Indian ideas offer unlimited potentialhttp://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=268 Can UnLtd's UK success be replicated in India? Richard Alderson is determined to find out - here he explains the inspiration, opportunities and challenges of UnLtd India
What is the social entrepreneurial landscape in India? Are the support needs of early-stage social entrepreneurs different from those in the UK? How do you take a model of supporting social entrepreneurs that has been working successfully in the UK to India?
These are the questions we've been asking ourselves as we've built the foundations for UnLtd India, a brand new organisation inspired by UnLtd that will support early-stage social entrepreneurs in India.
Since 2003, UnLtd - the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs - has helped more than 6,000 individuals across the UK with cash and support to start projects to positively impact their communities.
In November 2005, seven UnLtd award winners - social entrepreneurs who have won funding from UnLtd to support their business ideas - went on a pioneering ‘learning journey' to visit some of north India's most inspiring changemakers. The journey was the brainchild of John Rafferty, UnLtd's CEO at the time. It drew heavily on the contacts and experience of UnLtd founding trustee Michael Norton, who has worked in India on social issues for the last 12 years. I had travelled a number of times to India and I was lucky enough to be asked to lead the group.
What we experienced changed our lives. We were humbled and inspired. Most importantly, we learnt that it was not the social entrepreneurs we met that had so much to learn from us, but exactly the opposite. Simultaneously, Michael Norton's encouragement, and the interactions with social entrepreneurs, academic institutions and sector organisations inspired a question: ‘Is something like UnLtd needed in India?' The response was positive and the idea was born.
As we discovered on our first journey, India is a country of enormous, entrenched social challenges. A quarter of its 1.1 billion people lives below the poverty line; more than a third of adults are illiterate; 45% of children under the age of three are chronically malnourished; and disparities in wealth are some of the greatest in the world.
At the same time, it is a country of incredible opportunities. India's GDP makes it one of the world's 15 richest countries and its growth rate is predicted to make it the third largest national economy by 2040. It is also a youthful country - 54% of the population is currently under the age of 25.
With its large-scale problems and action by the government and established agencies often failing to bring new solutions, India is an environment ripe for social entrepreneurs.
We are not the first to realise this: Ashoka has been working in India since 1984. However, what's been missing is an organisation supporting early-stage changemakers - those typically in the first three years of their project lifecycle, often operating before a legal entity has been formed and almost always at a stage before other funders or supporting organisations will engage.
UnLtd India's vision is to fill this gap and be the catalyst for thousands of new social entrepreneurs who, through their new ideas, passion and entrepreneurial skills, can impact millions of lives across the country. In 15 years' time we'd like to be able to talk about India's civil society leaders at that point - the future equivalents of Bunker Roy (who set up Barefoot College), Joe Mathias (Gram Vikras), Jeroo Bilimoria (Childline India), Rippan Kapoor (Cry), Stan Thekaekara (ACCORD and Just Change) - and point out how many had critical early-stage support from UnLtd India. Most importantly, 15 years from now, we'd like to have played a part in a new mindset - that everyone in India can take action, in a small or large way, to make the world around them a better place.
Underpinning UnLtd India are the same broad philosophical ideas that drive UnLtd's work in the UK: a belief that it is the people living and working amongst social problems that often come up with the solutions; that, given the right resources, social entrepreneurs are an incredibly powerful bottom-up force; that it is the leaders that make or break these organisations at the early stages; and that sustained social impact can be achieved through many vehicles, including grant-funded and earned-income models.
To achieve our vision we will run an initial two-year pilot finding, funding and supporting 100 early-stage social entrepreneurs in two contrasting locations - the urban environment of Mumbai and the more rural environment in Tamil Nadu. In both cases we've established strong local partnerships. We aim to test the model and provide compelling evaluation results that will lever in further funding for a larger national-scale launch.
The vision is also of an organisation rooted in India. Indians are naturally suspicious of foreign organisations and we have invested a lot of time building strong partnerships with Indian organisations, building an Indian team, and listening very carefully to the needs of social entrepreneurs on the ground. This, together with the fact that UnLtd's remit is to operate within the UK, is why we are an independent and separately funded organisation. My role, as I see it, is to be the person who can bring the knowledge from the UK and set up the organisation successfully before handing the reins over to an Indian national who can drive it forward.
Like any entrepreneurial journey, it has been far from straightforward. But operating in India adds a large number of complications, particularly concerning the regulations around importing money and the length of time it takes to set up charitable legal entities. But through the support of our lead Indian partner, Dasra (www.dasra.org), the encouragement of Michael Norton and the UnLtd leadership team, the backing of numerous organisations in both the UK and India (amongst them The Indus Entrepreneurs Network, the UK India Business Council and McKinsey), and through the excellent work of UnLtd India staff member Pooja Warier, who's been co-ordinating activities in India, we are ready to launch.
To date, we have raised just shy of £100,000 through a mixture of trusts and foundations and individual donors in the UK. This is enough to support our first year of activities. Moving forward, we see the UK remaining a strong source of funds, but, as we begin to demonstrate some early results, we will increasingly focus on fundraising in India. We will also be raising money internationally through an innovative new scheme called Buy1Give1Free (www.Buy1-Give1Free.com) and developing a number of parallel Indian and internationally-based social businesses that can provide stable ongoing funding.
In October we held a launch at the House of Lords and November saw our official Indian launch at the second annual International Conference on Social Entrepreneurship in India. UnLtd India co-ordinated the conference in conjunction with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Skoll Centre at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. At the conference we announced our first set of ten inspiring investees, drawn from a variety of backgrounds in Mumbai. Their projects tackle a range of social issues, including education, crime, health, capacity building in the NGO sector, employment and basic livelihoods.
At the concept stage, social entrepreneurs in Mumbai will receive a grant of 60-80,000 rupees (approximately £800-£1,000). At the launch stage, for projects with an early track record and the potential for sustainable large-scale impact, entrepreneurs will receive up to 180,000 rupees (approximately £2,200). At both levels, the finance will be coupled with intensive hands-on coaching, training, networking and mentoring, provided by the UnLtd India staff team and external providers.
Though we've been working on UnLtd India for the last 18 months, the journey is only really just beginning. Our challenge now is the same one that faces the early-stage organisations we are supporting: to develop sustainable income streams, to build a robust organisation, and, most importantly, to deliver high-quality, measurable results. Unless we do that, everything else is academic. But if we do - and I believe all the ingredients are in place - then not only do we have the opportunity to build an organisation that can be scaled in India to impact millions of lives, but we could also be the pathfinder for the UnLtd model to be taken elsewhere in the world.
Richard Alderson is the director of UnLtd India
richard.alderson@unltdindia.org
www.unltdindia.org
www.unltd.org.uk |
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