My experience in Ago-Are and with CawdNet suggests that
~ Telecentres are hybrid organisations - a mix of social and commercial
~ Social entrepreneurship often produces this kind of hybrid
~ Traditional thinkers from both sides (social/charitable) and (business/commerce) find this confusing.
# How can it be social/charitable if it is making money?
# How can it be business/commerce if it is driven by "do-gooding" instead of the bottom line.
~ I suggest a ruthless clear separation - with a charitable/donor link that enables "buying into the future" i.e. behaving as if the future we believe in has already arrived:.
~ "Buying into the future grants" mean that the social aspects are paid for externally and the InfoCentre/telecentre can charge a commercial rate, and perform as if it was functioning in a more affluent area.
~ These grant are different to some other "pump priming" grants in that they fill a particular funding gap which there is some obvious way of filling in the future.
~ If the commercial side makes good profits it can make contributions to the charity providing the grants.
~ Examples:
# Teachers being enabled to afford ICT awareness training from the InfoCentre at a fair price (as if their government funded their inservice training as it does in the UK)
# The community being enabled to make a grant to the InfoCentre for running its digital library and other community services (as it will be able to afford to do once some of the capacity building results bear fruit) NB It is part of local culture that the community fund raises in this way. Last year for instance its projects included building a wall around the grounds of town hall which it had built in previous years. and it also provided the partitioning inside the InfoCentre.
# Individuals (or small businesses, or whatever the funder favoured) being enabled to use email as if the charges were similar to charges in the developed world....
If you use these ideas i would very much appreciate feedback.
Pam
Pamela McLean - Cawd volunteer and CawdNet convenor
CawdNet – Networking in rural Nigeria and in the virtual communities of the Internet.
For an introduction to CawdNet www.cawdnet-intro.blogspot.com
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To contribute www.bmycharity.com/cawd1
For how it all started www.cawd.info
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