Archive for August, 2009

The following is the second in a series of posts in which Beyond Profit will feature strong and successful women in social enterprise. Joanna Harries, an Acumen Fund Fellow at Dial 1298 for Ambulance, based in Mumbai, reports.

A Conversation with Pooja Warier

Co-Founder, Unltd India

A mantra to live by: If no one else will take the initiative, then do it yourself.

Pooja Warier, the co-founder of Unltd India, has this to say for women entrepreneurs, “If being an entrepreneur is tough, then being a woman entrepreneur is tougher, and being a young woman entrepreneur is tougher still.”

But this hasn’t stopped her. Pooja has never opted for the easy path in life. In fact, her dream job when she was a girl growing up in Kerala was to become an astronaut. When she reached adulthood and realized math and science were not her strengths, she became interested in psychology, which eventually led her to become a social entrepreneur. Pooja describes this career change as an unconscious decision; one day she looked up and realized the work she was doing constituted the work of a social entrepreneur.

The process of transforming into a social entrepreneur started when Pooja was working with an organization in Mumbai focused on educating street children. After six months, Pooja noticed a major difference in the way she viewed her work as compared to the way the founders of the organization felt. The organization’s work was their life’s passion, whereas for Pooja, it was just a job.  Through them, however, she understood the power to create social impact by living and breathing what you do each day.

She quit the next day.

Pooja cites this experience as a key juncture on her path to becoming a social entrepreneur. It turns out that determining what you don’t want to do, is as important as discovering what you do want to do.

Unltd India* provides seed funding, along with start-up services, to individuals with an idea or early stage social venture.

The organization is unique in the social investing space in that it focuses on investment in individuals with no prior track record–essentially, Unltd takes risk where other investors would not.

Pooja was first exposed to Unltd’s investing strategy while working in the Unltd UK office, where she met her founding partner, Richard. The potential for the Unltd model to work in India was clear. Pooja carried that passion forward and gained internal support to shadow three entrepreneurs in India in 2006 to understand their specific start-up requirements. Encouraged by her findings, Pooja approached large Foundations and NGOs in India to adopt the model. Although intrigued, none of these incumbent organizations were willing to run with the idea. Feeling frustrated, Pooja recalls a conversation with Unltd UK’s CEO at the time, John Rafferty, who said, “Why don’t you just do it yourself?” And so she did.

Armed with a strong co-founder in Richard, she launched Unltd India in 2007. They have provided monetary and management support to 44 investees in India and are adding more. Now, Pooja says, her brain will not turn off.  She constantly sees possibilities for new social ventures. She and Richard are the force behind, Journeys’ for Change, and the recent launch of the HUB in Mumbai, a creative workspace that brings together and encourages collaboration among those working on the most pressing social issues.

When asked if she views herself as a leader, Pooja answers yes, but she defines it as part of being a role model to her investees and staff. Her view – “If you are asking others to take initiative, you need to exemplify it yourself.”

*UnLtd India is based on the Unltd UK model. See http://www.unltd.org.uk/ for more information.

Shree Ravindranath is an Associate Vice President at Intellecap. Intellecap (publisher of Beyond Profit) is a for-profit development firm with a focus on advisory solutions and intermediating capital for small and medium enterprise development.

It is that time of year in India when the streets light up with the color and gaiety of the Ganesha festival. The festivities are synonymous with people distributing sweets, and with the fanfare accompanying the immersion of idols of the elephant god Ganesh in local bodies of water. In spite of the piety, the immersion of these idols causes water pollution due to the presence of lead in paint and other non-biodegradeables. The situation this year might be worse than usual, for the monsoon has played truant. Over 250 districts – about half of the country – are declared drought hit. Scarce rains also mean trouble in urban areas, with some ground water sources running dry.

One enterprise in Hyderabad, India, is innovatively addressing both of these problems. The Emerald Mithai (sweet) Shop, located at the center of the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad, is an eco-friendly business that promotes the use of natural materials, recycling, and water conservation as a way to go beyond profit.

The shop sells lip-smacking sweets and savory snacks on ordinary days. The eatables are popular because the ingredients are all-natural and vegan. Each year during August and September, it transforms into a source of eco-friendly idols of worship. A banner outside the shop (see photo) announces the distribution of clay idols in the interest of the environment. Employees of the enterprise pack individual idols in newspapers and cheerfully hand them over to the crowds. Each clay idol taken away is a measurable reduction in environmental pollution!

Posters in the shop ask customers to inform the management of dried up bore-wells in their neighborhood. Experts on bore-well recharge can be contacted through the shop. A display model demonstrates the principle of rainwater recharge and take-away bags proudly proclaim that the Emerald team has recharged more than 50 wells.

The shop also offers a monetary incentive for customers to become enviro-converts – they get discounts if they bring their own bags and if they hand over plastic bags for recycling.

The promoter of Emerald, Mr. Vijayan, also runs an NGO named SAVE (Society for Awareness and Vision on Environment), through which he undertakes tree-planting campaigns, holds events for school children, and supports solid waste disposal in the community.

Having observed the shop for more than five years now, there is just one drawback- it has added just one outlet, taking the total to two in the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad.

Are you aware of such profitable enterprises that encourage its clientele to care for the environment? Do you support any such initiatives, especially in developing countries? Do you think that such models scalable? Can you suggest one that has scaled? If so, Beyond Profit would like to hear from you. Please write to ideas@beyondprofitmag.com.

The Emerald Mithai Shop can be contacted at +91-40-27654336.

Monday, August 17, 2009 – Friday, August 21, 2009

Due to the success of our first two weeks of themed Twitter “Social Enterprises of the Day,” we have decided to continue down this path. Last week, in honor of World Water Week, we chose to highlight the work of great social enterprises working in water because access to clean drinking water, combined with the practice of hygiene and sanitation, is perhaps the single greatest preventative health catalyst in the world. There are literally hundreds of these great organizations, so our list is by no means exhaustive, and we will retouch on this theme in the future.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Saaf Water

SaafWater is leading the way in clean, efficient, and safe water purification solutions for rural areas in Pakistan. Using a network of SaafWater ladies who go door-to-door in their neighborhood, SaafWater distributes a simple Daily Capsule – a chlorine solution that can treat one family’s daily supply of drinking water. To purify their water, a family adds one SaafWater Daily Capsule to their water container. After just 30 minutes the water is then free from bacteriological contamination and safe to drink.

SaafWater ladies are individual, independent franchisees who buy the product at wholesale prices and sell them at a mark-up. They work with households to ensure that the family has a suitable container for safe water storage, and she measures the container and supplies a customized daily dose of chlorine solution tailored to that container – this is the SaafWater Daily Capsule. The only requirement to be a SaafWater lady is basic numeracy and literacy, and a willingness to learn. The Karachi-based organization provides its franchisees with full training, a uniform, and SaafWater Daily Capsules at a highly subsidized rate. » Continue reading “Twitter “Social Enterprise of the Day” Roundup”

“The five primary needs; food, clothing, shelter, primary education and health care have to be made available to people within hundred miles of their stay,” Ela Ben, the founder of SEWA bank in India, expressed her thoughts when we interviewed her for Microfinance Insights.  I wondered whether people really care where their food comes from. Apparently they do!

Concerns about fair trade and food safety have compelled food enthusiasts to track the journey their food takes from farm to shelf. You’ve probably seen the country of origin labeling (COOL) concept*, which took off in the United States. One step ahead are Locavores**, – people who, inspired by ecologist Gary Paul Nabham’s book “Coming Home to Eat,” consume and promote the consumption of food grown within a 100-mile radius. The distance our food has traveled has assumed as much importance as what it’s made of.

The introduction of “food miles” into the dietary lexicon is not new. Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, London City University, coined the term in the early 1990s to describe the distance food travels to reach its final consumer. He strongly opposed the idea of apathetic consumption patterns and founded a network of NGOs to reverse the trend. Pierre Desrochers, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto is currently researching the history of the food mile concept and has found very similar arguments made a century ago by American farmers who were severely impacted by the advent of a national railroad network and the sudden availability of cheaper food products brought in from other American states into their own backyards. He says, “If you view the ‘food mile’ rhetoric as thinly veiled agricultural protectionism, then the argument is probably as old as the movement of food over long distances.” Richard Pirog, Associate Director, Marketing and Food Systems Program Leader at Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University says, “I remember seeing that TESCO, a British retailer, had started to label fruits and vegetables it sold in the UK with little airplane marks (food mile labels) so that consumers could know that their produce had higher ‘air food miles.’”

But what can really happen if food miles are established as a proxy for the environmental impact of food? Experts say that if accepted as a standard for food import and consumption, food miles can indeed subvert the agricultural export sector in developing countries. But interestingly, it’s not only the developing countries that will suffer on account of such bans, but the impact on developed nations’ export sectors will be far from negligible. “After all, how do they expect to sell things to developing nations if [developing nations] don’t want to buy anything from them?” Desrochers asks. » Continue reading “Watch Your Carbon Foodprint!”

Linda Rottenberg is CEO and Co-founder of Endeavor, a non-profit that identifies and supports High-Impact Entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Since 1997, Linda has pioneered a new model for development that engages the private sector in mentoring and advising the most promising-yet-undiscovered entrepreneurs as well as jumpstarts entrepreneurial support networks in these economies. Headquartered in New York, with established operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Turkey and South Africa, Endeavor is currently launching its model in Egypt, Jordan, and India.

Social entrepreneurs are problem-solvers, not idealists. We’re driven by innovation, not by charity. And we don’t believe in hand-outs. We use entrepreneurial strategies to achieve social change. Most notably, social entrepreneurs solve problems that governments and the private sector fail to adequately address.

In this current recession – in which more questions than answers have arisen about how to restart the global economy – social entrepreneurs are the voices of hope and the agents of change that we need.

Endeavor, the non-profit that I co-founded in 1997 which supports the most promising-yet-undiscovered High-Impact Entrepreneurs in emerging economies, addresses a pressing challenge common to all emerging markets: wealth is not meritocratically distributed. Entrepreneurs with the best ideas face significant barriers to scale their business: a lack of mentors, a lack of trust, a lack of networks, a lack of good management, and a lack of smart capital. Endeavor helps these entrepreneurs break down these barriers by offering the soft power of the private sector: mentorship, networks, talent, leadership skills, and inspiration. With Endeavor’s support, these entrepreneurs scale their businesses to create jobs, create wealth, and build a prosperous future for their economies. » Continue reading “Is Recession a Good Time to Invest in Social Enterprises?”

Monday, August 10, 2009 – Friday, August 14, 2009

After the success of our first week of themed Twitter “Social Enterprise of the Day” updates,  we have decided to continue down this path. Last week, we chose to highlight the work of great social media organizations that are raising awareness for noble causes – a bit broad, we know, but powerful, nonetheless.

The following four enterprises that we featured as our “Social Enterprise of the Day” are doing their part to raise awareness, and doing a good job. (Disclaimer: Friday, we were busy breathing fresh air and celebrating India’s Independence Day in the countryside.)

Monday, August 10, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Video Volunteers

While we sit and observe a lot of social media, Video Volunteers is out in the field “accelerating social change by empowering community voices. Video Volunteers’ vision is to create a global social media network, which provides media for marginalized and poor communities around the world.

Devising models of sustainable locally-owned media, and developing training programs that give communities the journalism, critical thinking and creative skills to run them, Video Volunteers is busy empowering impoverished communities, especially illiterate ones, with a voice and a platform for dialogue.

You may wonder what inspired them — In 2002 the World Bank asked 60,000 people living on less than $1 a day to identify the single greatest hurdle to their advancement. Above even food, shelter, or education, the number one need identified was access to a voice. As a result, since its inception in 2006, Video Volunteers has been steadfastly working to create something on the lines of CNN or a BBC for the one billion people living on less than one dollar a day.

Their first step has been the community video model. Currently, they have eight Community Video Units (CVUs) in six states across India, ranging from the largest slum in Asia to the  remotest tribal regions of the country. Each CVU is started and funded by a local NGO that has chosen to invest in the vision of creating a ‘Global Social Media Network.’ Each CVU is comprised of six to 10 people from the surrounding slums and villages who are trained as producers. About every six weeks these producers shoot a video, , based on a topic decided by the community,  which  is viewed on wide screen projectors. About 150 to 400 people attend the screenings and discussions every night. In regions where most people cannot read or write, video is the perfect medium  to reach out to communities and raise awareness on key issues such as health, human rights, child marriage, access to water and livelihood and inspire the community to think about these issues and bring about change through action! » Continue reading “Twitter “Social Enterprise of the Day” Roundup”

The following is the first in a series of posts in which Beyond Profit will feature strong and successful women in social enterprise. Joanna Harries, an Acumen Fund Fellow at Dial 1298 for Ambulance, based in Mumbai, reports.

A Conversation with Chetna Gala Sinha

Founder, Mann Deshi Bank

Recognizing the opportunity…and having the guts to take the first step

Chetna grew up in Mumbai, India, as the third daughter in a middle-class family with six children. The expectation for daughters was clear – prepare yourself for marriage. A young Ms. Sinha, however, had other ideas. She recalls experiencing anger over the inequality between herself and her brother, who got to continue his studies undeterred. She deferred many a marriage proposal to continue her education in economics and commerce. In time, Chetna did marry and accompany her husband to his rural farming community. However, her passion for commerce and economics, along with her drive to question the status quo, went along with her.

In 1997, Chetna started the Mann Deshi Bank, the first in India to loan to rural women. The bank now serves over 120,000 women, with five branches in Maharastra and has spun off a business school to advise rural women looking to start a business. Her organization’s success is undeniable, but we were more interested in knowing what motivated her first steps.

Interestingly, her motivation was the shock that came when no bank would loan to the ‘backward castes’ in her village, including her husband, when market prices plummeted after the harvest in 1995. Clearly, a need existed for a financial institution that would provide support to these local farmers, and her attitude to the large incumbent banks that refused to see this opportunity became, just you wait…we will show you. And she did – gritty resolve makes for the start of a powerful movement.

This is how Chetna describes Mann Deshi, not as a bank, but as a movement. The vision to empower rural women means ongoing advocacy work to change outdated policies and systems that block women’s rights to control the household finances. Obstacles are ever-present, dealing with bureaucracy and local corruption are common occurrences. Chetna’s mandate to put solutions into practice has not wavered though, and support grows from both men and women across rural India willing to follow her lead and speak out.

The incidence of successful women social entrepreneurs is growing. Those who work at Mann Deshi get to see this trend first hand as it is often the women customers themselves that drive the agenda for their credit needs. Indeed, Chetna comments that most of the implemented products and services at the bank have come from suggestions from their women clientele. When asked why this is, Chetna responds that women are already in the habit of listening to their families, communities, and the market to work out sustainable solutions. A lifelong practice Chetna herself clearly demonstrates.

The following post is a collaboration between Adrienne Villani, a member of the Beyond Profit Editorial Team, and Semil Shah, a Principal at India Strategy Consulting, a boutique services firm that advises small and medium enterprises and global universities on how to approach India strategically. You can follow Semil on Twitter at @semilshah.

As we have seen, time and time again, our world is growing ever more interdependent, or in the words of Tom Friedman, “flat.” This increasingly global nature of human society is seen in the worldwide diffusion of commerce, technology, intellectual capability, and, more and more, of education. The playing field is being leveled. Competitors, whether from developed or developing economies, now have an equal opportunity. Historical and geographical divisions are becoming increasing irrelevant. India, Friedman’s inspiration for the term “flat,” has also become a focal point, possibly the focal point, in this new global system.

Global research universities are keen to foster partnerships with their Indian counterparts, mainly in fields that provide opportunities to scale through discovery, intellectual property, licensing, and commercialization. These fields historically have been engineering, medicine, and science. However, now, most of these universities’ first move in India is led by their business schools, which typically boast well-connected faculty, students, and alumni of Indian origin, as well as a sophisticated understanding of how to do business in India. For example, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business has tied up with the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore for a student exchange program, as has Columbia Business School with the Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad for a student and faculty exchange. Now, a university’s strategy has the business school lay the groundwork for other, more technical schools within their university to foster research and development innovation partnerships with the hope of discovering the next drug compound, medical device, or source of renewable energy – in essence, seeking value, viewing India as a laboratory within which to gather information and test ideas, but not necessarily focused on addressing issues in Indian society. » Continue reading “Even Education is “Flat””

Monday, August 3, 2009 – Friday, August 7, 2009

Last week, we thought we’d try something new for our “Social Enterprise of the Day” – a theme. Our first theme was mobile-based technology. Since there is just so much happening in the space, this could literally be our theme for the foreseeable future. But alas, all good things must come to an end. So, this week, the theme will change. This is not to say that we won’t revisit mobile-based technology many times in the future.

Mobile-based technology has changed the entire communication landscape. No longer are we prisoners to our landlines. No longer is there an excuse not to be in contact.

But more heartening – no longer are rural communities not connected. No longer can the informal or unorganized labor force complain of being unaware of employment opportunities. No longer can farmers be cheated by middlemen in the pricing of their produce. No longer do pregnant women lack access to medical information or a doctor.

Suddenly, with inexpensive mobile technology (both in hardware and software) under-served urban and rural communities have become empowered. And this is the point of development, no?

The following five enterprises that we featured as our “Social Enterprise of the Day” are doing their part to connect people, and doing a good job, at that.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – SMSONE

SMSONE is setting an example of social entrepreneurship in India. With a vision to create SMS as a local, micro-media and to provide self-employment to 200,000+ school dropouts, SMSONE runs an SMS newsletter service for mobile phone owners in rural Maharashtra, India. The SMS-based newsletter updates citizens – free of cost – about local happenings, whether they are social, cultural, political, governmental, economic, or health-related. But this is just the beginning of the work that SMSONE is doing. Not only a local SMS community newsletter, it also provides self employment to youth.

The newsletter is run by local 10th-12th grade failed students or dropouts. These youth now have a job and a source of income. The youth – now called “mobile journalists” – collect 1,000 mobile numbers from local residents. They then start a SMS-based newsletter to alert, update, and inform the community about local happenings. It is a free service to citizens, and the youth earn between US$150 and US$200 per month (quite a nice rural salary!) through promotional messages. In turn, these formerly shunned-upon youth earn social respect from the community. What could be better?

» Continue reading “Twitter “Social Enterprise of the Day” Roundup”

Devyani Parameshwar is a Senior Associate with the Business Advisory Team at Intellecap. Intellecap (publisher of Beyond Profit) is a for-profit development firm with a focus on intermediating capital and advisory solutions for small and medium enterprise development.

A few kilometers past Charminar, the heart of the old city of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, an auto rickshaw stops in front of a quiet, non-descript gate. Across the road is the Falaknuma Palace, in the process of getting a major face-lift. Upon knocking, we walk into a compound housing a workshop for rescued victims of human trafficking, a social enterprise run by Prajwala. The environment is peaceful and friendly, with shady trees and smiling faces.

Numerous rescued women are brought here each month, once they are able and willing to work. The workshop currently employs 70 women. It provides them with a steady income, and more importantly, a supportive environment to transition back into mainstream society and the workforce. Women here print and bind books, make notebooks for schools, print business cards and letter heads, and also make furniture from wood and metal. Their activities are labor intensive, with minimal automation.

Some women are more productive than others, depending on their frame of mind and how far they have come in their rehabilitation. Some of them work at the center for a few months, and happily move on to better jobs. Others have been there for years. The workshop provides basic training and guidance by aides experienced in carpentry, welding, and printing. Most training is done on the job, and the women learn from each other. The women also drive the sales by speaking with local schools to negotiate rates and to fix delivery dates and times. » Continue reading “Reintegration of Trafficked Women through Enterprise”