BITS Of Social Impact: A Social Entrepreneurship Primer with Stories of Founders from BITS Pilani

By Harsh Bhargava and Sai Prameela Konduru

What is social entrepreneurship? What are the practical tips for setting up and sustaining a social impact organization? How to assess the impact of programmes run by NGOs? This book answers such questions through the real-life stories of twenty-five founders and changemakers who have made a social impact.

All the founders featured in the book are alumni of BITS Pilani. The narratives cover social sectors like healthcare, education, environment, the arts and culture, and rural transformation. The book augments the thrust given to entrepreneurship and inter-disciplinary thinking and practices in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

The book will be of interest to the professionals in the development sector, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, impact investors, researchers, policymakers, students, educational and other institutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9789354226311

Harsh Bhargava

Harsh Bhargava has been teaching social entrepreneurship, startup management, and related subjects in leading B-schools in Hyderabad. He has worked with a rural transformation NGO. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, IIT Kanpur and Naval PG School, California, Harsh is a former Commodore, Indian Navy. His previous books include BITS of Success and Virtual Leadership. When he is not teaching, regular community volunteering, along with travel, photography, golfing, and blogging keep him occupied.

Book preview

Preface

Seventy-five years in the life of a nation and an educational institution are a milestone of sorts. Birla Engineering College, the forerunner of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani was set up in 1947 when India attained independence. BITS has grown to five campuses in Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad, Dubai and Mumbai. BITS had introduced many innovations in higher education in India fifty years ago. Some of these, like multi-disciplinary programmes, dual degree options, flexibility in course selection, including liberal arts, practice school in the industry and student-centric learning, have been included in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. BITS has been ahead of its times.

Alumni are the real ambassadors of any educational institution. BITS is no exception. The alumni of BITS have excelled in all walks of life. Be it entrepreneurship, startups, education, research, armed forces, government, or the social sector, BITSians, as the alumni of BITS are called, have made a mark globally. This book showcases the BITSian founders of organizations, which have made a social impact. These founders have taken a path with passion and commitment to bring about social change. This change could be in any sector, like healthcare, environment, education, livelihoods, culture, or the transformation of communities. This book includes stories of such changemakers, both who are well known as well as those who are emerging over the horizon.

We are grateful to the changemakers for participating in this project. Various rounds of interviews, calls, emails and messages were needed to write each story. Those included in this book were either nominated by fellow BITSians or had been recognized earlier by BITS or BITSAA (BITS Alumni Association). The bottom line was that all of them are founders of their respective social impact organizations. We are aware that there are countless more BITSians who are working in the development sector, both in India and overseas. We wish we could have included more of them in this book.

In today’s tech-dominated and cloud-controlled world, do people read books? Well, we would say they do, if it interests them. Besides the inspiring stories which have made a social impact, this book also includes a chapter titled ‘Social Entrepreneurship 101’. It introduces the concepts of social entrepreneurship through practical tips and real-life examples, based on our experience in this sector. The book would be of interest to social sector founders and professionals, researchers, investors, students, educational and government institutions, policy-makers and budding social entrepreneurs.

Your feedback is welcome to improve the contents of the book as well as our knowledge.

Harsh Bhargava

Sai Prameela Konduru

Secunderabad

10 October 2022

Introduction

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101

‘Entrepreneurs are like rain drops, never afraid to fall.’

Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship have been given a thrust in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. In this chapter, we will explain the meaning of both the terms and the connected concepts in a simple manner. We will also give a few practical tips on how to set up a social venture or a non-governmental organization (NGO). These tips are based on our experience of teaching the subjects of social entrepreneurship, NGO and startup management. These have been culled from mentoring and supervising more than 100 field projects and internships connected with these courses over the last twenty years. We will also share the examples from the founders’ stories that are featured in this book.

Entrepreneurship

It is a process and the ability by which we can set up a business or enterprise. The primary purpose of any business is to maximize the wealth of the shareholders. Simply put, it is all about earning profits.

Startups

In simple terms, a startup is a newly started venture or a business. The novelty is not with reference to the time or age of the venture, but the business idea itself. Startups try and solve a specific real-life need, either in a totally new way, or in a simpler way. Startups focus on the needs of the customers. Startups also use technology to meet the customer’s needs. Thinkerbell Labs, which created Annie, the world’s first Braille learning device, is an example of a startup in the social sector. There are more than 77,000 startups in India.

Social Entrepreneurship

In contrast, social entrepreneurship means setting up a social enterprise for the common good of the society. While most business enterprises are obliged to adhere to corporate social responsibility (CSR), social entrepreneurs work for altruistic purposes only, and not because they have to. The purpose here is not profits but achieving some common good for the society, like improving healthcare, quality of education, generating employment, skill development, sanitation, and pollution control, to name a few.

Structure of a Social Venture

A social venture can be set up in any of the following ways:

1. A Section-8 Company in terms of the Companies Act 2013, where the profits are reinvested for the originally stated purpose, like promoting arts, commerce, education, charity, protecting the environment, sports, science, research and social welfare. Life For Equity and ISDM, profiled in this book, are examples of Section-8 Companies.

2. An NGO registered either as a trust (under Section 12AA) or a society. Without getting into the semantics of an NGO, not-for-profit (NFP), social purpose organization (SPO) or civil society organization (CSO), we will consider these as similar for our discussions. In this book, Diyaghar, Educait and Computer Shiksha are examples of NGOs.

3. A Private Limited company with the purpose of doing some common good. Examples of such companies are Thinkerbell Labs, SusBio, ApniClass, VisitHealth and Applied Solar Technologies, which will be featured later in this book.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Social ventures must address one or more of the SDGs set by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 and to be achieved by 2030. According to the UN,

At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries—developed and developing—in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth, all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The set of seventeen SDGs include: no poverty, good health and well-being, and quality education. Most of the NGOs and social ventures profiled in this book have addressed one or more of these SDGs.

How to Set Up a Social Venture

We would suggest the following steps, which would be explained one by one:

1. Identifying the social need and opportunity, starting small, thinking big.

2. Making a business model.

3. Identifying funding options.

4. Making an impact assessment.

5. Addressing the marketing challenges.

6. Using volunteers.

7. Stressing on the need for community ownership.

8. Ensuring sustainability of the venture.

Identifying the Need

Any social venture must focus on the needs of the beneficiary (the customer, in business parlance). There are several ways to identify the need, which, in turn, becomes an opportunity, as listed below with examples of the social ventures in this book:

1. Customer pain point or dissatisfaction or solving a problem:

•Availing physiotherapy at home after 6 p.m.: YourPhysio

•Online tuitions/assistance in the local language: ApniClass

•Lack of computer training in government schools: Computer Shiksha

2. Observe the world around us:

•Orphans or children with diseases: Metastring and OPFORD Foundations

3. Finding gaps in the marketplace:

•Affordable and accessible healthcare: VisitHealth

•Cashless OPD, as opposed to IPD: VisitHealth

•Customized career guidance: CareerGuide

At this stage, we need to estimate the number of customers/beneficiaries and their demographics in advance. Demographics include age, gender and preferences of the target audience, etc.

The key is to locate the felt-need of the target audience and work on it, instead of selling them near-impossible dreams. Once the community is convinced that the venture is theirs and meant for them, it will whole-heartedly support and participate in it.

Start Small, Think Big

Having identified the need (and the problem), we build a solution step-by-step and offer it to the customer/beneficiary to use and give feedback. This is called the minimum viable product (MVP) approach and incremental development. The Braille learning device by Thinkerbell Labs was developed in stages. Based on the feedback of visually-impaired students and teachers, it was further refined. Another example is Computer Shiksha, which started with providing used computers to government schools, then added content, and is now proposing a device which can directly use a TV, thus eliminating the need for an LCD projector, etc. Similarly, VisitHealth initially offered free consultation to users for a limited duration. As the number of users increased, it kept on adding benefits which the users were needing. VisitHealth did not impose its features on its customers.

A common mistake at this stage is building unnecessary features in the product or service that the customer does not need. We need to remember: ‘Benefits, not features!’ Start small but think big, which means that the larger picture of the society or the community being served should always be kept in mind. We need to keep assessing the ‘product-market fit’ as we develop our service or product for the customer/beneficiaries.

Business Model

Even if we are setting up an NGO, which runs on donations, we must make a business model to address all issues like the problem and solution, market size and marketing, implementation plan, revenue stream and funding. Suppose the donations dwindle, or stop suddenly: How will the NGO sustain? This brings to mind the recent measures that the Union Government took to control the inflow of funds from overseas foundations and aid agencies. NGOs dependent upon such funding are finding it difficult to sustain. The NGOs have to think of generating some revenues. An example is a school for specially abled children in Secunderabad which generates revenue by selling seasonal greeting cards and crafts produced by its students.

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a frequently used business modelling tool. It uses a visual format of the business plan, while minimizing the fuzziness. It uses nine building blocks which together provide a coherent view of the business. The BMC provides focus and clarity on what is driving the business, as well as the flexibility to tweak the model and try things from a planning perspective. Eight of the nine blocks of BMC are applicable to NGOs as well. The ninth block, ‘Revenue Streams’, is replaced by ‘Measure of Impact’ for an NGO.

Funding Options

Like any venture or startup, social entrepreneurs and NGOs also make a beginning with their own funds and support of friends and family. Thereafter, for further growth, social ventures find it difficult to raise funds, as compared to for-profit enterprises. However, there are angel investors who support social ventures. VisitHealth was able to raise funds from angel investors in India. The Impact Investors Council (IIC) is the leading national industry body to strengthen Indian impact investing. IIC’s mission is to encourage private capital to bridge the social investment gap in India. Its members and partners include Aavishkaar Group, Artha Impact and Asha Impact, among others. IIC’s network partners include the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Impact Investing Network.

For NGOs, a major source of funding is the CSR funds from the corporate sector. After the government made it mandatory for the companies to invest in specified areas of CSR, NGOs have been able to get financial support. Nirmaan, featured in this book, has been able to raise Rs 150 crores, largely through CSR funds.

Impact Assessment

One basic question every potential impact investor may ask is, ‘What is the impact of your intervention on society?’ Therefore, every social venture must think of impact assessment early. Here are few parameters, which, if measured, can convince investors to invest in your social venture:

•Healthcare: Number of days of wages lost (due to poor health), average expenditure on healthcare (before and after the intervention by your social venture).

•Education: The percentage improvement in attendance of teachers and students and the improvement in performance of the students in the examinations. A related issue is also the percentage decrease in the number of children dropping out from schools.

•Livelihoods: The percentage increase in household income, the number of employed people in the community and those who are self-employed.

•Waste Treatment: Tonnes of waste treated per day, the amount of carbon emissions prevented, etc.

•Drinking Water Supply: The number of patients suffering from water-borne diseases before and after the intervention by this social enterprise. Of equal importance is the number of days of lost wages, etc., due to such diseases.

Many of the above parameters are being measured by the social ventures featured in this book.

Social Audit

Social ventures can also undergo social audits carried out by certified social auditors. This audit is in addition to the accounting audit. Social audit, through its systematic process, allows the NGOs to identify the gap between the desired and actual impact of a project/programme/service implemented. It also allows NGOs to enforce accountability and transparency in service delivery. In India, one can approach the Social Audit Network (SAN).

Marketing Challenges

Whether it is an NGO or a social enterprise, reaching out to the beneficiaries or customers is key. Generally, for the NGOs, this is a weak area. Marketing is not meant for business organizations only. Whether it is a product or a service, it needs to be delivered to the customer or beneficiary. For organizational growth, the number of customers/beneficiaries has to grow. Marketing theory tells us the 4 Ps—Product, Price, Place and Promotion—which constitute the marketing mix. Whether our product is a Braille learning device (Thinkerbell Labs) or a waste treatment plant (SusBio) or a service like Education support in local languages (ApniClass) or computer literacy for under-served children (Computer Shiksha), we have to allocate resources (people, time and budget) for marketing. As we bring out later, volunteers can help the NGOs with promoting the product/service with posters, brochures, flyers and campaigns. In today’s digital world, marketing is incomplete without using the social media.

What is common between social entrepreneurship and social media? It might feel like the answer is social but both of them are primarily about how we amplify a message. The RIGHT message, for the RIGHT cause, to the RIGHT audience.

According to Nidhi Upadhyay, a Content Strategist, digital marketing has many myths. Some of these are:

1. Brands being personal on social media is tacky.

The biggest myth ever. People like relating to a brand and feeling connected. Some days sharing your company’s love for coffee and indoor plants or weekly team check-ins make people feel like they are interacting with a human being rather than a company bot.

2. Social media marketing is free marketing.

Good things don’t come for free. A great social media strategy requires investment—from employees to content production.

3. High-quality content is the only winning formula.

Great content is always a good idea, but great content doesn’t mean that you need to hire a Marvel movie level of VFX team. Sometimes it’s just the phone camera and Shantisree from your computer class at a village school, who can help you make wonderful and relatable content to win the donors to support your programme.

4. Trending content is the only way to get a quick audience response.

Nothing is worth the five seconds of fame. No viral moment