WOMEN’S HEALTH AND LIVELIHOOD ALLIANCE (WOHLA)

Ensuring Health and Economic Well-being of Women

The importance of NGO Governance

Ragini Menon, Consultant and Anushree Parekh, Advisor at Samhita Social Ventures ask, “Would we prefer to fly on an airline that had the lowest maintenance cost? Or go to the hospital with the oldest, depreciated equipment?” A survey conducted in 2017 revealed that 70% of 250+ NGOs do not possess the funds to recruit skilled staff, and 40% claimed that they could not attract senior leaders due to limited resources.

Deep contrast to this is the fact that philanthropic giving in India has seen a 15% increase from INR 40,000 crore in 2014 to INR 90,000 crore in 2019. There exists a tradition of majorly providing funding to NGOs for projects, This report unravels why it is absolutely critical for the giving ecosystem to strategically invest in the training, research and organizational development of the talent of NGO partners with the end goal of increasing the overall capacity of outreach, quality, and durability of impact achieved.

To learn about how to assess an NGO partner, beyond material factors such as responsible governance, financial sustainability, and legal compliance and common societal misperceptions of NGOs, give our article a read.

Enabling Stakeholders to Take Purposeful Action for Large-Scale Social Impact

“Beyond CSR, we believe in companies integrating social responsibility into their business practices. We have developed the Responsible Corporate Citizenship Continuum (RCCC) to articulate the role of the private sector in society and to provide companies with a framework to conceive human rights and social and environmental responsibility in their business practices as well as CSR.”

Priya Naik, Founder and CEO, Samhita Social Ventures is interviewed by CSR Mandate where she shares Samhita’s strategies and learnings over the last 10 years while collaborating with a variety of stakeholder such as companies, social enterprises, NGOs, governments, multilaterals and donors. Samhita has curated a number of collaborative platforms to address challenges such as gender inequality, water and sanitation and sustainable livelihoods, with each contributing stakeholder honing their core competencies to collectively create significant impact. In response to COVID, Samhita set up the India Protectors Alliance (IPA) to provide support and equipment to India’s frontline health care and sanitation workers, and REVIVE to pave the path for sustainable recovery of jobs and livelihoods by providing financial and technical assistance.

Freedom to earn a livelihood with dignity

Covid-19 was an eye-opener for many businesses in that it revealed the importance of migrant and informal workers in a business’s supply chains. Undoubtedly, the corporate sector holds the potential and responsibility to change the dynamics within which workers operate. It is therefore in their own enlightened self-interest that businesses should understand migrant workers’ perspectives and account for their welfare.

A particularly useful way of identifying vulnerabilities and addressing them systematically is the Responsible Corporate Citizenship Continuum (RCCC). The RCCC seeks to articulate the role of the private sector in society and provide companies with a framework to include human rights and social and environmental responsibility in their operations. In the context of a crisis revealing the importance of resilient business networks and a market that values business ethics and brand purpose, the incentives to perform along these lines are clearer than ever.

Priya Naik, Ragini Menon and Hrishikesh Bhatt from Samhita elaborate on this approach in an article for Forbes India.

CSR: From the perspective of nonprofits

In consultation with 320 nonprofits across India it was found that, “The most reported challenge was a lack of long-term commitment from companies, causing uncertainty and instability among nonprofits. This was followed by a perceived lack of understanding on the part of companies about social issues and solutions, and an emphasis on achieving targets.”

Ragini Menon, Senior Associate and Anushree Parekh, Head of the research and knowledge team at Samhita along with Priyanka Dhingra, Head Programme and Executive Committee member at ATE Chandra Foundation, write about existing trends and challenges that nonprofits face, while highlighting critical aspects of the CSR ecosystem that need strengthening.

Decoding CSR Trend In India – Looking Back to Look Forward

It’s been five years since India became the first country in the world to mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending for eligible companies, generating a lot of local discussions, national debates and global curiosity.

Did the companies comply? How did they perform? How were the CSR funds spent and on what? Did the NGO sector benefit? What next for CSR?

We answer some of these questions here, based on the most comprehensive CSR dataset compiled so far by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs1 and our own experience with 100+ companies.

1. Compliance with CSR Act has been decent, with room for improvement

For a regulation that is only 5 years old, required companies to step outside their comfort zone and have a steep learning curve, the compliance has been good, with definite scope of improvement.

Compliance can be measured using two indicators – number of companies reporting on CSR and number of companies spending the stipulated amount.

  • On average, the reporting rate among eligible companies in the last 4 years has been 64%.
  • Companies spent 68% of the prescribed CSR amount in the last four years, totaling to ~INR 52,000 crore.
  • Of the liable and reporting companies, the proportion spending zero amount has reduced over the years, consequentially, increasing the number of companies that actually do spend on CSR activities. In fact, the proportion spending exact or more than prescribed amount has increased from 26% in 14-15 to 44% in 17-18.
CSR Spend Analysis

Data pertaining to CSR expenditure in FY 2017-18 is still being gathered by MCA through the filings made by companies and the numbers are likely to improve as more companies file their data.

2. The 80-20 rule

In 17-18, 289 companies spent INR 7,067 crore on CSR – even though these accounted for only 2% of liable and reporting companies, their cumulative spend amounted to 53% of the total spend on CSR in that year.

Many of these companies have adopted a strategic, systematic and structured approach to CSR, with the intent to maximize social impact. For instance, a majority of the BSE 100 companies, which are India’s largest companies by market cap, have created suitable internal governance structure to execute CSR, with 24% having their own foundation and 52% having dedicated CSR departments.

However, these companies also saw the highest gap between prescribed and spent CSR amounts, in absolute terms. If these companies can be further nudged and supported to spend their entire prescribed CSR amounts, and in more meaningful ways, we will not only be able to unlock a huge amount of capital for the development sector, but also significantly improve the quality of that capital.

3. Companies do not prefer writing cheques to government funds

CSR towards government funds such as Swachh Bharat Kosh, Clean Ganga Fund and Prime Minister’s Relief Fund collectively accounted for just 5% of the total CSR spend over 14-15 to 17-18. This signals to an underlying trend that companies are not merely looking to offload their CSR funds to simply comply with the Act, but are seeking opportunities to create deeper social impact by taking a more hands-on role.

4. CSR’s preference for education and health continues to leave out other causes

Education accounted for 30% of total CSR spending between 14-15 and 17-18. Healthcare was the second most popular cause, receiving 17% of funds, followed by rural development at 10%. On the other hand, women empowerment received 1%, training to promote sports received 1% and technology incubators received 0.13%.

5. Need vs. flow

CSR is benefitting states with relatively higher level of development. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Delhi received 40% of the total CSR expenditure from 2014-15 to 2017-18, even though they account for 11% of total number of aspirational districts. On the other hand, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh account for 58% of total number of aspirational districts, yet received only 9% of the total expenditure towards CSR.

This bias continues within a state as well. An analysis of data for FY 16-17 shows that even in Maharashtra, which received the largest volume of funding, certain districts such as Pune and Mumbai (suburban) received the highest amount in CSR funding (more than INR 200 crore each), while those which were farther away from industrialized areas such as Hingoli, Buldhana and Parbhani received less than INR 1 crore of funding.

Aspirational Districts Statewise data
6. Local area spending becomes a double-edged sword

Subsection 5 of Section 135 encourages companies to give preference to the areas around where they operate, for spending the amount earmarked for CSR activities. CSR spending in local areas has accounted for a little more than half of the total CSR spend in the last two years.

This has had positive and negative ramifications. On the bright side, companies with manufacturing operations in remote parts of the country are investing in communities around them and working with smaller, local NGOs in doing so. But, by the same logic, significant CSR funds are being concentrating into small areas, leaving out surrounding areas with high needs but outside the subjective definitions of ‘local area’.

Share of local area expenditure

7. CSR’s promise for the NGO sector yet to be fully unlocked

While a substantial proportion of companies spend their CSR funds directly, implying through vendors or service providers that are not not-for-profit in nature, NGOs are becoming the most popular route for companies to execute their CSR activities. 43% of all CSR funds in the last four years was spent through supporting NGOs with grants.

However, not all NGOs have been able to tap into this opportunity. An NGO survey2 conducted by Samhita, in association with the ATE Foundation, in 2019 revealed that 1 out of 2 NGOs had not received CSR funds in the last one year. Lack of information on corporate opportunities, absence of an understanding to deal with CSR requirements and NGO’s location were the top three challenges reported by NGOs in accessing CSR.

CSR Spend Channel

What next for CSR?

A. From compliance to strategic to catalytic

Many companies have graduated from compliance-oriented CSR to strategic CSR, to now thinking of being catalytic.

Catalytic CSR is defined by its ability to:

  • Unlock more resources and generate leverage by seeding the flow of risk capital (philanthropic or commercial)
  • Address market failures or inefficiencies in an ecosystem
  • Reduce transaction costs and information asymmetry between various actors
  • Introduce new stakeholders to the ecosystem and leverage their competencies

B. Emphasis on flagship programs

The desire to be strategic has encouraged companies to play a proactive and hands-on role in their CSR programs. More and more companies want to co-create ‘flagship’ programs that leverage their business strengths in meaningfully addressing a social issue and differentiate them in the sector. Flagship CSR programs are great since they bring more corporate ownership, significant resources, innovative thinking, long-term commitment and a comprehensive approach. However, they may also lead to higher expectations around performance, systems and processes from the NGO partners executing such programs.

C. Data-driven decisions and evidence-backed interventions

CSR has emphasized strong M&E systems from the get-go. Many companies base their decisions to fund, scale or exit based on data and evidence generated through process and outcome evaluations. In a further impetus, the High Level Committee on CSR, constituted by the MCA, has suggested that companies with CSR budgets of INR 5 crore or more invest in impact evaluations at least once on three years. Further, with the recognition of Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Micheal Kremer’s work regarding experimental approach to alleviating global poverty3 wherein rigorous evidence is used to inform policy, CSR may move towards not only funding and scaling evidence-backed interventions, but also improving the quality of their own impact assessments.

D. Rising interest in innovative financial instruments

India has witnessed a lot of traction in the use of innovative financial instruments in the social and development sector. A prominent example of this was the launch of the world’s first development impact bond in India which focused on the learning and enrollment outcomes for out-of-school girls.4 These trends coupled with the proposed institutionalization of a social stock exchange in India, as declared by Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden budget speech5, has the potential to drive companies to invest in innovative financial instruments such as development impact bonds, social success notes, loan guarantee funds etc.

E. Brands with purpose – moving beyond CSR

Companies have started moving from CSR to a broader narrative of responsible corporate citizenship, of which CSR is just one part that talks about responsibility to external communities and environment. The other part of the narrative is sustainable and responsible internal business practices in supply chains, production, distribution etc. This trend is being driven by two factors –

  • A growing interest and awareness of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) factors among investors in India
  • A growing conscious consumer movement that is building pressure on companies to respond to ethical and environmental issues that matter to them

Samhita Social Ventures stands out far and away as the best organization we have worked with. The Samhita team were absolutely fabulous throughout – from initial planning, to site preparation, participant interaction, event execution, post-event interaction and reporting. The USIP would highly recommend them without reservation to anyone looking to initiate high impact projects.– PeaceTechLab
United States Institute of Peace

The team at Samhita has been instrumental in building an executable module for Support A Woman. Their expertise in working with NGOs and understanding corporate priorities at the same time has helped immensely in smooth execution of the program– Johnson & Johnson

Samhita has been our trusted partner in the EdelGive Social Innovation Honours for two years. Adept management of the end-to-end online application process and widespread outreach resulted in large increases in the number of quality applications from NGOs across India. Samhita’s strength lies in their extensive NGO network and a very professional and committed team– EdelGive Foundation

Beyond the Boardroom

Samhita and Ambuja Cement Foundation organised the fourth edition of CSR Café in Mumbai on January 31st, 2019. The topic for this edition of the CSR Café was ‘Beyond the Boardroom‘. At the Café we discussed bridging boardroom expectations and ground realities. CSR leaders communicated challenges faced in boardroom engagement, and through discussions, the Café sourced solutions and advice in response to the challenges.

Here’s a brief summary of all the discussions that happened during the session –

We started by asking participants to anonymously communicate challenges faced in boardroom engagement through chits, and then sourced solutions and advice in response to the challenges.

A. Challenge 1
How can CSR leaders convince their boards that CSR is valuable or is needed in a strategic sense, beyond legal compliance? This includes pitching for multi-year funding, investing in CSR, the question of profitability vs CSR and so on.

Solutions
1. Balancing the head and the heart was a recurring theme throughout the session.

  • As pointed out by many, including Ashank Desai, Founder of Mastek,  it is necessary to make an emotional appeal in addition to a logical pitch, since CSR heads and managers are ultimately human.
  • At the same time, as Charlie Bresler of The Life You Can Save and Priya Naik of Samhita advised, don’t leave out evidence, data and expected returns, alignment to business, benefits to stakeholders including employees and so on from your communication to the board.
  • Communicate that you are looking at CSR strategically rather than from a one-time perspective. It is important to communicate that a company may engage in CSR not only for the legal implications but from an intention to do good.
  • Anagha Mahajani of Ambuja Cement Foundation said that as one would demonstrate or promise a much larger than expected return on investment in business, it is up to the CSR team to show that CSR investments could lead to higher than expected impact or returns.
  • Rachana Iyer of IDFC First Bank also explained how they facilitate field and partner visits for board members. The board members started opening upto the partnerships and have even provided the NGOs access to their own personal networks.
  • A mix of above engagement approaches would be ideal.

2. Go offline and build relationships:
Participants also articulated that going the extra mile, engaging individual board members offline, beyond the boardroom, and learning about their perspectives while explaining the CSR team’s views, would be very effective in convincing board members.

B. Challenge 2
Participants inquired about engaging with board members of different nationalities, behaviours, cultures, experiences and professional backgrounds, around CSR strategy and objectives.

Solution

  • For boards that have varied cultures and nationalities and as a result, behaviours, align CSR to a global business/sustainability/CSR strategy if it’s a multi-national or engage the individual on a personal level to understand what makes them tick. Both will help you get easier buy-in.

Here are some of the potential topics for the next edition:

1. Data and evidence across the CSR/project lifecycle

  • For evidence and for decision making
  • While monitoring and evaluating
  • Legal and ethical data questions: for eg, taking data from beneficiaries, what can or should we ask for, how do we ensure privacy and so on

2. Investing in the building blocks of CSR of which benchmarking is an important topic. This can be tied to the data topic above.


3. Technologies that could be used for CSR and the social sector – across facilitation, collection of information, programmatic efficiency, innovative tech and so on.

VIACOM18 | How to impact through the media lens

In a time where majority stakeholders were concentrating on building infrastructure to achieve the mission of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Viacom18 utilized the weapon they knew best – storytelling to create lasting impact in a society that has long been captured by the screen.

The Viacom18 story

With the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission, availability and access to toilets had improved tremendously. But social and behavioural change communication were far from implementation questioning the long-term adoption of infrastructure usage. Lack of sanitation has many rippling effects. 

The economic deprivation increases manifold when healthcare expenses and the cost of lost potential due to sickness arising from inadequate sanitation is added.

With the belief that sustained change in behaviour is at the helm of creating long term impact, Viacom18 worked with Samhita to design an intervention that aimed to address the issue of Open Defecation in Mumbai’s slums and inadequate sanitation in schools.

How did we impact 8,000+ lives

Samhita designed and implemented a community sanitation program with a focus on strong behaviour change in addition to providing basic infrastructure. Our theory of change centered around changing behavior, beliefs, and myths around toilets as a key to ensuring sustained open defecation free status in all communities and schools. The idea was to design visual messaging at key locations in slum areas, followed with awareness campaigns that brought together a social message with Viacom’s unique panache for storytelling.

Our vision of multiplying the impact by evolving the approach from infrastructure to behavioral change was distributed in 3 stages.

Geography

Impact

Creating Impact through Corporate-Government Partnerships

Over the years there have been many successful public-private partnerships that have combined the efficiency of the private sector with government access and scale, to bring about social change. Yet, corporate-government partnerships retain an air of mystery with few frameworks available for those interested in initiating such partnerships or navigating existing ones. To discover best practices in such partnerships, we invited companies and government representatives for CSR Café #2 to explore the theme, Creating Impact through Corporate-Government Partnerships.

CSR Café is a space for senior corporate leaders and decision makers to convene and freely discuss on matters and themes related to CSR and their own aspirations in the social sector. Co-created and hosted by Ambuja Cement Foundation and Samhita, the forum provides stakeholders a space to evaluate successes in CSR, address challenges collaboratively and innovate to bridge gaps. The inaugural session of CSR Café was held on July 4, 2018 around the ‘The Five Ways CSR Heads Can Create Lasting Change.’ You can read more about it here.

This 2nd edition was held on September 7, 2018 at Café Zoe, Mumbai, moderated by Luis Miranda, Trustee – Collective Good Foundation, Chairman – Centre for Civil Society and Chairman – CORO. We invited three Chief Minister’s Fellows, Yash Kirkire, Saurabh Kanada and Shyam Datye to shed light on how government departments worked, the various processes being institutionalized by the Chief Minister’s Office to initiate and facilitate partnerships, as well as some suggestions for easier and more effective project management.

Some of the attendees included senior leaders from L&T Realty, NASSCOM Foundation, JSW Foundation, Swades Foundation, CLP India, Shriram Transport and Finance Limited, Shapoorji Pallonji, Omkar Foundation, Nomura, Mastek, JetPrivilege, and RBL Bank.

Here is a brief summary of the conversation:

Things to Remember to When Partnering with the Government:

  • Approach the Government with Existing Funds: Since the government manages public funds, any spending requires intensive due diligence and auditing. This affects the quality and speed of decision making, making it difficult for companies to receive funding for collaborative projects. In cases where the government is willing to provide funding support, it looks at the extent of existing funding that the project might already have.
  • Partner with Proactive Departments: The extent of bureaucratic and political backing for partnerships, varies among the different departments of the government. Partnerships see the light of day when there is substantial support and initiative to take on and facilitate collaborative projects versus departments with jurisdiction issues, convoluted hierarchies and weak bureaucratic will to push projects.
  • Cooperating with Bureaucrats: Despite instances of significant push back from bureaucrats, they are willing to work on projects where they can showcase their work and successes to superiors. They often have relevant insights to provide of on-ground realities.

Steps taken by Government to Facilitate or Manage Partnerships:

  • Address Bureaucratic Bottlenecks: There are multiple channels used by the CMO to identify and address any existing or potential bottlenecks. For instance, the CMO calls a quarterly meeting of District Collectors, fellows, bureaucrats and office bearers to go over the various partnerships, LOIs, and MoUs which are in the pipeline.
  • Institutionalize Learnings: Ashwini Saxena, JSW Foundation, noted that current measures to enable partnerships were largely ad-hoc, based on individual action rather than systematic change based on previous learning. He asked if new processes for partnerships and takeaways were being institutionalized. The Fellows shared that these learnings were being systemized by the Chief Secretary’s Committee, which follows up on partnerships, tracks LOIs and pursues various other measures to facilitate government partnerships.
  • Categorize Partnerships: Mangesh Wange, Swades Foundation, suggested categorizing all partnerships & MoUs based on certain parameters. This would help analyze aspects such as what worked, why it worked and potential for scale up, among others.

Making Government Partnerships Work:

  • Using a PMU-Model: The Fellows suggested using a Project Management Unit model as an effective method of ensuring successful partnerships with the government. Creating a unit of private sector personnel to sit within government offices and ministries and lead a project, similar to the UNICEF model, would help ensure timely implementation and effective management.
  • Consortium-model for Smaller Companies: Smaller companies with limited budgets could tie up with companies of similar size to create a consortium which could then approach the government for partnerships.
  • Leveraging Political Support: Despite companies avoiding politicians, the CM’s Fellows suggested that leveraging political interests could be an effective and efficient route to initiate and drive partnerships. Combined with a PMU model, partners could keep track of partnerships and ensure progress.
  • Demonstrating Successful Models: Companies and organizations could demonstrate a successful model or pilot, to provide the government with a strategy and pathway to follow.
  • Using Data for Decision Making: Government spending is often based on precedence. Data-based governance could provide much needed clarity based on actual need, and check arbitrary decision making.
  • Sensitizing District Officials: During implementation, engaging district-level officials and bureaucrats, changing their mindsets and sensitizing them were noted as key challenges. One suggestion made was to scope out the various organizations already working with the government at different levels and partner with them.

Investing CSR in Incubators – A Unique Model of Partnership

Authored by P.R. Ganapathy, President ( India), Villgro Innovations Foundation 

After, USA and China, India has the largest incubator and accelerator ecosystem in the world. But few companies have sufficient information on this ecosystem to be able to invest in it.

Samhita, and Villgro, supported by GIZ are addressing this information asymmetry and facilitating partnerships between companies and incubators and social enterprises(SEs).

The traditional model of CSR involves selecting an NGO working in an area of your interest (livelihoods, education, etc.) and funding them for a specific project, say, training 500 women artisans, or setting up a computer lab in a school.

But, the smart CSR managers of today are asking harder questions of this model.

What happened to those women artisans after the training was completed? Who buys their products and connects them to consumers? Is the model sustainable? What do children actually learn from the computer lab? Who teaches them? What content is available? Who maintains the computers and the lab to ensure it continues to deliver value?

One way to find these answers is to partner with social enterprises or for-profit entities who use market-based approaches to solve social problems.

The next logical question is : “Is it legal?” Does the Companies Act permit CSR funding to be used for support for-profit social enterprises?

The answer is a resounding Yes! Under Section (vii) of the Companies Act, CSR funds can be used to support Government-approved Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) located within academic institutions. A subsequent clarification also specifies that any TBI can be supported using CSR funds.

So, why should your company invest its CSR in social enterprises and incubators?

Innovation: Social enterprises, by definition, use innovative approaches to solving social problems. From the Biosense non-invasive anemia measurement device to the Adhyayan school transformation rubric, these enterprise use fundamental new ways of approaching social challenges, with significantly better outcomes.

 More resources:Because social enterprises attract financing from impact investors, they have significantly more resources than traditional non-profits or NGOs. This allows them to leverage your CSR money for much greater impact.

Focus on talent:More resources and a for-profit structure means the ability to pay better salaries, and attract the talent they want. They can also offer stock options. We’ve see our social entrepreneurs capitalize on the start-up craze to attract experienced and seasoned talent, leading to significantly better execution.

Sustainability:Because social enterprises have a revenue model, they have high potential for sustainability. Which means that even after your CSR funding project finishes, their solution and service continues to live on.

Scale: The combination of a sustainable revenue model, more resources and focus on talent means that these organizations have the potential for scale far greater than the traditional NGO/Non-profit model. Which means that the small amount of CSR funding you provided at the beginning is leveraged multi-fold, to achieve outsized, national-level scale and impact.

How should your company engage with social enterprises through a TBI ?

From my experience working with many corporates and social enterprises, I believe there are five dimensions to consider while designing your engagement.

Money: Social enterprises need money, especially at the early stages when they’re being incubated by a TBI, to hire the initial employees, develop their product, test-market their solution, etc.

You could fund a TBI to fund a social enterprise in four different ways:

  • Select a specific company from their portfolio that aligns with your CSR priorities – for example, agriculture or education. Your MOU with the TBI then specifies which social enterprise the funding should go to, and perhaps also what that funding should be used for and the milestones that should be achieved. Most CSRs currently work in this model.
  • Select together from a pipeline that the TBI surfaces around your CSR theme areas — you’re leveraging the TBI’s network and processes for selection and diligence, and also having a say in the process by participating in their “Investment Committee.” This way you can fund new ideas, and yet have a say in the process. Marico worked with Villgro to find and select a social enterprise working in the field of diabetes, their focus area.
  • Provide an open grant and leave it to the TBI to select and incubate enterprises within your theme areas. This stage implies you have developed trust in the TBI’s selection processes, and can depend on them to find good enterprises that fit your mandate. A corporate recently engaged Villgro to find and support skill training social enterprises, which is their CSR theme area.
  • Fund the TBI’s program costs like incubation staff, mentors, knowledge building sessions, etc., and not fund incubatees directly. This often allows the TBI the flexibility to provide the much-needed handholding that plays an equally important part in the incubation process. A large IT multi-national in Bangalore funded IIT Bombay’s incubator for the costs of running an accelerator program.

Mentoring: Your corporate has several experienced, seasoned, senior executives, and social enterprises are often founded by relatively inexperienced founders who are trying to do something radical to solve a social problem. In our experience, mentoring from senior executives is at least as valuable as the funding we provide our incubatees. By engaging your senior management in mentoring these entrepreneurs, you’re giving them a chance to “give back” while adding significant value to the incubatee. Mphasis senior management were closely involved with one of Villgro’s incubatees, providing mentoring and guidance.

Expertise: You may have technical experts in your organization who can add great value to social enterprises by giving them advice from time to time. For example, GE’s 5.38 accelerator for med-tech social entrepreneurs provides access to technical experts within GE Healthcare. That sort of expertise is hard to come by, or well-nigh impossible to access, and can significantly assist a med-tech social enterprise in product development. Your employees also benefit by using their expertise for social good, and it enhances their sense of goodwill for their employer, because they can witness first hand the social impact of their company’s CSR program.

Facilities: A social enterprise, especially one working on an innovative new physical product like a medical device, doesn’t have the capital required to invest in labs, fabrication facilities, etc. However, it does need access to these facilities for product development. Corporates have these assets, and they are generally under-utilitized. By creating a way by which social enterprises can leverage these facilities, you could provide they a valuable and timely resource that reduces the cost, improves the quality, and cuts the time of product development.

Go to market: Lastly, social enterprises need partnerships to take their products to market. Established distribution channels are often out of their reach, because of their innovative product, lack of market demand, and low marketing resources. A corporate that can distribute a social enterprise’s product through its own distribution channels will provide that social enterprise significantly value. A large agri conglomerate’s recent tie-up with one of Villgro’s agriculture social enterprises is an example of how this could work.

In conclusion, we’re seeing the shift from tactical, project-based CSR, to strategic, programmatic CSR. By adding social enterprise support to your CSR program, and engaging corporate resources such as senior management mentors, technical experts, leveraging facilities and using distribution channels to make the support strategic, you can maximize your impact and effectiveness.

Interested? GIZVillgro and Samhita are working to help Corporates find TBIs and engage with them. So, if you are a corporate or an incubator, looking to explore new horizons of partnerships, get in touch.

The Five Ways CSR Heads Can Create Lasting Change

The  inaugural session of CSR Café was held on July 4, 2018 and at Cafe Zoe, and was facilitated by Luis Miranda, Trustee – Collective Good Foundation, Chairman – Centre for Civil Society and Chairman – CORO, The session was focused around the ‘The Five Ways CSR Heads Can Create Lasting Change.’

Participants shared their insights and experiences on managing multiple mandates as a CSR Leader, the struggle with engaging stakeholders, the need for more sectoral research and the potential for collaboration among themselves and with the government. The following is a summary of themes explored:

  • The role CSR plays in addressing social issues has evolved. CSR leaders, the board and other stakeholders must now re-assess their definitions and approaches to CSR, and explore how it can play a role in inspiring change and social action in the wider ecosystem. This re-alignment must become part of both strategy and implementation for CSR to become an effective catalyst for social change.
  • Effectively communicating about CSR can build engagement with internal and external stakeholders, and keep them invested in the organization’s CSR activities.
  • Many articulated the need for continuous, rigorous research that analyzed what was going right, and how to manage what was going wrong. Forums such as CSR Café and a seminal industry publication, are required to share research and explore areas that need research while identifying relevant tools, models and resources.
  • Collaboration is the way forward for many. Of the many forms of collaboration, the following were the most commonly articulated:
  • The Government while being the largest delivery agent for social welfare, struggles to deliver effectively to the last-mile. Companies could bridge this gap by using their expertise and CSR funds to help the government deliver its solutions to the end beneficiary; and help beneficiaries access the government’s social welfare pool.
  • The sheer jump in the number of CSR interventions has led to replication of efforts with little cross pollination or dialogue. Companies, by working together, could increase the scope and scale of their CSR and impact. For instance, small companies can scale up effective solutions, while larger companies can create and sustain stronger grassroots network & linkages.

Follow us on social media to keep updated about the valuable learning from this formidable community of CSR leaders. If you and your company are interested in participating in this forum, do reach out to us at team.comms@wohla.samhita.org.