The Collective works with 140 villages in 3 mandals of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. The main activities of the Collective are ecorestoration, promotion of organic farming, alternative banking, women empowerment, alternative education, child rights, leadership training of youth and services to people with disability.

All activities are carried out by various working groups. There are three general working groups for each Mandal that the Collective is working in. There are seven working groups that look after specific activities -

• "Chiguru" that looks after the Children's education project,
• "Kalpavalli" that that looks after the Forest regeneration project,
• "Swasakthi" that looks after Women empowerment initiatives,
• "RSRLP" that looks after Livelihood enhancement through organic farming and livestock provision,
• "Timbaktu Organic" that promotes Organic farming,
• "Dharani" that promotes Marketing of organic produce,
• "Sruthi" that looks after general administration of all the projects with special emphasis in Finances.

All decisions concerning the day to day operations and activities are taken during the regular monthly or fortnightly meetings of the working groups. Programme planning, reporting, monitoring and financial monitoring are part of the regular agenda during these meetings.

For matters that do not come within the scope of these meetings, there is a different forum called the Steering Committee. This comprises of the leaders of the various working groups. This committee meets on a fortnightly basis.

All the full time functionaries of the Collective, known as the "Timbaktu Panchayathi", meet once a month. This deals with planning for any programme that needs to be done jointly by all the working groups, sharing of the monthly reports of all these working groups, decisions that need to be taken together with all members and introduction to any one subject related to development.

All matters concerning policy are taken up and decided by the Managing Committee which meets once in three months. The Annual General Body meeting is held once a year after the statutory audit has been completed.

Planning and monitoring of programmes take place at various levels. This includes the CBO's, the working groups, the steering committee and the Timbaktu Panchayathi. Financial Monitoring is also done at these levels. For evaluations, external evaluators are invited. Though the overall responsibility of financial management rests with "Sruthi" working group, by and large the responsibility of financial management is decentralised.

Financial monitoring is done on a monthly basis. Based on the sanctioned annual budget, monthly budgets are prepared by the working groups and submitted to "Sruthi" office. This monthly budget also denotes date wise cash requirements. After this budget is authorised by the Programme Coordinator and Programme Director, the accountant at "Sruthi" makes payments to the respective working group. Each working group has one person who is trained to manage the monthly accounts of the group. All the bills are submitted to "Sruthi", which in turn gives back to the respective working group in the form of accounts statement for the concerned month, for discussions in the respective working group meetings.

The accounts are computerised. An external auditor, who also gives suggestions for improvements wherever required, conducts the annual statutory audit.

The General Body of Timbaktu Collective (9 members)
The Managing Committee (5 members)
The Steering Committee (9 members)

Working Groups
Swasakthi 

Kalpavalli

Chiguru 

RSRLP

Timbaktu Organic

Dharani

Sruthi

The Timbaktu Panchayati
All full time functionaries

Meetings
General Body : Once a year
Managing Committee : Once in three months
Steering committee : Once a fortnight
Working groups : Once a week or fortnight
Timbaktu Panchayathi : Once a month