Sometimes I suspect that Doing Good is Good Business is an elaborate simulation to discourage ITP students from working at NGOs. Endless meetings? Check. Intractable problems? Check. Stakeholders who won’t accept a solution until they add two words to it? Well, that one is very specific, but it happened to me. We had three group meetings this week, perhaps to compensate for the last week, but they were largely arguments over trivial things. Sometimes I would lose focus and my group members’ words would become gibberish to me. “Local community”, they’d say. “Smart contracts.” “NGOs.” “Transparency.” On some level I understood what they meant, but on another, I wondered, “do they know what they mean? Do I understand what they mean and not what they’re saying?”

But this is all a digression. We decided this was the week we would nail down a final topic. Jaycee, Shivanku, and I all wrote proposals, and presented them to Ariana and discussed what topic we should choose. In the end, we may have pleased everybody, at the expense of a little of my understanding. Perhaps my interpretation of what they said differs from what they meant. Here is my understanding:

Problem statement

How do we encourage transparency in non-governmental organizations based in New York?

(I think they said “in their local community”, but transparency is transparent– it is for all of the stakeholders. Jaycee also added local “government”, but I have no idea why she’s insistent on it. We need to scope on some level.)

Systems Map

gb_map.jpg

This systems map was made for international organizations, but excepting the foreign government portion would make it applicable to local organizations. The line is a potential point of intervention.

Research Plan

I would generally like to stick to 1-1 interviews, because the scope of the projects we would like to intervene with is larger than an ethnographic study would be appropriate for (I.e. we would require more than one day’s worth of study.) A group interview would also be inappropriate because the users we would like to look at are so different, and we would like their viewpoints properly represented. Surveys may be appropriate for contacting donors, but we would like more details than those generally provide. We may still do one, however.

US Foreign Aid workers and UN accountants

  • how do countries currently report back after the aid they receive?

Charity/aid organization report writers

  • how is information generally collected?
  • How do you produce the facts and figures for your reports?
  • In-house information or outside sources?

Reporting agencies

  • how is information generally collected?
  • How do you produce the facts and figures for your reports?
  • In-house information or outside sources?
  • How do you collect information on how effective aid is?

Beneficiaries / Supply Chain

  • how do you receive money or goods?
  • How do you spend money or goods?