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Tag: CSR

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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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 :

Expanding the Lense of Indian Corporate Social Responsibility

India has been at the forefront of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) paradigm, much before the introduction of Section 135 of Companies Act, 2013, which made CSR a regulatory requirement. As per data filed by companies on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal, around 20,000 companies had reported spending on CSR, with total spend amounting to INR 13,465 Cr in 16-17. Total public expenditure in 16-17 on agriculture and farmers

How can CSR be made more successful in India?

The CSR opportunity in India is expanding year on year, however, there are still some challenges and gaps that need to be addressed before companies can scale up their CSR initiative. Priya Naik, Founder and CEO, Samhita Social Ventures writes about how collaboration, innovation and eco-system building can bring about the next phase of CSR in India. Read her guest post on the CECP Insights blog here.

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