A donor relationship gone wrong | Sapna Surendran

Can the power dynamic between a funder and grantee ever be equitable? Public health professional Dr Sapna Surendran tells us how a misalignment of expectations between the two led a programme to fail, and an organisation to lose a funder.

Dr Sapna Surendran is a public health professional currently working with an international nonprofit. She works closely with the national and state health ministries to strengthen private sector engagement for tuberculosis (TB) services. Sapna is also involved in the design and development of interventions in mental health and cancer control. At the national level, she has played a key role in developing and institutionalising the national guidance note on partnerships to improve the scope and quality of TB services at the community level.

Read more:

1. Read Sapna’s story on Failure Files.
2. Read more failure stories on Failure Files.
3. Check out some ideas and tools from Fail Forward to help your organisation take risks, learn, adapt, and fail intelligently.
4. Understand why the social sector must recognise and talk about failure.
5. Learn why talking about failure is crucial for growth.

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The Failure Files podcast is produced by India Development Review (IDR), an online journal focused on the development sector. IDR publishes cutting-edge ideas, lessons, and insights, written by and for the people working on some of India’s toughest problems. To learn more, visit www.idronline.org