Re-Inventing NGOs as Social Enterprises: A Manipur Perspective

The non-profit sector or simply the NGO has grown substantially in the past few decades and has been instrumental in meeting societal needs, but its impact to the society is still limited by its inability to sustain or scale initiatives. For future growth, they have to rely on the public and private sectors for financial support. The question of financial support is always associated with problems but the degree may vary from one funding agency to another. Such problems being faced by the NGOs in the state can be taken as main reasons for adopting social enterprise model. Problems of access to funding may be considered as one of the major compelling factor to adopt social enterprise model. The present study tried to bring out suggestions for NGOs to re-think over their necessary organisational metamorphosis in order to enable them to work independently from the funding agencies. It can minimize to large extent the shortcomings arising out of the close scrutiny and directives from the funding agencies, and hence they can prioritize their activities and work according to their own pre-set objectives.