a portal for NGO produce

two things which brought me this idea, one, intern's at Rediff, where i was basically involved in sales process for their e-shop for corporates, and second being this event we had at my present job, where some NGO's were called to showcase what they were doing. 

one thing that most NGO's now have realised is that they cannot work on charity, most of the one's there had this ingrained, they all knew that unless they make the people they are helping stand on their feet, and make a business, maybe a non profit one, out of their NGO, they can't survive. or atleast the survival is unpredictable. 

at the fair i saw that many of the NGO's had some creative products to sell. they were different in general, they had something to do with nature and saving the environment (so prds out of hand made paper, hand prints, natural colors etc), each product was different since everything was hand made, they all had that rich look to them. 

so i was wondering, why are they not selling, asked one of them, and he said they know how to make things, but they don't know how to sell.

well the problem was not only selling, but marketing in general. 

on a macro level problems that i see are - they have no idea about what people want, they just make stuff that they can, or rather people who they help can make, 

they don't know where and who to sell, presently they sell to people who visit their premise, so they have a small souvneir shop, and also at such fairs. once in a while they get corporate orders, out of people who are patrons of the institution or through word of mouth, but unlike word of the virtual mouth (on the net) true word of mouth takes a long time to spread, and mostly its a small brush fire which gets extinguished easily. also they can't create in big numbers, because they don't have the capacity and also they don't have the business acumen or atleast have not realised the business acumen to plan a business. and that brings me to the biggest problem, the people who run these places, don't have the business leadership, these are the NGO kinds, for whom money is a necessity, but otherwise a bad word. they are here to do good. thats the biggest problem.

so what do i suggest, well, why not have a e-portal which becomes a marketplace for products created by such NGO's. get a sizeable no of NGO's together, standardize two or three products from each of them, and put them up on the e-portal for sale. do not brand each of the products, atleast not on the front, in the detail section maybe. make sure that the e-portal is marketed as a NGO product portal, as a place where if u buy, you are also helping someone somewhere. maybe even put numbers, like if u buy this from here, ur helping teach one kid for 10 days or on those lines.  

why not brand on the front page, well simply because the sourcing from a particular NGO is not decided, some NGO might be able to put up things at some point of time.  and also because you donot want to be target one NGO, one cause, in the portal's eyes, every cause is equal. 

problems i see...investment on part of the NGO, one of the problems of coming to a marketplace is that you have to predict the sales, and have a percentage of that ready, alteast a percentage. but that can't be true for an NGO, because they cannot invest. so what do you do, well have a delivery time attached, something like if u buy this 'hand made cup' it will take 4 weeks to deliver, simply because its hand made.  it adds to the value...oh u know what, they take time to deliver becuase everythign is handmade, and the delivery times are different depending on the product.

also make sure you can gift these products to someone, the value attached for the giftee increases quite a lot if they know its from an NGO, and handmade, customised et al, and in turn it increases for the buyer as well. 

from a setting up point of view, this needs some work before hand. setting up the portal is the easier part, but get those initial NGO's needs a lot of leg work. need to find a sizable no of NGO's to contribute. also handling the Supply chain, taking the order and money (needs a payment gateway, can't have COD option, as money gets blocked), gettign the order to the NGO, making sure its produced and delivered on time will take some work. 

the good thing is that, once the portal becomes a little known, it will become easier from both sides. ofcourse, word will spread through the virtual mouth to the buyers, and through word of mouth to different NGO's. 

also have a suggestion place, where visitors to the site can suggest products. and ofcourse have a blog where contributors are the people running the NGO, where they can showcase the manufacturing process, or simple write about their NGO.

how does it sound, tell me if u implement it...happy to help.