Tuesday, October 06, 2009

LAUNCHING THE ISB iDiya CHALLENGE FOR WORKING PROFESSIONALS!

The Situation:


The Response:

  • Some individuals have taken the untrodden path and have chosen to create companies which do good and also do business.
  • DesiCrew - http://www.desicrew.in/. Rural BPO delivering 40% cost savings to its clients while changing lives of rural populations. 80% of its team are women.
  • Dial 1298 for Ambulance - http://www.1298.in/. Rolling out a nationwide network of life support ambulance service.
  • Inclusive Planet - http://www.inclusiveplanet.com. Building the world’s largest community of differently-abled persons.


Your opportunity to make your mark:


Request:
Please forward this mail to all your friends and colleagues who might get motivated to get involved in social change.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Social Enterprises started by NGOs in India

Sustaintech - profit-making sister company of TIDE India
Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd - Commercial arm of ARTI
Sakhi Retail P Ltd - Commercial arm of SPS
Kumaun Grameen Udyog - a Section 25 company promoted by CHIRAG
Safe Harvest - a company setup to promote and market safe foods and in particular foods with no pesticides used in their cultivation. These products have been produced by small and marginal farmers in rain-fed areas of rural India. Commerical arm of 7 NGOs.

Monday, May 04, 2009

How to do waste management

FORAY | Sunday, March 29, 2009

The best way to reduce your rubbish is to have a look in your bin to see what you are throwing away. Here are some useful tips to reduce waste:

* You could reduce the amount of rubbish in your bin by up to a third by composing your tea bags, coffee grounds, vegetable waste, fruit peelings and garden waste.
* Think before you buy. Try not to buy items that are heavily packaged, opt for the items with less packaging, buy in bulk, or buy refills instead.
* Take appropriate old unwanted items to your local charity shop, someone else could make good use of it. If you have furniture or other household items that are in good condition and may be used by someone else, give them away.
* Say no to plastic shopping bags when you do your weekly shop, use a bag for life or a reusable cloth one instead. Bring your own bags when you shop and try to buy in bulk as often as possible.
* Support your local milkman and have your milk delivered — the average milk bottle can be re-used up to 20 times before being recycled.
* Try not to buy appliances that are run on batteries, choose the solar powered option wherever possible, or try using rechargeable batteries instead. Don’t buy disposable batteries, buy a charger and rechargeable batteries as they are much cheaper. It takes 50 times the energy contained within batteries to make them.
* Use low energy long-life light bulbs to save money, electricity and waste.
* Use cloth hankies and flannels instead of the throw away version.
* Use both sides of paper before recycling it. Re-use envelopes and wrapping paper where possible.
* Buy recycled goods such as writing paper, toilet roll, dustbin bags, or buy second hand products.
* Re-use your glass jars for storing small items like nails and bolts, old yoghurt pots make an excellent alternative to plant pots for seedlings. Storage containers can be re-used for storing leftover food instead of clingfilm and foil.
* Hire or borrow tools from friends or family for odd jobs, rather than buying your own.
* Magazine subscription: Think if you really need them? Save yourself a few rupees and buy them only when you need them, or agree with friends to swap magazines when you've read them. Don't forget to recycle them once you've read them.
* Re-use envelopes and wrapping paper where possible.
* Buy recycled goods such as writing paper, toilet roll, dustbin bags, or buy second hand products.
* Washing detergents — buy with combined conditioner. It saves packaging and money.
* Buy fruits and vegetables loose from a local market or grocer rather than highly-packaged goods from supermarkets. It saves packaging.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/165715/How-to-do-waste-management.html

Sunday, May 03, 2009

An Introductory Workshop For Entrepreneurial Non Profits

An Introductory Workshop For Entrepreneurial Non Profits

Venue: Accountability House, A-5, Sector 26, Noida

June 5-6,2009

Organised by:

Centre for Training and Research in Responsible Business & Social Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Partner:

Centre for Social Initiatives & Management, Hyderabad

Part Sponsor: SEHGAL FOUNDATION

A clear message which has emerged from the recent Davos meet is that Business and Governments have lost peoples’ Trust worldwide. On the other hand peoples’ Trust in civil society organizations has increased with communities around the world expressing their faith in the ability of not for profit and for profit civil society organizations to provide solutions to the problems of the common man.

The global financial meltdown and the steep fall in peoples’ trust in big business has opened the doors for Social Entrepreneurs. Social Enterprise, which aims at earning a profit along with achieving maximum social value, it is now being felt, is the answer for the growing retrenchment and increasing unemployment.

Social Entrepreneurs are seen as agencies whose mission orientation and strategic intervention through innovative programmes have helped in addressing issues of poverty and social discrimination. They provide the jobs, skills, and services that are needed to hold the economy and communities together in times of crisis.

A number of Social Entrepreneurs in India have proved through actions their capability to bring about the needed change. NGOs are finding it increasingly difficult to finance their on going projects because of lack of adequate finances. Many NGOs are looking for ways and means to generate internal revenues to finance the projects and gain sustainability. The move towards becoming Social Entrepreneurs is gaining strength.

The two day workshop will introduce the concept of social entrepreneurship, provide an insight into the working of social entrepreneurs to address organisational and resource challenges. It will attempt to orient socially conscious individuals and civil society organisations to the opportunities and needs in the social sector and social entrepreneurship as a means to make social work practice sustainable and effective.

Description

This workshop is an attempt to explain the important breakthroughs in social entrepreneurship. Participants learn what social entrepreneurship is, and how to develop and implement customized plans for social entrepreneurship. This Workshop will cover:

1. An overall framework for understanding social entrepreneurship

2. Benefits of being more entrepreneurial

3. Why private, government and business funders should support social entrepreneurship

4. Major social entrepreneurship strategies and important considerations (product and service sales, free-standing businesses, partnership with corporations)

Special features of this training include:

1. Focused on nuts-and-bolts activities of planning social entrepreneurship activities for your organization

2. Instruction from experts on social entrepreneurship

3. Comprehensive, well-organized and substantive training materials

4. Case Studies of Successful Social Enterprises

Who Should Attend:

This is a workshop for Social Entrepreneurs and not for profit organizations aspiring to generate internal revenues to sustain their social projects Employees responsible for Corporate Responsibility in Corporate house will benefit by learning about the operations of social enterprises and how business can support such ventures to win community goodwill. The workshop will provide students an opportunity to learn how to create social enterprises as a career option.

Sessions

Introducing the Workshop

Understanding Social Entrepreneurship

Speaker: Prof K.L.Shrivastava, Centre for Social Initiatives & Management

Need for Not for Profits to take up Social Enterprises

Speaker: Anshu Gupta, Goonj

Business Development Strategy For Entrepreneurial Non Profits

Positioning & Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurial Non Profits

Speaker: Suresh Kr Pramar

Leveraging Corporate CSR to promote Social Entrepreneurship

Speaker: Vikas Goswami, Lead CSR Microsoft

Leveraging Government support to promote Social Entrepreneurship

Case Studies: Prof K L Shrivastava

Site Visit: Goonj

Speakers:

Prof K.L.Shrivastava, CSIM, Hyderabad, has been involved in training Social Entrepreneurs for the past almost a decade. Many of his past pupils are successful social entrepreneurs

Vikas Goswami, Lead CSR Microsoft, is a CSR expert who has almost two decades of experience in Corporate Responsibility. She is both knowledgeable and an excellent speaker

Anshu Gupta is the Founder Director of Goonj. A grassroot worker Anshu has built Goonj into a very effectivev social organization working for the welfare of the poor and needy.

Suresh Kr Pramar, Executive Director, Centre for Training and Research in Responsible Business, is a journalist by profession.

Acceptance of more Speakers is awaited.

Certificate: Certificate of Participation will be awarded to all participants at the end of the workshop.

Registration Fee: Corporates, Corporate sponsored Foundations, Funding Agencies Rs 5,000, NGOs,Social Entrepreneurs and SMEs Rs 4,000 Students: Graduate students Rs 1,500, Post Graduate and IITs Rs 2,500 Limited seats available. The fee does not include accommodation or conveyance. Registration on typed paper providing the following Name, Age, Organisation, Address, Cell Phone No., Email Id Cheque/DD No. along with fee should be sent to Suresh Kr Pramar, 3A, Nilgiri 3, Sector 34, Noida 201301. Cheques/DD should be made out in the name of CRBiz, Noida. Participants from outside New Delhi/Noida should make payments through Demand Draft.

Phone:9213133042

The Organisers: The Centre for Training & Research in Responsible Business and Social Entrepreneurship are pioneers in organizing workshops on Corporate Social Responsibility. We have so far conducted five well attended workshops on CSR in various parts of the country: New Delhi Oct 2007, Hyderabad January 2008, Chennai April 2008, Bangalore September 2008 and New Delhi December 2008. These workshops have attracted participation from several PSUs, Private Sector units, National and International NGOs and students. The Centre is part of the Global Gandhian Trusteeship and Corporate Responsibility Foundation, a registered Trust.

Knowledge Partner: The Center for Social Initiative & Management (CSIM) is a business school for social work professionals. CSIM helps create a fertile base for socially motivated individuals to discover their innate capabilities, enable them enhance their personality, equip them with management skills to launch their social initiatives. This process enables to transform their vision into action. CSIM has centers at Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Part Sponsor: The Sehgal Foundation was established to help reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in rural India. Its goal is to empower individuals and communities to take care of themselves, and eventually help them become self-sufficient. In order to be self-reliant, it is essential that development is multidimensional, and to achieve this, the Foundation promotes an Integrated, Sustainable Village Development (ISVD) model.

This Workshop was originally to be held on April 16-17, 2008. It was postponed due to the National Election

Suresh Kr Pramar, Executive Director

3 A, Nilgiri 3, Sector 34, Noida

Cell: 9213133042

Email Suresh.pramar@gmail.com; suresh.responsiblebizz@gmail.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Social Solution, Without Going the Nonprofit Route

Alex Quesada for The New York Times

Conchy Bretos, right, advises housing agencies on how to care for older people in their homes. Her daughter Pilar works with her.

By MARCI ALBOHER, Published: March 4, 2009

It used to be that people who wanted to solve a social problem — like lack of access to clean water or inadequate housing for the poor — created a charity. Today, many start a company instead.

Alex Quesada for The New York Times

Ms. Bretos is formerly Florida’s secretary for aging and adult services.

D.light, a company cofounded by Sam Goldman, who spent four years in the Peace Corps in Benin before earning a master’s degree in business from Stanford University, is an example. Mr. Goldman started D.light with the mission of replacing millions of kerosene lamps now used in poor, rural parts of the world with solar-powered lamps.

Having used kerosene lamps himself while living in Benin, Mr. Goldman learned firsthand of kerosene’s problems — it is expensive, it provides poor light and it is extremely dangerous. When the son of his West African neighbor nearly died after suffering severe burns from spilled kerosene, Mr. Goldman said he realized he wanted to create a venture to solve both the social and economic problems caused by these lamps. His time in Benin also convinced him, he said, that only as a business could a project become large enough to reach the great number of people who use these lamps as their primary source of light.

“We could have done it as a nonprofit over a hundred years, but if we wanted to do it in five or 10 years, then we believed it needed to be fueled by profit,” he said. “That’s the way to grow.”

Since the company incorporated in May 2007, it has raised $6.5 million from a combination of investors who, Mr. Goldman said, are able to push the company on both its social mission and its profitability.

What to call these innovative businesspeople is the subject of some debate. The terms “social entrepreneur” and “social businesses” are generally used to characterize people and businesses that bring entrepreneurship to ventures that have a social mission. Yet there are those who would limit the social entrepreneur label only to those without any profit motive. A separate, but related, category are companies referred to as “socially responsible.” These are generally companies whose core business does not necessarily have a social mission, but who display socially responsible characteristics, like environmental sensitivity.

Because of the difficulty of defining these social ventures, it is hard to gauge the exact number of them, but there are indications that there is increasing interest in the idea of using business to tackle the world’s big problems. Last year, 630 people attended a new conference, Social Capital Markets, on social venture investing. According to Kevin Jones, the creator of the conference and a principal in Good Capital, an investment firm focusing on social business, two-thirds of the participants signed up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which he called a sign that people are flocking to what he calls a “new asset class.”

Experts concede that not all social problems respond well to the for-profit model. One example could be early childhood education. “If you set it up as a business, you might be able to raise money more quickly and grow more quickly,” said David Bornstein, the author of “How to Change the World” (Oxford University Press, 2004), an often-cited book on social entrepreneurship. “But if you want to be profitable, you might find that you have to make choices that diminish the quality of your program and then children won’t learn to read as quickly. While Stanley Kaplan can make a fortune selling education to well-heeled people, providing the same services to low-income kids would probably not provide a very good income.”

Mr. Bornstein said it came down to one crucial question: “As you grow, will the economics of your business work in favor of your mission or will they work against it? In the case of providing access to solar energy for people in villages, the bigger you get, the cheaper your product will be, so the economies of scale make sense.”

Conchy Bretos, too, chose a for-profit model for her venture. While working as Florida’s secretary for aging and adult services, Ms. Bretos learned of the difficulties that force older people to leave their homes and move into nursing homes for lack of proper care.

With a partner, Ms. Bretos started the MIA Consulting Group, a business that advises governments as well as private housing developers on how to bring assisted living services cost-effectively to low-income housing communities so that older people can be cared for in their own homes.

Ms. Bretos said that a business was the natural model for their venture. “We came from a strong business background and we developed a business plan,” Ms. Bretos said. “By doing that, we discovered that we were offering something that no one else was offering. We got our first client even before we incorporated and within a few hours we had to form a company to be able to put together a contract. It was just easy to form an S corporation.”

Ms. Bretos said she also had to make a living. “In this nation, we equate success with profit,” she said. “We wanted to be profitable while also doing something that was right and giving back to the community.”

Advisers who work with these kinds of companies say the rise in social business reflects the times. “Historically, social and legal norms tended to recognize and treat for-profit and progressive social or environmental motivations and activities separately,” said Jonathan S. Storper, a partner at the law firm Hanson Bridgett who specializes in sustainable and socially responsible business. “These lines have blurred and converged as the business world attempts to respond to the modern culture’s demand that businesses be good stewards of the environment and society.”

Still, there are legal issues to consider. The basic analysis, Mr. Storper said, is whether the organization’s primary goal is to maximize shareholder profit or to benefit the public. “If the primary goal is to benefit the shareholders, then the legal structure should maximize the ability to create wealth,” he said. “While nonprofits have advantages, such as an exemption from paying taxes and the tax deductibility of donations, nonprofit activities are restricted to its charitable purpose.”

He noted that the government and the public “generally are less able to scrutinize the operations and finances of for-profit businesses.” But, he added, “The mission of an organization may benefit from the broad public involvement and support inherent in nonprofit organizations.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/business/smallbusiness/05sbiz.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is really everyone getting big salaries in India? Fact or Rumour?

Income bracket No of tax payers TDS collected
(per year in Rs.) 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 (in Cr in Rs.)





5-10L X
2X
10L-20L
150,000
5,770
10-50L 87,000
224,000
50L-1Cr 4,400
10,500
1Cr & above 2,200
5,000 4415

As per ITRs filed.
Individual income statistics.
Source: Income tax dept, Govt of India through The Economic Times, Sat, Dec 27, 2008