1Organisational Profile

1.1Genesis
The genesis of the organisation can be traced to an action group formed entirely by
women to work for women and children. The group started working in October 1986 in
an informal manner. The organisation was formally registered under the Societies
Registration Act XXI of 1860. In 1987, the organisation moved on from working with
urban beedi rolling women and rag picking children to rural areas, especially in unicaste
groups. The strategy was the implementation of any activity through local women groups
called Sangams. Thus it was one of the pioneers of the SHG model in Tamil Nadu.

One of the milestones in the history of the organisation was its tie-up with the Social
Work and Research Centre, Tilonia in 1987. Many programmes have been inspired from
those run by the SWRC such as the Barefoot Agricultural and Veterinary Technician
Programme. The genesis has left its imprint in the way organisation functions even now.
It has a strong positive discrimination towards women in its recruitment policy. Even
though it has moved on from working with children and women to many other
programmes, it still is best known as one which spearheads child rights promotion
activities.

1.2Vision and Mission

Vision
“To create a fair, just and gender sensitive society by people’s own initiative”
Mission
• To effect a change in the community – a change in the life of poor women and
other marginalised by effecting people’s action
• To form effective micro-groups in the community and to network them to form
people’s organisations towards creating a sustainable developmental system
• To train local youth – women and men to sustain the developmental process
• To develop natural resources and manage them and to create linkages between
people’s organisation and eco generation in a just and equitable manner.

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 • To link with other organisations and to effect a change in the policy of the
government and other establishment
• To support and network with other NGOs with similar mission and vision
1.3 Area of Coverage
Tiruchirappalli was the first district covered by LEAD. But, LEAD has now successfully
spread its effect to the surrounding districts thus covering ten districts of Tamilnadu a
Southern State of India. These districts are Trichirapalli, Karur, Perambalur, Erode,
Namakkal, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Madurai, Cuddalore and Vilupuram. LEAD has
expanded its coverage to include Hassan District of Karnataka and Union territory of
Pondicherry

1.4 Programmes

1) Natural Resource Regeneration Management

LEAD’s NRRM work at present is carried out in two districts – Karur and Perambalur.
Based on the experiences, LEAD has started working with NABARD in a watershed
development programme in Dindigul District. The project attempts to carry out
innovative farm and farmer related resource generation activities to increase the farm
production. The activities include construction of check dams, desilting of tanks,
construction of farms ponds and percolation tanks

2) Water and Sanitation Programme

The major success achieved by LEAD in this area has been in the SODIS(Solar
Disinfection) Programme. This is a simple, inexpensive method used to treat water and
make it free of e.coli. This programme was put to good use during the tsunami when
clean drinking water was hard to obtain. The offices of LEAD also use water disinfected
by this process.

2) Empowering the disabled programme

LEAD has formed 110 sangams comprising of 1294 members spread out in the districts
of Karur and Dindigul. These sangams are federated to form 15 cluster federations.

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Though the difficulty of the disabled to save when they cannot earn sufficiently is
understood, the disabled too save and also manage credit from their savings and from
external credit institutions like Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) and Small Industries
Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and commercial banks - State Bank of India,
have extended credit to sangams for disabled.
The organisation conducts awareness programmes in villages and also facilitates
treatment of disabled children in hospitals to remedy the disability if possible. One
aspect which stands out is the recruitment of disabled people for these programmes,
which helps them better understand the needs of the people whom they work for.

3) Child Rights Promotion

This is one area which has remained dear to the organisation right from its inception.
Since 1990, it has been working with children employed in the textile sector in Karur
district. Working is mostly on a campaign mode. LEAD runs the state secretariat for the
Campaign Against Child Labour(CACL) in Tamil Nadu. LEAD is also part of the
Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion (CASSA). The executive director of LEAD,
Mrs.N.Radha is the convenor for CACL in Tamil Nadu. She is also a member of the
Juvenile Justice Board in Tamil Nadu.

4) Microfinance
The microfinance programme of the organisation shall be explained in greater detail, as
it offers an opportunity to understand the change that was brought about to respond to
the changes in the environment.

1.5 Advocacy

Advocacy and networking with other NGOs is second nature to an organization which
started off on a campaign mode and still adopts the same approach in many of its
programmes. In the field of child rights promotion, one of the areas where its credentials
are the strongest, LEAD has a number of network partners. It runs the State secretarial for
the Campaign Against Child Labour(CACL) in Tamil Nadu. It is also a part of the

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Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion(CASSA). The Executive Director is a member
of the Juvenile Justice Board of Tamil Nadu. Other network partners of the organisation
include

1. Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion (CASSA)

2. Campaign Against Child Trafficking (CACT)

3. Campaign Against Domestic Child Labour

4. PASUMAI IYAKKAM

5. Society for Activating, Motivating, Promoting and Development Alternatives

(SAMPDA) – A National network.

6. SA DHAN Network.

1.6 Networking with other NGOs

The organization cherishes its association with the Social Work and Research Centre
Tilonia, from where it draws inspiration for some of its programmes like the Barefoot
Agriculture and Barefoot Veterinary technician projects. The watershed team has received
assistance from WOTR(Watershed Organisation Trsut) which is well known for their
watershed activities in Maharashtra. The technical assistance is also provided by the
Action for Food Processing(AFPRO) in Bangalore.

2 Organisation Structure
Physical Deployment – The head office is situated in Tiruchirapalli with branch offices
spread over 10 districts in Tamil Nadu, one in Pondicherry and in Hassan district in
Karnataka. The programme coordinators are based at the Head Office. There are
programme supervisors in each branch who work under the programme coordinators in
Trichy. There is a coordinator for each branch who is in charge of all the programmes in
the branches. Thus the programme supervisors report to two different people – the
coordinator at the branch level and the project coordinator at the Head office level.

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The reporting structures in the organisation are fairly rigid. The coordinators of all
branches have a monthly meeting at the Head office where the performance of the
various branches is discussed.

Executive Committee

Executive Director

Programme Accounts HRD Officer

Coordinators Officer Coordinator

Accts Staff

Programme
Supervisors

Animators

2.1 Dimensions of Organisation Structure

1) Complexity
i) Horizontal differentiation
The degree of horizontal differentiation is quite high in the organisation. The degree of
separation between the units is mostly due to the nature of the tasks that they perform and

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the orientation that they are given after joining the organisation. Each of the development
projects has a coordinator who has a team working under him. The supervisors and the
animators in the development projects have a moderate degree of functional
specialization.

ii) Vertical Differentiation

Vertical differentiation is quite low with few levels separating the top level leadership
from the lower level staff. This also implies that the difference in authority and
responsibility is clear cut and sharp from one level to the other. For the coordinators the
span of control is wide. The consequence of the low vertical differentiation is that the
opportunities for promotion are quite low.

iii) Spatial Differentiation

The degree of spatial differentiation is quite high with operations spread over 10 districts
in Tamilnadu , in Pondicherry and in Hassan(Karnataka)

2) Formalisation
Formalisation is quite high in the organisation. The degree of formalisation differs from
one programme to another. The microfinance programme gives clear-cut targets to be met
and the criterion for loan disbursement is also clearly spelt out. Moving from MF to child
rights, the animators enjoy a certain amount of discretion in implementing the tasks at the
field level. This is more due to the fact that child rights programmes require a campaign
mode of working .Besides one often needs to innovate while working with children.
Formalization is still quite high as the ways the campaigns are to be led are dictated from
the top.

Induction training is one of the major formalisation techniques employed in which the
newly recruited staff learn the job while working under senior members of the
organisation.

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3) Centralization
Centralization is high in the organisation. The authority clearly flows from the Executive
Director to project coordinators to the branch offices. Centralization is necessitated by the
fact that the employees at the lower level do not always have the skill sets necessary for
taking decisions on their own.
2.3 Personnel
The organisation describes itself as a women’s development initiative. The personnel
policy also is in keeping with this stature.

Sl.No Name of the programme Human

Resource
1 Savings and credit management 229
programme

Disability development and

2 32
rehabilitation project

Natural Resource Regeneration

3 46
and Management

4 16
Arogya – Community Hygiene
Programme

5 Dalit Women Rights Programme 5

6 Child Right’s Interventions 12

7 SODIS 21

8 Administrative Staff 20

9 Support Staff 41

10 Tsunami Relief Staff 47

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The organisation has positive gender discrimination towards women. The micro credit
programme currently employs 246 people out of which 145 are female. The other
programmes also have equal number, if not more, number of women as compared to men.
This policy gives more importance to equity issues as compared to efficiency issues.

Another feature of the personnel policy is that, a large number of disabled people are
employed in the disabled development programmes. This has had a positive effect on the
functioning of the programme as they are better able to appreciate the problems faced by
people suffering from various disabilities.

As has been stated earlier, the low vertical differentiation implies that there are few
promotion opportunities in the organisation. Most of the staff at the lower level looks
upon the organisation as a place where they get an initial experience before they move
onto other opportunities. The attrition of staff at the lower level does not affect the
organisation much because the skill sets are such that replacements are easy to find.

There are very few professionals in the organisation. Some programmes like NRRM,
disability development, microfinance have professionals specialized in the respective
fields. With the expansion of the microfinance programme, the organisation has felt the
need to employ professionals in finance.

3. Tracking changes in the Microfinance Programme

The microfinance programme offers an excellent insight into how the organisation has
responded to the changes in the environment.

Beginning – In the early nineties LEAD’s team went for an exposure visit to MYRADA,
Thalavadi, unit. This visit laid the foundation of LEAD’s micro credit programme. Based
upon the experience the team designed its own model of micro credit i.e. the facilitation
(Self Help Group and Federation) model. The norms of functioning were evolved.
In the initial years the focus was primarily on the linking the SHGs with the local
commercial bank for meeting their credit requirement. The programme was quite

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successful with the Panjapatti branch winning accolades for having linkages with the
maximum number of SHGs in the country.

Need for change – The existing system could not cope with the changes taking place in
the environment. Hence the need for a change was felt in the organisation. Arranging
bank-linkages was a very resource intensive process and it was not a very smooth
process. Frequent transfers of branch managers disrupted the process. The delays in
linkages meant groups had to wait for taking credit. Thus the system was inadequate to
handle the task of linking more Sangams to the banks. The second problem was with
older groups. Some groups were accumulating huge amounts of funds in their Sangams
and because there were excess funds, some women in the group were tempted to become
slack in their repayments. Credit being greater than the demand, loan repayment
schedules was not enforced. This lead to other groups facing difficulty in getting credit.
The organisation faced this mismatch in supply and demand for credit when one Sangam
might have accumulated surplus savings whilst another in need of capital was unable to
acquire loans quick enough

Change Effected
The solution arrived at was to move towards an “aggregated system”. Under this system,
the sangams come under a larger federation, which gets operationalised. The existing
pattern of sangams as cost centres shift upwards to a federation, which becomes a larger
cost center. The new structure needed to have a legal sanction to collect savings,
dispense credit and collect the repayment. A Mutual Benefit Trust was envisioned as the
legal structure at the level of the federation. Sangams and federations would retain their
identity. The MBTs would function only as economic units. The MBTs would negotiate
with the banks and avail loans for the entire member Sangams.
The advantages that were seen was
i) the new groups could utilize surplus funds from the older groups
ii) The members could also access savings and the Trust could now offer
a 3 percent interest on the savings of the members.

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 iii) The bargaining power of the federations with financial institutions
increases because of the larger size of the Trust funds
iv) The singe window concept in which loans for all Sangams were taken
care of under one structure saved on transaction costs for the Sangams
as well as for the organisation.

The system also had its own challenges

i) The new system required sound financial management skills on the part
of the Trust
ii) The women might have a sense of loss of ownership, as their savings
and loan repayments are remitted to the Trust account rather than to
their Sangam account.

Outcome
In 1999 40 cluster level federations were brought into six Area Level Federations and
were registered under the Trust Act. The diagrammatic representation of the structure is
shown below. The executive committee consists of members from each of the area level
federations. The

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 Executive Committee

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

ALF

Trus Trus
t1 t2

CLF CLF CLF CLF CLF CLF

SHGs SHGs SHGs SHGs SHGs SHGs

ALF – Area Level Federation

CLF – Cluster Level Federation

The next phase

The need for hiving off microfinance operations as a separate entity led to the search for
various alternative forms. The organisation finally decided on the multi state cooperative
form. The reasons that led to this were

1) It is a mutual benefit organisation

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2) Members contribute as share which becomes the equity of the entity

3) Compulsory, forced and voluntary savings are possible

4) There is legal sanction to carry out financial intermediation and lesser Government
control

5) Credit services are possible

6) In-house insurance is possible with IRDA permission

7) Income Tax exemption is available

8) Profit could be made which increases the capability of the organisation to draw more
credit

The limitations of the MFI structure was that it would require multistate operations

Outcome
LEAD formally registered the Sangamam women’s multi purpose thrift and savings
credit cooperative limited on September 30th 2004. The MFI now has operations in three
states – Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and in Karnataka.

By the end of June 2005 The MFI had cumulative shares of 62664 amounting to a share
capital of 62,66,400. The Sangamam loan disbursals amounted to Rs8.4 million wheress
the loans outstanding were Rs6.98 million.

The structure of the MFI draws heavily from the earlier structure. The Sangamam forms
the informal part of the institution whereas the cooperative forms the formal part of the
institution. The members of the existing SHGs were encouraged to become shareholders
in SMCS by subscribing to at least one share of Rs.100 and to continue the monthly
savings thereafter. Membership was open to new members also.

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 Sangamam
(informal) Sangamam Women’s Multi
Purpose Thrift and Credit
Cooperative Society Ltd (formal)
Area Level
Federation

Cluster level Mutual Benefit Branches of Sangamam

Federation Trust (not Women’s Multi Purpose
operationalised) Thrift and Credit
Cooperative Society Ltd
Sangam (SMSCS)

M
ember
s

4. Applying the 7S framework to the Tsunami Office of LEAD in Cuddalore

The tsunami office of LEAD was established in Cuddalore in January 2005 to respond to
the huge humanitarian relief efforts that was required in the aftermath of the Tsunami.
LEAD had responded swiftly to the Tsunami. Initially the staff was drawn from the head
office in Tiruchirapalli.

Why 7S framework is applicable.

The 7S framework helps an organisation to know whether the time is ripe for change.
Once the decision has been made, it gives insights into the working of the organisation
that can be used for strategic planning. The Tsunami office was established to deal with
the most pressing need of administering relief to the victims. The work over the last
seven months has progressed from that of relief to rehabilitation. Moving on, the office is
trying to bring in other programmes including disability development and microfinance.

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This is where the 7s framework fits in as the organisation tries to understand the seven
crucial elements and formulate a long term plan based on the understanding.
Strategy
1) When work started in Cuddalore the single point of focus was to provide relief to
the people worst affected by the Tsunami. It was obvious that the marine fishing
community were the most affected, suffering the most in terms of loss of life and
property. This was the reason LEAD, as well as the other NGOs concentrated
their efforts n providing relief to the marine villages dotting the coastline.
2) Towards this end the organisation made use of the networking kills of the staff
and their local knowledge to tie up with local community leaders in reaching out
to those most affected by the Tsunami
3) Although work started off with providing relief supplies, the realization soon
came that the scars of the tragedy were much deeper. Children were one of the
worst hit, carrying with them grim memories of the disaster. Herein LEAD
perceived the opportunity to leverage its skills to reach out to the affected
children. It was a move which fitted in well with what the organisation was best at
doing- working towards giving children the rights due to them. The credibility
that it had earned through its earlier work with children, as well as the networking
it had with campaigns like the Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL) helped
the cause. Training in psycho-social care imparted by experts from NIMHANS
(National Institute of Mental health and Neuro Sciences) provided the needed
expertise to the LEAD staff.
4) There were communities like the inland fishing community which were left out in
the first flood of relief efforts. They were affected in good measure due to loss of
fishing gear, as well the disruption in marine fish catch which also forms an
integral part of their livelihood. Reaching out to these communities formed the
next part of the efforts.
5) Rehabilitation had to follow relief in the usual course. Herein LEAD has
responded in its own way, mostly through home renovation and cash for work
programmes. Giving new crafts and nets and repairing damaged ones has been

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 done but in a small way as there were more experienced NGOs like SIFFs which
were already doing work in this area.
6) LEAD is now on its way to implementing other programmes like microfinance.
However, it is facing stiff competition in this area from other NGOs which are
prepared to dole out freebies to attract women’s groups towards them.

Ratio analysis of the money Spent on Tsunami Relief (till June2005)

Cash in hand to total
Received 23.13%

Admin to total Expenditure 4.27%

Vet Care to total Expenditure 3.77%

Health and SODIS 0.26%

Housing 2.73%

Boats and Nets 1.57%

Child Kits and Child Care 10.28%

Cash for work(18mar-17may) 22.98%

Family Kits and Temp Shelter 17.12%

Relief Kits 37.00%

99.98%

A simple ratio analysis of the money spent on tsunami relief in Cuddalore shows that
relief kits account for the maximum amount spent. This is in keeping with the strategy
first adopted- that of providing immediate relief. 10.28% of the money has been spent
on child relief. Although in percentage terms this might seem small, considerable
efforts have been placed in child relief. This is because working with children is a
labour intensive process, whereas relief kits are material intensive. This shows that
the strategy adopted as well as the strategy revealed are the same.

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 Structure
1) No structure was imposed on the Tsunami office. It was a fresh start. This was kept
so because responding to the here and now of relief efforts would not have been
possible if time was spent on building up structures. The absence of a structure might
have resulted in duplication of efforts but the quickness of response was felt to be
more important. Even seven months after the Tsunami the structure in the Cuddalore
office remains different from that of the other branches. The structure has evolved on
its own and has not been imposed from the head office.

Coordinator

MFI branch Accounts Officer Supervisors - 3

Manager

SODIS Child Home

Rights Renovation

Animators

Horizontal differentiation is there to a lower extent. The animators work for all three
programmes. This is because the office started off with relief activities alone, other
programmes being added later, using the same people who had been active participants in
the relief efforts.

Systems
1) The systems in place in Cuddalore are very simple in nature. There is a daily review
meeting at which the work done on the previous day, as well as the activity for the day

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ahead are stated by each person. The meetings are also used to ascertain the hierarchy in
place.
2) Work is planned at short notice. This has been an after effect of the tsunami relief
work. However the office is on its way to drawing up a three year plan for its work in
Cuddalore.

Style
The culture of the Tsunami office is an amalgamation of the old culture from existing
offices as well a newly evolved one.
1) As far as shared values are concerned, working for children’s rights seems to be
one cause which all the staff members hold dear. This is one aspect in which the
office is similar to the rest of the organisation.
2) The songs on the LEAD repertoire, which are enacted in front of children, has
also been passed on from the head office. The periodic training in song and drama
involving the entire staff in the office also creates a bonding among them.
3) The authority as in other offices clearly flows from the Executive Director to the
Coordinator and then to the staff.
Points where it differs from the rest of the organisation
2) There are no fixed desks for people to work at. They work wherever they find an
unoccupied desk space.
3) The average age of the staff in the office being quite low, the energy in the place
is palpable higher than at other offices. The working environment is more
informal, even though hierarchy still remains asserted.

Staff
1) Staff in Cuddalore mostly consists of people from outside the district. Majority of
them have studied up to Higher Secondary level.
2) The average age being quite low, there is a fair amount of peer level critical
review which takes place during the daily review meetings.
3) In keeping with the gender perspective of the organisation, more than half the
staff employed is women.

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 4) The staff are trained in child rights activities, achieved through a mix of song and
drama. Apart from this they have undergone training in psycho-social care under
experts from NIMHANS.
5) As opposed to other offices of the organisation, the same person mobilizes
Sangams (women’s groups) for the MFI, organizes committees of children and
conducts awareness sessions on SODIS.
6) With few promotion opportunities at present, the attrition rate is an area of
concern that the organisation has to address while going in for expansion plans.

Skills
Cuddalore was a new experience for LEAD, responding to a crisis of untold dimensions.
The community, the fishing community, was one with whom the organisation had never
worked before. Thus it was imperative that it starts out with what it was best at –
children’s and women’s rights. The skill sets of the staff have also been developed in tune
with the organisational competence. This can be seen in the way the office responded to
the problem of missing children, right after the tsunami. The trend continued with the
care extended to the children affected by the fear of the Tsunami. It continues with the
campaign it runs to ensure that the Government Order 33, which calls for a waiver of the
tuition fees in schools and villages for tsunami affected children, is followed in spirit.

Findings
1) Horizontal differentiation might be necessitated when the organisation gets into other
programmes. The long term planning of the office also includes dealing with salinity
infestation and getting into the fisheries sector. Specialists in the respective sectors
will be needed.
2) The strategy to counter the poaching of women’s groups by other NGOs might just
well be to continue with what it is doing presently. Once the influx of money for
relief operations stops, only those NGOs with long term commitment shall be left.
3) Skills in areas other than child care are lacking at the moment. Training in areas like
microfinance would boost the motivation of the lower level workers.

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4) The organisation could encourage certain aspects of the culture in the Cuddalore
office like the peer level critical review. This could also be replicated in other offices
as well.

5. Learning from an Organisational Understanding Perspective

One of the more profound learning from the OTS segment has been the way
organisations respond to events which can never be planned for. The way LEAD
responded to the Tsunami was different from the way other organisations responded. It
leveraged its core competency in reaching out to the affected children instead of
spreading its resources thin by focussing on areas which were new to its functional
competency.

The existence of two different cultures within the same organisation was another point
which was striking. The culture at the tsunami office was deliberately kept different from
that at the Head office, something which seems to have paid off.

Organisations also have a character of their own, just like human beings have. The
identity of being a women’s development initiative is one which is dear to LEAD

6. Conclusion
The influence of the causes dear to the founder members of the organisation can still be
seen dictating the course that the organisation takes. The organisation has aspirations to
expand its reach to more areas. It also wants to get into livelihood programmes in a larger
scale. This is one front on which it has had limited success. The nature of its activities has
been expanding from being merely that of a campaigner against child labour and for
women’s rights to having a bearing on the financial independence of the women with
whom it works. This would require greater professional assistance in terms of developing
expertise in functional areas like finance and entrepreneurship.

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References
1)Robbins,Stephen P. Organization Theory: Structure Design and Applications Prentice-
Hall of India Private limited.
2) Annual Reports of the Organisation
3) 7S Framework by the Mckinsey company
4)Paper on MIS in LEAD written by Mr.S.Ananthanarayana Sharma, Centre for Action
Research and Training, Madurai, Mr.C.Anuraj (HRD manager of LEAD) and
Mrs.Sribharathi Mansoor.(MIS Manager of LEAD)

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