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Alliance news issue 15, , December 2007
A monthly update of Credibility Alliance

CREDIBILITY ALLIANCE IMPROVING GOVERNANCE BUILDING TRUST

This newsletter has been envisaged as a tool with which we would like to communicate and engage with our stakeholders. This newsletter will be a
co-traveller in Credibility Alliance’s journey towards enhancing accountability and transparency in the voluntary sector.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the December 2007 issue of our newsletter. We extend our congratulations to our member organization, S.M Sehgal Foundation for being awarded the ‘Best Water NGO: Water Harvesting’. We are happy to announce that CA has successfully accredited eight member organizations from West zone. CA will be awarding accreditation certificates to these eight organizations on 14 December. We extend our congratulations to these eight organizations and hope that this will encourage other member organizations to come forward for accreditation.

November 2007: The month in review

Update on Accreditation work

i) New member joins Central Accreditation Committee: Ms. Asha Rane, Chairperson, Voluntary Co-ordinating Agency (Mumbai) has joined Credibility Alliance’s Central Accreditation Committee as a new member.
ii) Assessment of Packard Foundation partners: Assessment visits to Packard Foundation’s six partners in Jharkhand were completed. Assessment visits to two more partners of Packard Foundation have been organized in the first week of December.
iii) Credibility Alliance Award: Benchmarking in the voluntary sector: Credibility Alliance along with Give India carried out pilot accreditation for 6 organizations based in Mumbai and 2 organizations based in Pune. These organizations are Give India partners and were selected for accreditation by Give India on the basis of interest expressed by them to be part of the pilot. An initial visit was conducted in January-February and later in the month of June this year. CA will be handing over accreditation certificates to these eight organizations on 14 December. Dr. S. Parasuraman, Director of Tata Institute of Social Sciences has kindly agreed to be present as chief guest for this function. The accredited organizations are: Apnalaya, Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare, National Centre for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped (NASEOH), Magic Bus, Indian Council for Mental Health (Hygiene), Bhagini Nivedita, Janseva Foundation.

Norms Committee meeting
A Norms Committee meeting was held on 8 November. The objectives of the meeting were i) to discuss overall development and feedback on programme norms, definitions, values, and preamble. ii) to discuss and amend draft programme norms, definitions, values, and preamble iii) to finalize all documents. The Committee finalized the document: Programme Norms, Definitions, values. The preamble was, however, not finalized due to time constraints. This will be followed up by Mr. Daniel Herzog and Ms. Alpa Vora. This was the last of a total of 8 Norms Committee Meeting held in 2006/07.

State Committee meeting in Bangalore
On 24 November, a State Committee meeting was held in Bangalore. Representatives from six member organizations and two special invitees (Mr. Murray Culshaw from Murray Culshaw Consultancy and Dr. C. Ravi Kumar from Outreach) were present for this meeting. The agenda for this meeting was i) discussion on Peer Group Review (PGR) for membership ii) planning for future activities. During the State Committee meeting, CA requested the members to volunteer to test Peer Group Review (PGR). Six member organizations have agreed to test PGR.

(Note on Peer Group Review Document: Mr. Murray Culshaw has drafted the Peer Group Review document. The idea behind PGR is to build a system, which involves members in building the membership base. Peer Reviews are physical ‘on-the-spot’ validations/ verification of Norms compliance, conducted by a Member on a potential member. The PGR concept has only been proposed as of now. The decision to incorporate this in the membership process will be taken based upon the feedback and consensus by CA members. )

NGO Meeting organized by COVA
COVA organized a NGO meeting in Hyderabad. The agenda of this meeting was to introduce the accreditation methodologies and programme norms to NGOs and receive feedback from them. Representatives from seven NGOs were present for the meeting. Mr. Mathew Cherian, Chairperson of CA Board was also present for this meeting. An important suggestion made during this meeting was that Peer Group Review should be adopted in Andhra Pradesh. Names of potential local assessors were also given. Names of five member organizations that were willing to undergo accreditation were also given.

National Staff meeting
CA held a National Staff Meeting on 27 – 29 November in Mumbai. CA Board member, Mr. Venkat Krishnan was present on 27th to discuss strategies for CA with the group.

http://www.vaniindia.org/

We Welcome Our Newly Joined Members to Credibility Alliance - A Network of Voluntary Organizations in India to promote norms of good governance and public disclosure. Our New Members: Citizen Development Centre, Tamil Nadu Sharda Foundation, Tamil Nadu Sai Educational Foundation, Tamil Nadu Rural Self Employment and Educational Development Society, Tamil Nadu Association for Non-Traditional Employment for Women, Tamil Nadu Snegithan, Tamil Nadu Christian Council for Rural Development and Research, Tamil Nadu International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care, Tamil Nadu League for Education and Development, Tamil Nadu Sevalaya, Tamil Nadu Collective Order for Rural Reconstruction Education, Andhra Pradesh Meta Culture Dialogics, Karnataka Drushti Foundation, Karnataka Vivekanada Girijana Kalyana Kendra, Karnataka Unnati Sansthan, Rajasthan Samarthan, Madhya Pradesh Swami Vivekanand Shiksha Samiti, Madhya Pradesh Naman Sewa Samiti, Madhya Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Voluntary Health Association, Himachal Pradesh Om Foundation, Uttar Pradesh

Links you could use

1. IndianNGOs.com has displayed CA’s Programme Norms on its webpage.

2. If you are interested in knowing more about ISO 9001: 2000, Quality Management System, please visit http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm

Ms. Rewati Bhagwat’s visit to Rajasthan
The main purpose of this visit was to meet key member organizations in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer so as to promote CA norms and seek participation and consensus on norms and accreditation from these organizations. During this visit, Ms.Bhagwat met representatives from five organizations (Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society, Rajasthan Voluntary Health Association, Catholic Relief Service of India, Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti, Sightsavers International). Ms.Bhagwat also had a meeting with ARAVALI’s partners in Ajmer on 23 November.

Sharing of experiences by members

Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, Mumbai, proudly announces its ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System Certification

(ISO 9001:2000 is a standard for Quality Management Systems. It includes a set of procedures for monitoring, record keeping, reviewing key processes, and for facilitating continual improvement.) We hired consultants from Pune to understand the systems and procedures as defined in ISO standards. They trained us in all aspects of documentation and record keeping. Two members from our organization attended the 2 day Internal Auditors training programme conducted by the International Certification Services at Santacruz, Mumbai. This training programme helped us in gaining clarity about the implementation of ISO standards. Initially we were thinking of implementing the Quality Management System (QMS) across all our outreach centers as well as our head office in Bandra. After attending the training programme, we felt this would be difficult to do. We discussed this concern with our consultants and had a meeting with the certifying body as well. The final decision which we took was that we would implement the QMS at our head office and at one outreach centre in Kherwadi. We conducted a series of training programmes and held regular discussions with our staff so that they would understand the importance of the QMS and would have the necessary skills and knowledge base to implement it. Our staff understood the importance of QMS but was of the perception that it will add to the paper work as QMS needs documentation at different levels. Once we felt as an organization we were ready, we went through the internal audit, pre-certification audit, and the final audit. We feel a sense of pride to state that we have received the ISO certificate. -Madhuban K. Pandey, Programme Coordinator Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, Bandra (E) Mumbai .

S.M. Sehgal Foundation has been awarded ‘The Best Water NGO: Water Harvesting’
S.M. Sehgal Foundation has been awarded the ‘Best Water NGO: Water Harvesting’ by the Water Digest (Global magazine for Water Solutions) in association with UNESCO at the awards ceremony held in New Delhi on November 29. Initiated last year, Water Digest identified the need to recognize NGOs doing exceptional work in the water sector and therefore, these Awards acknowledged organizations for their exemplary work. Mr. Rajat Jay Sehgal, Executive Director, the Sehgal Foundation received the award on behalf of the foundation from eminent dignitaries. The awards were presented by the Honorable Minister of State for Water Resources, Mr. Jai Prakash Narayan, Minja Yang Director UNESCO, David Gray-World Bank’s Senior Water Advisor and Baljeet Singh Ahuja- Member, Central Water Commission.

BENEFITS OF CREDIBILITY ALLIANCE MEMBERSHIP

1.	Recognition as being committed to a set of norms that ensures accountability, good governance and transparency within their organization.
2.	Access to capacity-building support to meet the requirements specified in the norms.
3.	Free services rendered by the Alliance, such as listing your organization in the ‘Organizational Profile’ on the Alliance’s website.
4.	Concession in accreditation fees, when it commences.
5.	Prospects of attracting greater financial and other forms of support, from different stakeholders, including the government and other donors.
6.	Opportunities to influence the policies and procedures of grant-making agencies including the government.
7.	Networking opportunities within a large membership base.
8.	A sense of belonging in broad and collective efforts to bring greater credibility to the sector as a whole.

LET’S JOIN HANDS TO MAKE A POSITIVE CHANGE FOR A WELL GOVERNED AND TRUSTWORTHY VOLUNTARY SECTOR IN INDIA!

The Water Management program is an important component under the Integrated Sustainable Village Development (ISVD) model of the Sehgal Foundation along with other programs on health, agriculture, life skills education and alternate energy. The Foundation works in Mewat and Kurukshetra districts of Haryana, where both the availability and quality of water are of primary concern. This award for Water Harvesting recognizes the foundation’s efforts in making potable water available in the rain scarce area of Mewat, where the water table is depleting rapidly due to over exploitation of the limited water resources. Besides various interventions in the area of water harvesting, the Sehgal Foundation has also done successful projects in creating the sweet water pockets in the underground saline water areas, building check dams to increase the ground water table., community education programs on water conservation, especially for farmers on best agricultural practices like chiseling, drip irrigation, raised bed farming etc., and to provide the safe drinking water through various filtration processes like bio-sand filters. We hope that this award would get the word out about the judicious and effective use of water resources in urban as well as rural areas and people will certainly awake to the importance of this resource.
-Pooja O. Murada
Group Leader, Communications
The Sehgal Foundation

Photo Gallery


CA Staff Meeting	Mr.Rajat Sehgal receiving the award for Best Water NGO: Water Harvesting

We welcome contributions in the form of articles, stories of change (from member organizations), views, and any other relevant piece of work on NGO transparency, accountability and governance from members, researchers, experts, and development workers. All contributions will be duly acknowledged. You may send them in hard copies or preferably via email to camumbai07@gmail.com
Credibility Alliance is a registered organization under Societies Registration Act (XXI) of 1860. As an independent, voluntary (not for profit) organization, we aim at building trust among the stakeholders of an organization such as staff, the Board, donors, volunteers, the general public and the media. We do this by advocating norms for public disclosure and good governance that will help organizations become more transparent and accountable to their stakeholders. The draft of our norms was published in 2003 in English and later translated into six other languages – Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. More than 15000 copies of this booklet have been distributed.
To know more about us please write at: Credibility Alliance 3rd Floor, West Khetwadi Municipal School, Lane# 5, Back Road Khetwadi, Mumbai -400004. Ph: 022-23894046/47 Visit us at: www.credall.org.in