When I look at the general guidelines (I don't know if this is the right term) for things that village LRs can do to verify their projects I think these are good and generally should be within reach for most villages. What might need to change is the way Nabuur handles it right now. At the moment I am of the impression that Nabuur says villages MAY do this but it is not strongly encouraged or insisted that they do so. Would it be more beneficial if Nabuur made these suggestions a necessity instead i.e. villages have to at least show proof of registration of their organisations or seek testimonials and other forms of evidence as part of the verification process.

I hesitate on this one because I like the idea of everyone (whether they have solid proof or not) having access to the help they need to develop their communities. However, on the other hand I see why this verification is important and I wonder how easy (or difficult) it will be for the average village to present this proof.

--
'If you are willing to change the world, let love be your energy.' Robbie Williams

In our previous discussions, the subject of fundraising was brought up many times. I think this is one area where we realize the message has been inconsistent - there is a basic need and we'd like to find a solution so that people aren't confused.

We seem to have 2 basic scenarios:

1. Some volunteers choose to donate to a project directly via Nabuur - this is typically goods or sometimes money.

2. Projects sign up with outside services (1% Club, Betterplace.org, Global Giving, etc) and then promote their fundraisers via Nabuur.

In the first scenario - this is where some type of consistent level of verification (to the extent possible) would be very good to have here on the Nabuur site. I think it's important to recognize though that even the best project vetting cannot prevent/protect you from being taken advantage of by a deceitful person.

There are basic things that projects can do here - such as showing pictures of where they work, scanning registration certificates and posting so that all can see the registration is current...one of the things that Betterplace.org does is offers projects the ability to post references from what they call project advocates and/or visitors. Site users are also offered the opportunity to rate projects based on the clarity of the information provided. We could easily set up similar here.

Some possible barriers may be - lack of a camera to take pictures, lack of funds for scanning, lack of consistent computer access...but really, given the projects that are posted now - people seem to find a way to make these things happen. Maybe not right away - and definitely not all projects have for example their registration certificate posted, but typically anytime I have asked to see one it has been produced.

In the 2nd scenario - where projects are fundraising via an outside source, these organizations have built in some level of verification to their own process already. To donate, you see in the other organization's documentation what is done to verify projects. Sometimes you have to look for that, but typically in my experience it's not hard to see or find.

The other thing that I think we need to realistically consider here is registration. Several months ago registration was stopped. Since September - we have had 197 people (I just checked the number) fill out the form requesting to be contacted when registration reopens. The other posted task deals specifically with finding ways to work smarter, network better, etc. so I don't want to get into that here. If/when we do reopen registration - which I think all of us hope one day we will be in a position to do, having some aspects of project verification as part of the registration and/or village set up process will be ideal.

Personally, right now I am most concerned with the projects already posted, but this is still an area I think we'll need to think about.

Jennifer

The villages can bld trust online when we educate or motivate the community people.i mean that to start any task inside of community frstly we will adopt or understand the requirements community.

--
Hidayat

Hi everyone-

I just went back through the feedback provided for this task so far and would like to summarize where we are at this point.

Recommendations

1. Villages should show proof of registration.
2. Villages should seek testimonials and/references from people who have benefited from the work of their organization or those who have done business with the organization.
3. Nabuur should offer others the opportunity to rate the quality of the information presented for each village (is there enough information provided or too little?)
4. It should be made very clear on the village pages whether or not the project is posted by an officially recognized organization. If it is not, there should be an explanation as to why it is not.
5. Villages could provide links to their official website and/or blog site as well as links to other places where they have an online presence.
6. Villages could share information on articles published about their work.
7. Villages should be able to demonstrate local community involvement/commitment to the project.

The other recommendation that was made a few times was that any village promoting fundraising on the Nabuur site itself, must be able to show they are registered. Here though, we still have a discrepancy between the guidelines we wrote and what is actually happening - so we may need to consider a revision to the guidelines to reflect this. We need to be consistent with what we say and what we actually put into practice.

Does anyone else have any recommendations to add? If not, I will close this task out. It's already been up about a month longer than I originally intended, but I was really hoping for more feedback on the thoughts, suggestions and ideas presented. It would be great to hear from those of you who are local representatives - do you think these recommendations are fair? Do they reflect realistic expectations?

Kind regards-

Jennifer