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Author: Samhita - CGF

CSR: From the perspective of nonprofits

In consultation with 320 nonprofits across India it was found that, “The most reported challenge was a lack of long-term commitment from companies, causing uncertainty and instability among nonprofits. This was followed by a perceived lack of understanding on the part of companies about social issues and solutions, and an emphasis on achieving targets.”

Ragini Menon, Senior Associate and Anushree Parekh, Head of the research and knowledge team at Samhita along with Priyanka Dhingra, Head Programme and Executive Committee member at ATE Chandra Foundation, write about existing trends and challenges that nonprofits face, while highlighting critical aspects of the CSR ecosystem that need strengthening.

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DHFL|How to explore potential and unlock demographic advantage

DHFL wanted to invest their CSR funds in such a way that they can address critical gaps in 3 cause areas that can in turn help India unlock demographic advantages and explore the full potential of available resources. Read on to find out how they impacted over 150,000 lives.

The DHFL Story

Operating with a vision to engage in programs that can promote the enrichment of the society, DHFL first identified 3 cause areas and then worked with Samhita to curate or redesign programs that can address critical issues across the areas. 

How to reap demographic advantages

Although India houses a high proportion of the world

Kimberly Clark | Making lives better through purpose driven brands

The global effort to achieve sanitation and water for all by 2030 is extending beyond the household to include institutional settings such as separate washrooms in schools and workspaces. 

About 94% of women are employed in the informal sectors, according to the National Women

WASH Platform | Wash Grand Challenge (2019)

The WASH Platform builds synergistic collaboration between multiple stakeholders from the Private Sector, Development Sector and the Government, to identify, implement and replicate high impact projects across the sanitation value chain, starting from the state of Maharashtra.

The platform is a joint initiative between Samhita Social Ventures and India Sanitation Coalition in partnership with The Government of Maharashtra, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with UNICEF and CEPT University as knowledge partners.

Making Skills and Livelihoods Training Count

Companies are spreading their efforts thin, focusing on the entire value chain rather than working in their areas of strength. A collaborative approach, where companies focus on what they do the best and strike partnerships to add value and plug gaps, is the way forward.

Samhita, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) hosted the second edition of CSR Caf

VIACOM18 | How to impact through the media lens

In a time where majority stakeholders were concentrating on building infrastructure to achieve the mission of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Viacom18 utilized the weapon they knew best – storytelling to create lasting impact in a society that has long been captured by the screen.

The Viacom18 story

With the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission, availability and access to toilets had improved tremendously. But social and behavioural change communication were far from implementation questioning the long-term adoption of infrastructure usage. Lack of sanitation has many rippling effects. 

The economic deprivation increases manifold when healthcare expenses and the cost of lost potential due to sickness arising from inadequate sanitation is added.

With the belief that sustained change in behaviour is at the helm of creating long term impact, Viacom18 worked with Samhita to design an intervention that aimed to address the issue of Open Defecation in Mumbai

Creating Impact through Corporate-Government Partnerships

Over the years there have been many successful public-private partnerships that have combined the efficiency of the private sector with government access and scale, to bring about social change. Yet, corporate-government partnerships retain an air of mystery with few frameworks available for those interested in initiating such partnerships or navigating existing ones. To discover best practices in such partnerships, we invited companies and government representatives for CSR Caf

Investing CSR in Incubators

Authored by P.R. Ganapathy, President ( India), Villgro Innovations Foundation 

After, USA and China, India has the largest incubator and accelerator ecosystem in the world. But few companies have sufficient information on this ecosystem to be able to invest in it.

Samhita, and Villgro, supported by GIZ are addressing this information asymmetry and facilitating partnerships between companies and incubators and social enterprises(SEs).

The traditional model of CSR involves selecting an NGO working in an area of your interest (livelihoods, education, etc.) and funding them for a specific project, say, training 500 women artisans, or setting up a computer lab in a school.

But, the smart CSR managers of today are asking harder questions of this model.

What happened to those women artisans after the training was completed? Who buys their products and connects them to consumers? Is the model sustainable? What do children actually learn from the computer lab? Who teaches them? What content is available? Who maintains the computers and the lab to ensure it continues to deliver value?

One way to find these answers is to partner with social enterprises or for-profit entities who use market-based approaches to solve social problems.

The next logical question is :