Ashoka reviews

The root of all the problems lies with the founder who is still the CEO since 1980. There is significant founder syndrome and nobody has the courage and/or ability to tell him what has been obvious to everyone else for so many years. The other top leadership members are also lacking. They are nice people but are ineffective. Ashoka is run like a family organization with little regard for or investment in basic, fundamental operations such as finance, accounting, marketing and human resources. It exemplifies what is wrong with most NGOs. It needs to be run like a professional organization, which requires real leadership and quality staff (which requires competitive pay). Good intentions and "nice" people do not cut it. Surely, being a nice person and being effective do not have to be mutually exclusive, but Ashoka needs a wake-up call. It suffers from a lethargic, complacent attitude that stems from being satisfied with marginal improvement from the status quo. Basic improvements are celebrated rather than expected. The standards are too low to make any real progress and become a relevant, yet alone a leading, citizen sector organization again.

The salaries are intentionally kept below the normal non-profit market rate, as a way to attract candidates who are likely to put high value on the org's mission, in lieu of salary. The culture of the org is generated by folks who can tolerate low pay. They fall into two main groups (a) young, idealistic, self-confident, high-performers who are attracted to the story and network around Ashoka and tend to burn out within 1-2 years (b) independently wealthy and/or semi-retired folks who are attracted to the mission of the org. Both groups tend to be drawn from elite backgrounds from the USA or other countries--not a lot of diversity in that regard. There are as many senior staff as mid-career staff. And, both of those groups are dwarfed by a very large number of early-career staff. The org isn't structured to provide its super-committed, entrepreneurial staff with opportunities to actually be entrepreneurial inside the org. The leadership of the org has learned that early-career staff burn out in 1-2 years, and they organize around that expectation. It is extremely rare for people in mid-career roles to elevate into senior roles. Instead, they constantly aim to hire people from outside for senior roles, so that they can benefit from the networks that the new outside senior people can bring to Ashoka's network. As other reviewers have noted, the CEO is micromanaging. The CEO is the founder and permanent member of the org's board. The other board members are old friends of the CEO. Also, the management team that the CEO has drawn around himself is an echo chamber. When talking publicly, the CEO espouses values of distributed fluid leadership and teamwork, and often supports that by pointing to the fact that there is no written org chart for Ashoka. However, the lack of an org chart serves the purpose of obscuring the actual personality-based, clique-based structure of authority that exists in practice, in the organization. This kind of thing is present in all organizations to some extent, but in Ashoka it's the main organizing principle. This produces very little transparency, accountability, or learning throughout the org.