Steven Solnick, Representative of Ford Foundation
in New Delhi Steven Solnick has been the Ford Foundation Representative
in New Delhi since October 1, 2008. He oversees the Foundation’s
annual grant making program in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, which
has averaged around $20 million in recent years. He also directs
all administrative aspects of the Foundation’s work, manages
the Foundation’s relationships with host governments, local
partners and the international community. Prior to his arrival in
India, he was the Foundation’s Moscow Representative from
May 2002 until July 2008. There he also managed the Foundation’s
grant portfolios in the areas of HIV-AIDS and economic development
in Russia.
Before joining the Ford Foundation in 2002, Dr. Solnick was Professor
of Political Science at Columbia University and coordinator for
Russian Studies at Columbia’s Harriman Institute. He is the
author of Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions
(Harvard Univ. Press, 1998) and numerous articles on comparative
political economy and bargaining in federal systems.
Dr. Solnick earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University,
a B.A. in Politics and Economics from Oxford University (where he
was a Marshall Scholar) and an S.B. in Physics from M.I.T. He has
also been a Fulbright Scholar at Moscow State University and a National
Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is a
life member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
How do you identify the NGOs to provide funds?
The common unifying theme in identifying the focus of the Foundation’s
resources is the mission of social justice and a commitment to working
with those closest to the problems to find new solutions. To ensure
that the different offices of the Ford Foundation concentrate on
issues most relevant to their unique settings, each has adopted
a regional strategy that takes into account local challenges and
opportunities. Based on these regional strategies, the New Delhi
office will implement six initiatives for grant making.
The six initiatives identified by the New Delhi office are:
Promoting transparent, effective and accountable government
Advancing economic and social rights
Expanding livelihood opportunities for poor households
Expanding community rights over natural resources
Advancing public services media
Policies and programs for adolescent sexual and reproductive
health
Our Program Officers who oversee the initiatives are experts in
their respective fields and we engage in a very broad process of
identifying NGOs and other recipients of our funds. We attend conferences,
visit projects in the field, receive both solicited and unsolicited
proposals that we review and are in constant touch with experts
in the field.
What are other criteria’s from your side to select
the NGOs for funding?
We look for work that is innovative, that seeks to have impact
and is significant in the field. But beyond that we try to be very
sensitive to the fact that every project has unique requirements,
special needs, and that every organization has particular skills
and unique talent. Finding ways to assess and evaluate our grant
making makes our own strategies and practices more self-critical,
transparent and successful, and it also helps our grantees become
more effective by adding knowledge to their fields.
Which kind of steps needs to be taken by NGOs to approach
you?
We ask that organizations that have not spoken or contacted us
to send us a brief introduction of the organization and the project
that they want funded. This may be a two or three page (at the most)
concept note describing the problem that they seek to address, their
approach and their particular skills. We will review this concept
note in the context of our funding priorities along with other projects
we may be funding and the resources available with us. If there
is a possibility that we might provide funding we would contact
the organization with a request to send a detailed proposal. While
working in the field, our Program Officers are also looking at the
most interesting work on the ground and we may start the conversation
asking the organization to prepare a proposal.
Till the date how many NGOs have got benefited from you?
Our grants tend to be on the larger side and we do not provide too
many each year. As an approximate number we make about 75 to 100
grants each year, and as you are aware, the Ford Foundation has
been in India for close to 60 years now.
