Fundraising in Emerging Markets: Challenges and Opportunities

One of the biggest challenges these fundraisers face is that the nonprofit sector suffers from a lack of credibility or, worse, is seen as unreliable and even corrupt. There’s good reason for this. For example, in India it seems to be established practice for retired government officials to set up dubious NGOs, which then attract state funds — one of the ways generous government spending on social programmes fails to reach the poor. There’s even a local saying, “NGO is good business.” (In case you missed it, that’s sarcasm.) Unscrupulous opportunists also take advantage of public generosity during times of disaster to solicit funds, which they then simply pocket.