In businesses and social welfare realm alike, last mile delivery is an important factor in the overall efficiency and success of an organisation, and even that of an industry. In many sectors, the degree of its efficiency can even make or break an organisation.?
In the context of the social development sector, it has an undeniable role to play in the effectiveness of any developmental vertical, be it healthcare, skilling and livelihood, behaviour change or anything else.?
India has a large number of local social welfare entrepreneurs working at the grassroots. They play a significant role in furthering the developmental agenda of the nation, tackling grassroots challenges and bringing government schemes and programmes to the underserved communities. As community-based organisations (CBOs) and non-profits mostly operate at the last-mile connection with the communities, their ability to identify, gauge and assess the need-gaps, and help deploy solutions for addressing various welfare goals have proved to be essential every now and then.?
Similar instances are often observed during natural disasters, where knowledge of a locality becomes the most crucial input for any response and even rehabilitation efforts. Often confined to smaller geographies and limited scope, these organisations are not discovered by donors, nor they have access to multiple donor groups.?
Recently, the significance of these organisations became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic in creating outreach to any location or community, which proved challenging amidst the spreading epidemic even for government machinery.?
This role was duly acknowledged and appreciated by governments as well as development institutions across the globe, when the grassroots initiatives and social enterprises effectively provided the last-mile delivery of services.
However, these social entrepreneurs and welfare initiatives face several challenges that hinder their ability to bring change on the ground in a sustainable manner. It includes the lack of structured approach in their work and in presenting their project, dearth of resources and inability to access as well as tap locally available and in-country resources
Crunched for resources, they are also unable to attract good talent and appropriate expertise. Furthermore, due to capacity limitation, they are neither able to set up or upgrade systems and practices related to adoption of technology, good documentation, and are unaware of good accounting and governance practices.?
In most cases, such organisations do not have any strategy for organisational sustainability and their growth is limited to the capacities and endeavour of their founders. While there are several opportunities emerging in the non-profit space (especially in the areas of technology and investment), such organisations which are significant in numbers are unable to leverage them.
Parallelly, donors (private, public or government) in the social ecosystem constantly look for suitable partners for collaborations to realise their social development objectives. Most grant-making organisations and donors realise the importance of last-mile partner organisations that are well connected with the community and have the capacity to create meaningful impact on the ground. But even the donors face challenges while identifying and operating with partners especially in the following areas:
1. Financial strength of the partner is low, therefore there is low flexibility in managing grants or CSR funds
2. Reporting and documenting capabilities are limited, which restricts the ability to monitor and measure the social impact created
3. Due to limited human resource bandwidth, partner organisations are unwilling to take risks to innovate and experiment
4. Compliance towards the good governance, needs of donors demands, strong practices and demanding processes, which many organisations are unable to adopt
5. In many projects, there is only one donor, putting the project sustainability at huge risk. Project exits are either not easy or it impact sustainability of activities
On the brighter side, there are many emerging opportunities. The Government of India is proactively leading the transformation of the social landscape by reaching out to the marginalized communities through social development schemes and programmes by enabling policy mechanisms. India¡¯s middle-class segment is also growing, giving rise to their prospect of charitable giving. Additionally, being the first nation to legalize corporate social responsibility, India is providing a structured boost to development endeavours at the grassroots.
Smile Foundation, in alignment with the vision of ¡®Atmanirbhar Bharat¡¯, has been working to empower social grassroots initiatives as well as social entrepreneurs towards self-reliance and sustainability.?
Social Venture Philanthropy (SVP), conceptualised by Smile Foundation, is in fact an adaptation of the successful business model of venture capital for the development sector, linking social investment strategies to charitable giving with a clear focus on achieving scalability and sustainability.
The idea behind amalgamation of social venture philanthropy was to bridge the gap between supporters and corporate who have the required resources to make large-scale social investment, and grassroots organisations which are doing good work on the ground, but lack the wherewithal to meet the high expectations of donors.
Empowering Grassroots, a programme designed under SVP philosophy, is rooted in the belief that it is important to develop capacities and harness the capabilities of social change-makers and grassroots initiatives, in turn enabling them to address the needs of the civil society by supplementing and complementing the efforts of the government and in line with the global development strategies, for gaining resilience, future readiness, credibility and local support.
I have a firm conviction in the potential of local community-based organisations (CBOs) in bringing change at the very grassroots. Hundreds of selfless and inspired social entrepreneurs are born every year in different corners of the country, but they need the right guidance to survive, thrive, succeed and serve an aspiring nation like ours.?
A convergence of good governance, championing entrepreneurial spirit at the grassroots, leveraging emerging technologies, encouraging innovation, creating a high impact model, and imbibing the philosophy of real work and real change are the elementary principle of the vision behind the same.
Empowering Grassroots in an integrated initiative with the dual objective of catalysing effective and impactful social development projects through grant making and building sustainable partner organisations at the grassroots through systematic training and handholding.
The model overcomes the limitations of project-based grant-making models and training initiatives. Unlike conventional grant making models for project funding, where the association between the grant provider and recipient is limited to the achievement of project goals, the EG model take an additional step in ensuring that the partner¡¯s capacity is built over the project duration.
Standalone training is one-time affairs where results cannot be ascertained immediately, and most training outcomes are difficult to measure. In the EG model, partner is provided time and support to practice the learnings from training, implement it and sustain it.
Therefore, a longer engagement and investment on each partner for a specific duration is done in the EG model.
Methodology:
The grassroots organisations are encouraged to raise part funding for any agreed initiative, for which their capacities will be built and capabilities will be nurtured through training, experiential learning, peer learning, mentoring and handholding
The amount raised by them will be matched by an equal amount by Smile Foundation, thus doubling the programme grant
Benefits of the programme
Through a matching grant programme, the investment from the donor is doubled, which also increases ownership of the partner and the community that they serve. This provides higher SROI (social return on investment) on every rupee invested by the donor
Ensures longevity and endurance to the partnerships and programmes that respond to community needs
Civil Society/ beneficiaries / programme participant groups (whichever term we would like to use henceforth) are able to reap the benefits from long-term comprehensive interventions to nurture themselves for transforming lives and the society in its entirety.
A clear exit strategy and intervention can be developed with each partner
Measurable Outcomes
Increased SROI of the investment by project donor
Sustainability of project and partner, thus reducing dependency
The third-party impact evaluation study on the Empowering Grassroots initiative reveals that 60 % of the trained CBOs now have dedicated fundraising teams, and 85 % of them have increased their local fundraising activities over the years. As many as 75 % organisations have published their annual reports, 75 % organisations have expanded their donor base, whereas 95 % CBOs successfully raised funds from individual donors.
These trainings have been enabling CBOs greatly as they ensure the last-mile delivery of government welfare schemes and policies to the communities, besides doing grassroots work. This training programme on local fundraising will ensure the local organisations become more efficient, scale up their welfare work, besides making social projects sustainable locally.
Traditionally, the Indian development sector has depended on large corporations, multinationals or international grant-making institutions for its major funding. However, these sources have often been out of reach for local social initiatives. With progressive policies, a rising middle class (prospective donors), a thriving economy and an envious corporate sector, and above all the path-breaking CSR mandate, several new doors have suddenly opened up for community-based organisations in India.
Smile Foundation has so far trained approximately 1,000 community-based organisations across India, out of which 400 have become self-sustainable locally, playing their small yet significant roles on the path to nation-building.?
[Santanu Mishra is the Co-Founder and Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation. He is an associate member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, and has done his management education from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad]