Day 1: Greetings from Mumbai

I landed tonight and was welcomed by the thousands of people rushing through the airport, the smell and of course the monsoons. I definitely forgot what monsoon really meant until tonight.

Our first assignment is to review and discuss the following websites: Kiva, Global Giving, Samhita and the Global India Fund. These websites share similar mission spaces. Each of these organizations focus on funding projects in developing nations. These websites have portals that empower donors to contribute to organizations (with as little as $10) that have been identified as credible, integral, and key to social change.

Kiya empowers individuals around the world through loans, in hopes to alleviate poverty – a broad mission, however, critical in providing safe and affordable capital to those in need. Global Giving is a portal that allows users to donate their time on projects. The homepage focuses on key events going on the world so that the end user has an understanding of what part of the world that moment may need the most help. If that doesn’t interest the person, you can also search projects by topic (education, health, human rights, etc) or by the region in which you want to donate. It also shows how little money takes a person, a village and a country so far. For example, $14 vaccinates four cows against disease in Ethiopia and $24 provides 4 severely malnourished children in Ethiopia with 4 servings of fortified food.

Samhita and the Global India Fund (GIF) work in concert with each other. These organizations have done the due diligence necessary to ensure that donors are contributing to credible organizations. A many know, India is home to over 2 million NGOs, making it challenging for international donors to donate if they are unsure which of these organizations are accountable and reputable. Samhita and GIF provide that information so these NGOs can be self-sustained, make social impact, and change the world for hundreds of thousands of individuals in India living in poverty, famish and economic restraints.

India is just fascinating. Coming for probably the 30th time now, its different this time. It's different because for the first time in 30 years I am using a different lens to see, understand and explore a country full of love, color, surprises, success and hope. My time previous to this trip was mainly focused on shopping, seeing family and spending time with family members I never knew I had. Although my previous trips have been fun, I am excited about this trip and this wonderful adventure we are about to begin. This journey is part of the class, Social Entrepreneurship, a class empowering us to become leaders of a world that contributes to supporting and improving social and economic conditions. I am looking forward to the next 12 days.

For now, I must sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day, trekking through East Andheri Slums and working alongside a mobile medical unit.

Microfinance and India

Kiva, Global Giving, Samhita and Global India Fund (GIF) are microfinanciers. According to the Kiva website, “Microfinance is ... the idea that low-income individuals are capable of lifting themselves out of poverty if given access to financial services,” and while it is not meant to be a cure-all, it is a tool utilized in the work to end poverty. Each organization, in its own ways, bring global-level philanthropy to your doorstep, or rather, your computer screen. Each of these organizations works to provide entrepreneurs – whether they be just starting up or trying to keep afloat - on one end of the world the opportunity to connect with those who can help them meet their goals on the other.

Donation, whether giving your spare change out of your pocket, or writing a check to an organization, whether in your home town or across the world, can be a daunting process, riddled with questions: Where exactly does my money go? Is someone making sure the organization is really doing the work they say they are? Finding these answers takes a lot of time, and most people simply can not put in that time, or do the 'due diligence', as we have learned to call it. This kind of philanthropy really has to come from the heart. These organizations don't call you up at home and ask for money. These organizations rely on proactive individuals to go online and read about the individuals they support, and provide answers to your what-ifs and questions – they supply profiles and each have a sort of matching or searching system which a potential donor can find an organization or business they can stand behind. It's a really great system – to meet people in the middle and create a mutually beneficial situation, linking those who have and those who need.

Dr. Vyas, who also happens to be the founder of GIF, during class a few weeks ago talked about the fact that she had come across people fascinated with or moved by India, and wanting to contribute but not knowing how to go about it or to whom they should donate. Let me say that, though it is my first day here, I am already starting to see the fascination: Everywhere you go, there are people living in poverty - as we were talking about today, movie stars in million dollar homes live right next to where people are living on the street - as well as people working to lift themselves out of it, and groups trying to help them do so. Samhita, one such group, is a microfinance organization here in India. We met with some of their employees and interns tonight to discuss some of their projects. The people from Samhitha are energetic, they are knowledgeable and excited about the projects and are so clearly invested in what they do. Anyone who contributes to Samhita or Global India Fund, who partners with Samhita to bring their projects globally, should put their what-ifs to the side; these people have it all covered. They provide the due diligence which their projects deserve, and are connected with the organizations and groups which Samhita supports on a personal level, and with a level of humility I have never seen. I am so excited to see these organizations in person, to learn from them and see for myself the power, not only of microfinancing, but of social entrepreneurship in India.

More to come...

Social Enterprise on the Web

Namaste from Mumbai!

I’m writing as our bus winds down the rainy road from Goregoan where we just had a delicious dinner, back to our hotel in Andheri East. For our first blog, Drs. Vyas and Parrish asked us to review some relevant websites that link individual donors with funding opportunities: Kiva, Global Giving, Samhita and the Global India Fund. Below I reflect on some common themes I noticed while perusing the sites:

Accountability. While individual donors are eager to lend their money, time and talents to deserving organizations, they are also increasingly savvy about their giving. Donors want to know that they are supporting reputable organizations that manage funds responsibly and have a measurable impact. All four sites make it easy for visitors to learn more about due diligence measures for assessing giving opportunities, vetting partners and providing assurances that donations will be well spent. Here are some examples I thought were particularly compelling:

• Kiva assigns risk ratings to partner MFIs (1-high; 5-low), allowing donors to better inform their lending decisions
• The “Global Giving Guarantee” offers donors a reimbursement in the form of a Global Giving voucher if they aren’t satisfied with their experience
• Samhita and the Global India Fund offer testimonials from a “Circle of Trust” – organizations and individuals who vouch for the trustworthiness of NGOs. Similarly, Global Giving uses a network of organizations, experts, and stakeholders to vouch for project sponsors.

Mobilizing supporters as multiplier agents for social marketing. The decentralized, individualized nature of each funding model lends itself to marketing through word-of-mouth and personal recommendations. Many of the sites are capitalizing on the prevalence of social networking, providing creative ways for supporters to drive additional supporters to sites through low-cost, web-enabled solutions:

• Global Giving provides a variety of options for supporters to add widgets to their own web pages, blogs, or emails (http://www.globalgiving.org/badges.html)
• Kiva provides supporters with a similar option, offering web banners to be added to supporter sites (http://www.kiva.org/do-more)
• Kiva encourages community members to create web applications, such as an iPhone app for monitoring lending portfolios. Such applications deepen donor involvement while increasing transparency through enhanced engagement with Kiva’s data.

Corporate Sponsorships. While each site prominently features partnerships with private sector partners, each organization is engaging with corporate partners in distinct ways:

• Kiva does an admirable job of describing each corporate partnership, with details on the partner and the nature of their support which includes grant giving, in-kind support, and technical support.
• In contrast, Global Giving frames its corporate engagement as a menu of services and benefits for corporate partners, such as facilitation of employee giving, branded online challenges and aligning giving with corporate goals.
• Samhita offers the most comprehensive approach to corporate engagement with a separate Corporate Social Responsibility Advisory branch that “provides end-to-end solutions for companies to plan and implement strategic CSR initiatives” (http://csr.samhita.org/about_csr.html)

While here, we have the privilege of speaking with Samhita staff and I look forward to learning more about their CSR branch in particular. We’re all looking forward to combining the theoretical analysis we’ve done over the past few weeks with on-the-ground experiences here in India. Our adventures continue tomorrow!

Until then,

Cara

Day 1: Color Me India

“So much of what is singular and memorable about India is the colors. No religion makes more use of color than Hinduism, with its blue-skinned gods and peony-lipped goddesses, and even the spring festival of Holi is focused on color. Here, color seems to be humanity’s way of asserting itself against a pitiless and unvaried backdrop. In India, the flashes of color seem defiant, the hues brighter, more extreme, better than anything nature could have imagined.” Hanya Yanagihara

I read this except from a travel magazine just a few days before my arrival to India, and now here I stand in this colorful country, struck with poverty yet hidden beauties at every corner. When I stepped off the plane I didn’t know what to expect. Independence and a feeling of pure excitement is all I felt. Before me stands an experience of a lifetime. We’ve been studying the meaning of social-entrepreneurship over the past few weeks, however it wasn’t until I saw the people outside on the streets of Mumbai that I understood the true need for a person or organizations with a passion and vision to solve social issues such as poverty and inequality. I look forward to our service project and the NGO sites we will get to see.

Before we left we were asked to look into funding missions and how social entrepreneurs find the funds to start their social venture. As a result I looked at GlobalGiving, Kiva, Global India, and Samhita. With a simple four-part process, Kiva makes lending to alleviate poverty simple. With a loan through Kiva you are essentially providing a loan to people without traditional banking choices. “100% of your loan is sent to microfinance institutions, (aka Field Partners) which administer the loans in the field.” With such a simple process it’s remarkable that Kiva is funded through optional donations and fundraising. Global India Fund: also has a simple giving process, however what I like about GIF is that it stresses the importance of keeping the ‘giver’ informed. Therefore, people that give are not giving blindly and get to receive feedback reports. This is a great way to maintain funding to groups. An informed investor is more likely to give in the future. Due-diligence is an important factor to make sure that the NGOs are credible and trustworthy.

All of these sites have the purpose of offering people the opportunity to support a social cause, at the end of the day you know that you are helping to set the foundation of an initiative that may change lives. Each website incorporates personal stories and detailed information of how and why to make a donation. Moreover I found it interesting how the three of these organizations use technology to their advantage, I had to wonder would something like this even be possible if it weren’t for technology.

I look forward to meeting people from some of these NGO’s that the GIF gives to. This is an experience of a lifetime and it’s only day one!

For further notes on my trip: please follow my personal blog www.colormeindia.tumblr.com

-Courtnay

From Sea of Humanity to Sea of Vehicles

Our first day provided a full-on introduction to what must arguably be one of the world’s worst workday commuting experiences. We always complain in Washington DC about the parking lot-grade conditions of Beltway traffic, and lane closures due to construction sponsored by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Well, it’s nothing compared to the evening commute in Mumbai as the masses leave their offices to head home from South Mumbai to the northern suburbs across half-finished flyovers, pot-hole riddled roads, 3-7 lanes of traffic each way (depending on the road), lack of clear lane markings, with a plethora of vehicle types including cars, buses, two-wheelers, lorries (so-called British trucks, who give one permission to “horn OK please,” oftentimes the only way to really get past), humans, squatters on pavements, piles of construction materials and debris, parked road construction equipment…the list is endless.

Our group set out to get dinner on Monday evening at a cosmopolitan Mall 20-25 minutes away in an air-conditioned tour bus. An hour and a half later, our spirits sagging, most of us were willing to forgo the promise of the cosmopolitan mall in favor of a passing McDonalds if we could just simply get off the bus! The water condensate dripping from the air condition ventilation system on the bus wasn’t helping matters. With the fast rising middle class hungry for trappings of economic success best described by a 4 wheeled car it boggles the mind as to how the nation’s 1.2 billion people may be vehicularly accommodated on its already highly congested road infrastructure. The smog being another point of concern!

A conversation with a taxicab driver, earlier in the afternoon, yielded the information that many cabs at least ran on diesel and that electric vehicles were starting to enter the market, which was a heartening thought. Although Mumbai boasts a strongly connected multi-modal public transportation system (bus, train, and soon to open subway), the sheer number of cars on the roads continues to grow. According to our afternoon cab driver, apparently statistics indicate that each day 250-300 new cars are added to the traffic pattern!

We did eventually get to dinner at the fancy mall (in of itself another story, it beats Tyson’s Galleria in McLean, VA, US), bolstered by the thought that our return journey at least would be faster since we’d be going against the flow of traffic. On our way back, past 9pm at night, the northbound lanes were still jam-packed and red with glowing tail-lights as far as the eye could see.

While the rest of the world debates the value of hybrid and alternative energy vehicles, one wonders how soon India can convert over or if it always remain a step or two behind with respect to energy technology. It would be interesting to look into how many of the country’s over 1 million NGOs are focused on the issue of energy and transportation sustainability.

Reflections from Mumbai

After arriving in our hotel in the early morning hours, with the jet lag setting in, I watched the sun rise on our first day in Mumbai. Looking out from the hotel window, I’m finally able to grasp that our Indian adventure has begun. We have spent the last month in Washington defining various aspects of social entrepreneurs and what it takes to develop and maintain successful social organizations. We’ve heard lectures and read case studies and now are finally able to experience the true case study that is India.

A crucial part of any social venture is finding the money to support the mission. As part of our preparation for the trip, we were asked to look into a few organizations that connect funders with the types of programs we are visiting in India. Samhita, Global India Fund, Global Giving, and Kiva are all online portals connecting a multitude of donors with potential funding opportunities around the world. The sites operate in slightly different ways but share the same concept of global philanthropy in an extremely easy and interactive way.

Samhita aims to create the ultimate social marketplace for NGOs, individual donors, as well as service providers. They are currently in their first phase of development that focuses on NGOs throughout India by providing the opportunities necessary to build an effective organization. The site provides NGOs a voice, while connecting them with donors across the world. NGOs can also enter the site and access resources such as legal advice and where to find volunteers in order to maintain their mission. Working as an Americorps volunteer at a food bank in Ohio, I was responsible for creating a similar portal (on a much smaller scale) for local food pantries to share resources and ideas to further their mission. The food bank portal had great success and provided food pantries with a support system to maintain and become more effective. It is so important for organizations like the NGOs supported by Samhita to have access to resources tailored to their specific social mission in order to be effective and successful.

The Global India Fund, in partnership with Samhita, has a very innovative approach to global philanthropy as well. The online portal not only connects donors with funding opportunities throughout India but also fosters stewardship for donors by providing various donation options as well as regular updates regarding their donation. As we have learned from Dr. Vyas, founder of GIF, the process of gathering social organizations and performing the due diligence necessary to maintain both the organizations’ and GIF’s credibility is extremely important, as well as extensive and time consuming. Making the extra effort to ensure credible organizations are receiving the donations is the next step to creating a secure site, building trust with donors, and maintaining an easily accessible market for global philanthropy.

Global Giving functions along the same lines as both Samhita and GIF but is open to various social organizations throughout the world. Donors are able to enter the site and pick a funding opportunity by either a topic of interest, region of the world, most popular program, and so on. Kiva takes a different approach than the others in that when donors give money it is in the form of a loan that will eventually be paid in full by the recipient. The personal stories of those seeking loans around the world are provided and donors pick and choose the individuals they would like to support. This personal aspect really allows donors to connect with individuals in need and help them get their feet on the ground and eventually sustain their business after repayment of the loan. One of the functions of Kiva’s site that I find to be extremely innovative is when individuals repay loans, the money is then credited to the donor’s Kiva account and can be redistributed to other individuals. Thus, you could only make one initial donation but recycle the money after repayment within the Kiva network and eventually be able to reach multiple individuals over time.

There’s so much that goes in to maintaining successful social organizations and these websites are creating the financial foundation and opportunity for organizations across the globe. They provide the opportunity for anyone attempting to make a donation, no matter the size, to do so in an extremely interactive and accessible way. I look forward to visiting the types organizations that these global philanthropy networks help to fund throughout our two weeks in India. It will no doubt be a life changing experience that will further shape my career in public health. Stay tuned…

Halfway there!

Greetings all from Paris!

It was a quick and easy flight from Minneapolis and now I, like Kelly below, am ruminating on social entrepreneurship, my upcoming experience in India and my thoughts on the blogs we were assigned to look at.

Each of the four organizations has their own perspective on social entrepreneurship and seeks to fulfill its’ mission in different ways. Samhita and Global India Fund provide a veritable database of worthy organizations that have been exhaustively vetted, such that potential donors can feel confident in where there money is going. I try to make several small donations to causes I feel strongly about throughout the year and as my interests take on a more global perspective, the value of a service like this becomes more and more apparent. Global India Fund and Samhita truly take the guess work out of making a charitable donation abroad and, by way of the vast database, provide different ways to do so. Having the choice of making a donation directly to an individual, or to a bank that will distribute the funds as a loan or any other option really gives the donor a feeling of control over their donation.

Kiva is one of the more compelling sites of those we were tasked with visiting. Of course, all of the organizations provide wonderful services and convincing reasons to be charitable; however, I think that the actual aesthetic of the Kiva site provides the best user experience. There are so many different options available to donors now; I feel that having a unique and gripping user experience can really set an organization apart from the others. I really love the ability to scroll over the different individual boxes on Kiva’s home page, see their personal story and really understand how Kiva has helped them. For me, this added a very personal element that I feel is slightly lacking on the other organization web sites. In class we heard from Kate Roberts, the powerhouse PR and Marketing genius from PSI. Not only was her presentation exciting and informative, it also helped us understand the value of making the social entrepreneurship truly personable and relational. I honestly feel that, when soliciting funds for any organization, it really is all about two things: 1) who you know and 2) how you engage them. Although Kiva is quite different than PSI, I like to make the connection between an individual who has the keen ability to connect with others and an organizations website that really does go the extra little bit to make the experience of the user better – and thus create a more likely environment for donation.

GlobalGiving also provides this type of personalized user experience. I appreciate how they separate the available projects by both geography as well as topic so if I were interested in donating money to say a maternal and child health program in sub-saharan Africa, I would be able to make one click of a mouse and see the project options available which fit those specific parameters.

All of these organizations provide ways to truly make a difference, no matter the size or scope of the donation. Each has its’ own personality which caters to, potentially, a certain type of philanthropist. Social entrepreneurship, as we have studied in the classroom and through our own personal experiences, doesn’t fit into one category. The term can really be experienced and encompassed in a variety of different ways, whether it is a charitable organization, a profitable company, or simply a grass-roots way to provide support for a cause an individual deems worthy. What ties all of this together; however, is the need for financial backing. The organizations mentioned above all provide this service, but in different ways.

I still have 10+ hours of travel until I get to India, and I truly cannot wait to arrive and see some of the tenets of social entrepreneurship at work. Undoubtedly this will be a challenging experience – emotionally, mentally and otherwise. I am thrilled to be joining such an esteemed, smart and adventurous group of people on this journey and look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow morning.

Brooke