“But the Emperor is naked!”

The young boy had yelled, and the crowd had burst out laughing.  Everyone could see he had no clothes on.  The Emperor was supposedly wearing clothes so fine, they were invisible. But to the crowd, he simply looked naked.  Perplexed, but fearful, they aligned to the requirement and gave the emperor what he was seeking… acknowledgement, applause and cheer.

The Mighty Emperor heard the child and turned red with fury and then shame.  This is when we readers are informed that he learnt his lesson, and everyone lived happily ever after. 

But that’s not what happened…

In reality, the Emperor continued the parade gloriously unclothed in spite of the laughing crowds.  Taking a cue from him, his ministers began clapping for him again and kept repeating how wonderful he was looking.  The crowds stopped laughing and confused, slowly resumed clapping.

The Emperor announced that everyone should be wearing invisible clothes. He asked for an impact report of the advantages of invisible clothes as against clothes that one could see.  The need to build capacity of those who could not see invisible clothes was recognised and a systems-change approach was developed to manufacturing invisible clothes. Small tailoring shops would be disallowed and factories for large scale production of invisible clothes would be set up.

Very soon, more people started wearing invisible clothes because they were more sustainable and were meeting Sustainable Development Goals.

The Emperor was declared as the beacon of sustainability in an unsustainable world.  The little boy, who as a child had yelled out a visible truth, was now an adult in charge of the Ministry of Invisible Clothes.

And everyone lived happily ever after…

Emperors are forces of power, resource and authority.  Their self-image gets reinforced everyday by empires designed around their wishes. It is after all an ecosystem where everyone is aiming for collective and individual success aimed to satisfy the Emperor. Exceptional things must happen to disrupt proceedings of the Court.

On the other end of this spectrum of power stands the humble gardener who has control on effort but not on the result of his efforts. Every element in a garden does what it needs to do and cooperates with other participants. Even then, exceptional things must happen to make it work. 

If ever they should believe they are Gods of the gardens, nature will find a way to remind gardeners of their true role. It is not ordinary to have a thousand flowers bloom.

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When I had entered the development sector to join a young EdelGive, with not much exposure beyond my little world, I was ill prepared for what I saw. 

The extent of marginalisation in the world, the number of biases that further distance us from the poorest, weakest, most deprived people was a shock to my senses.  Problems are large, inter-generational, and deeply rooted in society.  Which meant any system needed to serve multiple complexities.  Hence, any system that offered one solution for the masses was flawed or incomplete.

We learnt about and of the system the hard way, with a small corpus, a young team, but with an army of community based organisations (CBOs) and their leaders who became our friends, philosophers and guides. They taught us, and we listened.

EdelGive became a foundation informed by doers, and GROW became the systems platform that brought them together.

GROW is a grant fund that has 100 portfolio CBOs, all small and mid-sized operating across India in some of the most deprived places.  It brought them together to build organisational strength so they could focus on the missions each one of them had.  I was trying to explain this powerful idea to a well-meaning funder who responded…

“Are there even 100 GOOD NGOs in this country?  If you find them, share some names with me.  I personally think there is a dearth of good work in India.  People don’t think big here, just keep going after small problems.  We need systems change work, not these tiny efforts.”

This is not the first and won’t be the last time this has been said.  Usually, it comes from a sense of frustration that things don’t change fast enough. 

We were putting funds, systems, expertise in the right place but our approach may not necessarily be addressing the need, because needs were relative to people and contexts.  We are not solving anything; we are cooking Birbal ki khichdi.

.......

Miffed by Akbar’s refusal to acknowledge his error in a particular case, Birbal sent a message to the Court that he will not attend till he finished cooking khichdi.  After two days of his non-attendance, Akbar went to see Birbal. Birlbal had put all the ingredients in a cooking pot and was cooking khichdi on a flame which was lit five feet below the pot.  Akbar was shocked.  It was obvious no khichdi would ever cook on a flame that didn’t do its job.

Akbar, unlike the naked Emperor, was quick to acknowledge his mistake and learn his lesson. We, however, continue to put our chosen ingredients in the pot with a flame that is too weak to cook anything of consequence.

With this reality, how could EdelGive with it’s small grants believe that our support could change anything or impact any lives?  We chose to be gardeners.  And in that choice we learnt how difficult it was to relinquish control while working harder than an Emperor.

.......

Philanthropists can be gardeners.  Their patient capital, empathetic support can go a long way in the relief that disenfranchised and marginalised people can receive.  The question to ask is, are we the gardeners we need to be?

Almost everyone in the philanthropic sector is now working on systems change which is a great thing.  However, we have no common understanding of what the system means in development.  And in our attempt to simplify it, we cannot make it the Emperor’s invisible clothes of our sector.

The “system” is not a monolith especially in the development sector.  Ideally, it should allow for multiple ideas to flourish, where social innovation thrives. Social evils take generations to be eradicated, so we believe there is something wrong with the role CBOs are playing in the solution. 

There is a belief that systems change will be done by us- the resource holders, the philanthropists, the intermediaries, experts and consultants and that large scale problems need large scale solutions. 

Scaled solutions can come from local empowerment to solve problems, from nurturing social innovations.  We need large scale structures that fuel local solutions.

Social innovation is at the heart of development work which can then be accelerated by long term thinking, government participation and community interests.  

And then a thousand flowers WILL bloom.

If we truly care, we need to start paying for robust systems and pay for good ideas to be tried, pay for failed attempts so that they become institutionally geared to do better.  Like the gardener who toils and ensures the land is nurtured to have a thousand flowers bloom, our efforts must address the resource needs for a sector in dire needs of resources.  Our support can be the flame that ignites the system to start working for its purpose.

We can of course be Emperors of our domains, wearing invisible clothes and continue to parade ourselves and our chosen ideas.  There will always be our loyal crowd and court jesters giving us the validation we seek.  

We can have reports that confirm our practices are the best and celebrate our intelligence to the cheerleaders.  There will always be an audience for that too.

Acknowledgement, applause and cheer from a complacent ecosystem is available if that is what we seek.  Honesty is not as prevalent as one believes.

However, there will come a day when one innocent voice will yell out at us…

“But he is naked!” 

For the sake of everything good in the world, I hope that does happen.