Yesterday in our Core Group meeting we had a reckoning: we considered all the work we have done over the past year and measured it against the money we had spent. We didn’t come out looking good. We had worked like little beavers – in addition to all the services which we provide on a daily basis in the EIC, school and CVT, we had held seminars, outreach programs, sessions for school kids, workshops for parents, training for therapists and teachers and produced reams of communication materials – the problem was we hadn’t spent enough money! What a problem to have! It’s a perennial one with grants. You get a certain amount of money to do a certain amount of work and the only way to prove you’ve done it is to have receipts to show. In a voluntary organisation accustomed to pinching pennies and making every rupee count, where make-it-yourself is the preferred style and where recycling and getting two for the price of one is in our blood, it’s a hard transformation to make. Spend money! Freely! At the back of our minds is the constant worry that we could get good at this. And when the grant runs out, then?
(Mobashir contemplating a spending spree)