Organizational sustainability has been both a tough challenge and a long-standing issue for NGOs around the world. Although NGOs have witnessed a substantial flow of aid, both at governmental and non-governmental level, and a large presence of bilateral, multilateral and private donor agencies continues to exist, everyone knows that the future of foreign funding is not encouraging. Also, experience says that the donor support is often coupled with difficult operational guidelines, tight deadlines, impractical policies and hefty documentation.The recent trend of NGOs mushrooming to a large extent has led to increased competition over limited resources available with donor agencies. Besides, donor funding is highly volatile, depending mostly upon the political situation of the country and also its policies. Wars, internal conflicts, uneven economic growth and changes in government and state policies have had their share of adverse effects on NGO funding, putting both the activities as well as the organizations at risk. Further, it has been realized that excessive dependency on foreign donor support not only reduces opportunities for local resource mobilization, but also impedes upon generating innovative ideas which can ensure sustainable growth for NGOs. It has also been observed that the more dependent NGOs are on donors, the community also ends up becoming increasingly dependent on NGOs, thus, bringing down the whole model of sustainability to failure.
Looking at all these factors, it has become crucial for NGOs to involve themselves into some serious thinking to ensure organizational sustainability. Although seeking foreign donor support is still a good option, it should not continue to be the only option. NGOs need to diversify their activities by just not limiting their abilities to develop proposals for donor agencies. A huge cache of marketing opportunities exists at various levels, which if planned and implemented carefully, can ensure some kind of resource generation for NGOs over a long-term period.
