perspectives in the organi ation accurately. At the same time it was difficult for the Core Group to meet frequently and take executive decisions. To address both of these ssues, AIDi Chennai has now constituted a 2 tier decision making structure. Present Structure & Working Principle AID-Chennai now has a 30-member strong Eureka Child Core Group (ECCG) which has representatives from all state and field teams as well as people with the lon organi ational ger experience. This group meets once every two months to review program progress, the status of the volunteers, and also to frame larger policy decisions which form the framework for day to day executive decisions. Because the ECCG represents a larger collective it is able to incorporate multiple perspectives and come up with better policies. To handle the need for quicker and larger number of day to day executi e decisions a smaller v Management Committee (MC) consisting of 6 people has been constituted. This committee is responsible for handling day to day decisions and reporting to the ECCG. This MC is to meet every week and work within the policies framed by t e ECCG.Both the MC and the h ECCG are ultimately responsible to the Aid-India Executive Board and Office Bearers which is the formal legal body responsible to the external world. The current organi ational structure of Aid-Chennai is shown below:

Office Bearers + Executive Committee AID INDIA Legal Body

AID Tamil Nadu Core Group (Decisions on Vision, Direction and Strategy) Eureka Child Core Group 30 member committee (Policy Level Decisions) Management Committee 6 members committee (Day to Day Execution Decisions)
Rural Execution Urban Execution
Research Developme nt

Operations group

Eureka Learning Institution

Eureka Books

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The flagship project of Chennai chapter called the Eureka Child project has now become synonymous with the Chennai chapter, to the extent that the chapter is now k nown as Eureka Chennai chapter.

9.

AID-India Delhi Chapter

History & Evolution The seeds of AID India Delhi chapter were sown in 1999 by a group of individuals, who kept in touch over social issues and AID work through an internet based mailing group. It became a formal chapter only in January 2004. The chapter was formally started by Anuj Grover who had worked with the AID-US San Diego chapter and had just returned to India. By this time, most of the AID-US chapters had evolved into formalised and organi ed structures and this was the reason why AID-India Delhi chapter too was modelled on the same lines. Anujrealised the importance of volunteers to make this initiative a success, and went about gathering volunteers. Delhi chapter was in principle catering to the entire National Capital Region (NCR), including the satellite towns of Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad and was actually known as AID NCR. As the volunteer numbers and the number of projects started growing, the organizational structure evolved and eventually the chapters split up. Noida and Gurgaon chapters became separate from the Delhi chapter in 2007 and cater to the respective towns. ir Today the Delhi chapter caters only to the Delhi region. Since these chapters came from the Delhi chapter, the organizational structure is similar for all the three chapters with subtle differences in terms of the volunteer numbers and the functioning, especiall in terms of fund y raising. Present Structure& Working Principle The organizational structure of AID-Delhi chapter is shown below:

Chapter Coordinator

Volunteer Coordinator

Treasurer

Fund Raising Coordinator

Website Coordinator

Erstwhile AID-NCR had the post of a President which has now been replaced by individual chapter coordinators for all NCR chapters including Delhi .
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The above mentioned five members form the working committee of the Delhi chapter. These members are elected by the AID-Delhi volunteers. The election process is relatively new and has been started only in 2008. Only the regular volunteers of Delhi chapter can vote during the elections of the Delhi chapter working committee. The working committees of Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon chapters and two members from the Faridabad chapter (which is relatively new) constitute the seventeen membersE ecutive Committee of AID-NCR. The basic job of this committee is to increase coordination among these chapters in terms of fund raising activities. Since a lot of volunteers from Noida and Gurgaon keep on changing their base owing to professional commitments, this committee has become all the more important for coordination between chapters in terms of volunteer transfer. This executive committee also coordinates on the matters of publicity, project resource sharing and procurement of basic infrastructure. With increased scope and size of the projects, it has become very important for the chapter to choose the right people for the volunteer work. With this objective in mind a preliminary induction and recruitment process has also been put into place. This process has been designed by AID-India recently and is being increasingly adopted by various chapters. The volunteers who want to work with AID have to fill up a small form on the website specifying their location, the motivation to work, as well as the kind of work they want to do. Else they can contact an existing AID volunteer who directs them to the Volunteer Coordinator. The Volunteer Coordinator of the respective chapter then gets in touch with the concerned person and after a basic interview puts the person on a project. The volunteer coordinator interacts with the volunteer on a regular basis and helps him adjust to the requirements of the project and helps align his thinking with the organizations thinking process. This is followed by monthly feedback collected from the project coordinator as well as the volunteer about the volunteers work and future expectations. A positive feedback translates into greater responsibility for the volunteer. This informal volunteer feedback mechanism has been put into place as a method of control in order to keep the volunteers aligned with the organizational goals. This feedback mechanism exists in the Gurgaon and the Noida chapter as well. Another unique feature of the Delhi chapter has been itsself sufficiency with respect to funds for its projects. AID-India has always wanted its projects to be self sufficient in terms of the funds. PrachiAggarwal, during her current tenure as Delhi chapter president, took the idea to a new level when she decided to make the entire chapter self sufficient in terms of donations and project funding. Following are the salient features of AID-Delhi with respect to its organizational structure: y The formal structure of the organization has resulted into greater professionalism in the chapter with respect to the other India chapters.
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With increased stress on self sufficiency the post of the fund raising coordinator has assumed special importance in the chapter. This is an example of one strategic position in an organization assuming special importance with changingoperational goals of the organization.

10.

AID-India Kolkata Chapter

History & Evolution The Kolkata chapter started in 2006 (a couple of years after the Delhi chapter) when a few enthusiasts, driven by a passionto contribute to the society came together through the internet. This group got in touch with AID-US and started monitoring AID-US funded projects on their behalf. This initial work also included visiting various sites of proposed AID projects in and around Kolkata. At this point it is important to note that, AID-US was still funding projects in India that were being run by independent NGOs. The initial volunteer group at the Kolkata chapter included only ten people. Once these volunteers had gained sufficient experience of actual ground work on AID -US funded projects, they started up their own projects. Their early projects included running a weekly health and sanitation camp in a group of villages in Mathurapur district in West Bengal. For all these projects they gathered funds on their own by visiting various corporate offices and public sector institutions. These donations made the Kolkata chapter self sufficient in terms of project funding. But the AID-Kolkata chapter never actually took off as compared to other chapters around the country. A lot of volunteers who registered with the chapter initially left the city and the volunteer work for other professional commitments. Additionally, AID Kolkata lacked the dynamic leadership that the Chennai or the Delhi chapters had. This meant that the scope of the projects taken up by the Kolkata chapter was always limitedand there was no initiative to get more volunteers. Most of the projects taken up by Kolkata chapter today are in partnership with other NGOs around Kolkata (like Swanirvar, Tomorrows Foundation). This is another classic example of the strategy-structure linkage.

Present Structure & Working Principle Since the chapter did not take start on a large number of projects, the need for a formalised structure was never felt. A Chapter Secretary Post was instituted who was responsible for coordinating all the fund collection activitiesas well as volunteer activities. The chapter has a very flat structure. Barring the post of the Chapter Secretary there is little centralization. The size of the chapter is very small and there are very few active projects that the volunteers are

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working on. In fact, since 2008 the number of volunteers has drastically gone down and there are no full time workers with the Kolkata chapter. The volunteers of the chapter are primarily engaged in working with other NGOs around Kolkata and help their projects get funding from AID-US. There is an executive committee comprising of the chapter secretary and the project coordinators. The project coordinators are volunteers from the project team who voluntarily take up the task of coordinating with chapter secretary and AID-India. Till date over 250 volunteers who had registered themselves with the Kolkata chapter have left after working on one or two projects. There has been no method of control other than the common goal of the organization that kept the volunteers aligned with the organization objective over the period of their limited stay with the chapter. Clan control is the only form of control seen in the chapter today. The strategy of the chapter now primarily focuses on partnering with other NGOs around Kolkata and helping them in their projects with the resources from AID. For example in recent times the chapter has partnered with an NGO named Prajaak and are running a project for the rehabilitation of people living close to the railway lines. The website is out-dated and the latest operation reports are not available unlike the other chapters. For communication purposes an internet group exists on Yahoo where the progress of various projects is discussed. There is no formal channel of communication in this sense.

11.

AID-India Bangalore Chapter

History & Evolution AID Bangalore was the second chapter started under AID-India. It started out like the Chennai chapter, almost around the same time, with a very flat organizational structure. However, as Chennai chapter evolved into a formal structure with time, the Bangalore chapter did not grow the same way. A primary reason for the same is the lack of dynamic leadership, the likes of which Chennai chapter had in the form of BalajiSampath. Both the chapters (Chennai and Bangalore) were started when the chapters of AID -US did not have a very formal structure. However as the US chapters evolved into a highly specialized and formalized structure, BalajiSampath made sure that the Chennai chapter evolved along the same lines. The Bangalore chapter because of lack of leadership did not follow the same path of structural evolution. Consequently, the scope of the projects taken up by AID-Bangalore was far limited in comparison to the Chennai chapter. This is an example

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of how lack of leadership can alter the growth of an organization and have a bearing on its strategy as well as structure.

Present Structure & Working Principle Currently AID Bangalore is a very small chapter with a small number of volunteers. The chapter is managed by a chapter coordinator and a volunteer coordinator, who coordinate activities of AID volunteers for various projects in partnership with various NGOs. Other than these two formal positions the structure is essentially flat. Weekly meetings are held at where the progress of various projects is discussed with the volunteers who decide to attend the meeting. The projects taken up by the chapter are in partnership with the local NGOs. The chapter is in a state of flux where the structure is gradually being changed to bring it on the lines of Delhi chapter. The chapter has recently introduced a volunteer induction process on similar lines as the Delhi chapter. The reason for these changes is the efforts of AnirbanMudi. He is one of the first volunteers to have worked with AID Delhi. He has seen the Delhi chapter evolve and is still a part of the Working Committee of the Delhi chapter. Since he has been in Bangalore for quite some time he is trying to bring some form of standardization in the organizational structure of Bangalore chapter.

12.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

AID-India in general, has certain degree of formalization when it comes to the Executive members and the official-post holders while it follows a very organic structure for the grass root volunteers. This helps the organization with instatement of professional management and at the same time provides an encouraging environment for volunteers. The hierarchical growth in the organization is a function of ones commitment and capabilities. Instead of conventional performance grading mechanisms, AID utilizes an informal peer feedback system. This makes sure that only people with high commitment towards organizational vision and those who have exhibited their leadership capabilities grow up in organization. These characteristics are essential, keeping in mind jobs voluntary nature. The evolution of different chapters has followed dissimilar paths and thus the chapters have shaped up differently. While this may have worked up for certain chapters, this model does not seem to be scalable. The failure of Kolkata chapter can be partly attributed to this. It has also been noticed that success of many chapters and projects are very dependent on the quality of the leadership instated for the unit. AID India operates as a congregation of several Individual city chapters, with fairly low overlap between projects of the individual chapters, apart from financials. This helps the individual city chapters to have a clear focus on the problem areas and accordingly choose
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the projects they want to pursue. This is in-line with AIDs strategy of bottom-up identification of the problems. However, not working as a common group, AID India as a whole fails to exploit any economies of scale or scope in any of its projects. Also because of this low level of Horizontal linkage, the learning of one unit is not transferred to other. The strategic alliances that the organization has formed up with other NGOs are in line with the mission of tackling societal issues. For example, this is a pretty effective strategy for the Kolkata chapter, where AID currently doesnt run projects by its own but assists other NGOs with various resources. As similar organization types having cooperative relationships, they are very high on Institutionalism. Since the executive committee members and the volunteers are primarily focused on their individual projects, they may have limited view of the overall organizational goals and vision. Though, this doesnt seem to be a disadvantage for the organization with respect to the outcome of its activities.

13.

RECOMMENDATIONS

On basis of the study, the following are the recommendations on organizational structure of AID-India:
y

Integration levels needs to be increased between various chapters to benefit from knowledge sharing and. Also knowledge and leanings should transfer from one unit to other. Clear rules must be charted out for formation of new chapters including the initial structure and the role of the mother chapter. The evolution of Delhi chapter may be taken as a model case.

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Appendix I - List of References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. History of AID: http://aidindia.org/main/content/view/16/67/ Bylaws of AID: http://aidindia.org/main/content/view/85/67/ Annual Report of AID 2008 Annual Report of AID 2007 Annual Report of AID 2007 Description of AID (About Us AID): http://aidindia.org/main/content/blogsection/3/67/ 7. AID-India Delhi Chapter website: http://aidindia.org/main/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,379/ 8. AID-India Chennai Chapter website: http://aidindia.org/main/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,380/ 9. AID-India Kolkata Chapter website: http://aidindia.org/main/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,383/ 10. AID-India Bangalore Chapter website: http://aidindia.org/main/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,387/ 11. AID-India Gurgaon Chapter website: http://aidindia.org/main/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,381/ 12. AID-India Sat i Program: http://aidindia.org/main/content/section/16/139/ 13. AID-India Jee ansaat iProgram: http://aidindia.org/main/content/section/15/399/ 14. AID-India Associate Jee ansaat iprogram: http://aidindia.org/main/content/section/25/401/ 15. Volunteer Induction process: http://aidindia.org/main/content/blogsection/4/368/ 16. Swades, 2005 bollywood movie Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swades
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Appendix II List of question for primary data collection 1. What are the origins of the AID? Please throw some light on the style of functioning of AID-US. 2. How did AID-India evolve? How were decisions taken regarding the collaboration with various NGOs? 3. Who were the first people who worked for AID India? What were their roles and what was the vision specifically keeping in mind Indian conditions? 4. Are the various chapters working independently? Is there any collaboration between chapters? 5. How are fundraising activities handled within chapters? 6. What are the various functions within chapters? Please provide details about the handling of fund raising programs, volunteer recruitment, project coordination and volunteer recruitment. 7. What is the reporting structure within a chapter? Who does the chapter coordinator/secretary reports to? 8. Who makes up the governing/coordinating body of the country? What are the basic functions of the governing body? 9. Is there something like a volunteer recruitment/induction process? And how do you go about monitoring their work? Is there any mechanism to separate committed volunteers from free riders? 10. Who elects the working committee for a chapter? 11. Reasons behind the failure/success of a particular chapter with relation to its structure. 12. Please elaborate on the concept of Sat i Jee ansaat i program. How are they chosen?
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