Archive for Women in Social Enterprise

This post is part of our ongoing partnership with GOOD Magazine. Post by Alex Goldmark of GOOD Magazine.

Ram Rati is a 40-year-old female mechanic in India. If you think that sounds impressive, it is, but that’s not the half of it. Rati was married off at 11 years old and escaped at 13. She spent the next 15 years grinding wheat for a living. An admirable story of perseverance all too common in her native India, but the real achievement comes next.

Rati is now a hero in her village, in part because she’s now using her mechanic’s know-how to fix broken wells and increase the availability of clean water. She has also become and advocate for other women in her conservative region of rural northern India, encouraging them to remove their veils, send their girls to school and, for some of them, to become mechanics, too. » Continue reading “Water, Wells and One Wonderful Woman”

Hello from New York!  As we write, Beyond Profit is crammed into a press box surrounded by reporters from Croatia, Bahrain, Mexico and a guy from “right down the street” in order to provide coverage of the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative. This is our second year attending, and we come because it’s a great way to find out the latest in social innovation and development and to hear about what companies are doing to make an impact (or in some cases, to do less harm).

A few things we’re excited to report on today: Matthew Bishop from the Economist with Rajiv Shah at USAID on Economic Empowerment. Anticipating a great discussion on Women’s Economic Empowerment with a focus on property rights and microcredit….speakers include Tim Hanstad of RDI, James Mwangi of Equity Bank in Kenya, Dina Powell from Goldman Sachs and 10,000 Women, and Roshaneh Zafar from Kashf Foundation in Pakistan. And, high on the list is the face-off—okay, perhaps an “intellectual meeting of the minds” is more appropriate—between Vikram Akula and Muhammad Yunus this afternoon in the panel, Profiting from the Poor? Microfinance IPOs.

So, that’s where we’ll be today. Stay with us! And follow us on twitter @beyondprofit–look for the hashtag #cgi2010!  If you’re here, come find us! We’d love to meet up.

Sattar is leading the way for entrepreneurial women in Pakistan.

After a trip to Pakistan in May, Beyond Profit has created a multi-part series, The Other Side of Pakistan, about a side of the country you may not have heard about before. We look forward to your comments and questions.

I can’t get a word in edgewise. I’m sitting in Maimoona Sattar’s office, trying to have a conversation about women in business in Pakistan, but between the two phones in Ms. Sattar’s ears, her office assistant, and a potential woman entrepreneur, I’m the lowest rung on the ladder of priorities. If Ms. Sattar is any indication of the big picture, the tables are turning for women in Pakistan.

Ms. Sattar is the head of the Women’s Business Incubation Center (WBIC), (a project of SMEDA which we covered last week), and an entrepreneur in her own right. She’s been charged with increasing the number of female small and medium enterprise owners in Pakistan. “Look,” she tells me matter of factly, “Pakistan is half women. How can women just be consumers? They have to produce something, something other than children.”

» Continue reading “The Other Side of Pakistan: Entrepreneurial Women”

Jerryanne Heath is the CEO and Founder of ConceptLink Consulting , a firm which helps US and international social-mission organizations connect with their stakeholders through various event management and communications strategies.  She is also co-chair of the Africa Social Enterprise Forum.

A few nights ago I attended the Starting Bloc party at the legendary Studio 54 in New York.  I had a blast and it was extremely inspiring to look around the room at my peers – young professionals and social entrepreneurs all eager to make a positive contribution to the world.  The energy in the room was palpable.  I overheard snippets of conversations:  “…moving to India to start an education consultancy…”, “…working on a solar venture in Latin America…”, “just started working at a nonprofit…”

I’m 26.  Several of my peers are guiding their career decisions by their desire to have a meaningful impact.  And many are diving headfirst into risky ventures abroad.  The conversations I overheard at the Bloc Party brought me back to some lessons I’ve learned as a young entrepreneur with sights set abroad.

At age 24, I quit my Wall Street job with the intention of starting a business in South Africa.  After a few trips there as a volunteer and a tourist, I was smitten by the cultural richness I found there and moreover by the economic opportunities.  South Africa was boasting 6-7% GDP growth at the time and getting ready to host the 2010 World Cup in a few years.  Vanity Fair had just released its Africa issue with several luminaries on the cover – Barack Obama, Bono, Brad Pitt, Bill Clinton, Oprah – it seemed the African continent was getting more positive attention than ever.

So after quitting my job and 6 months of what I believed was thorough due diligence, I set up a consulting firm with a local business partner to connect South African businesses and artists to the US market.  We registered the partnership in South Africa, with the ultimate goal of building a global brand and servicing clients on both sides of the Atlantic.  Despite my aspirations, the business in South Africa quickly disintegrated, largely due to my poor selection of a local business partner.

I learned several lessons from this experience, which I believe apply to any entrepreneur, and I’d to offer some advice, particularly for young entrepreneurs looking to make an international impact:

1. Do your homework:  I cannot emphasize this enough.  I unfortunately did not perform sufficient due diligence on my local business partner, which created a rocky relationship and stifled the company.  Take the time to do your homework, not only on the market in which you plan to work, but particularly on your team members.
2. Take care of the legal stuff first:  Get everything in writing and take the time upfront to establish controls.  Basic questions include: Who will have access to the bank account? How many signatures are required for checks?  Blinded by enthusiasm, I did not take the time to establish these controls and was shocked to find a $0 balance on the company’s bank statement after only six months!
3. Follow your heart, but don’t lose your shirt:  When passion drives us, it’s tempting to throw caution to the wind.  However, it’s best to take measured risk, particularly if you are investing your own capital in the venture – don’t go all in right away.  Test out the market, your ideas and your team gradually.  Though it was painful to learn that funds had been misused in the South African company, I was happy to walk away from the venture after having invested only a small amount of startup capital.
4. You’re not in Kansas anymore:  Manage your expectations and acknowledge that local business practices may be completely different from what you are accustomed to at home.  Play by the local rules to the extent permissible by law and your conscience!
5. Be prepared to fail: Look for the silver lining if things don’t turn out as you had hoped.  As keynote speaker Andrew Zolli put it a few weeks ago at the Africa Social Enterprise Forum, be prepared to fail, often.  Learn from it and “change your religion” accordingly.  I now wear my experience in South Africa as a badge of honor.

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.

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.