'We don't just write cheques, we bring expertise'

Ravi Venkatesan, 54, Co-Founder and Chairman of Social Venture Partners India, and Chairman of Bank of Baroda. (He's also former Chairman of Microsoft India and Cummins India).

What he's done

He started Social Venture Partners India (SVP), which brings together like-minded people in a city who want to make a difference but don't always know how to, in 2013.

How he went about it

"Concerned about how dysfunctional our society was becoming, I decided that we get the society we deserve. Influenced by Dipankar Gupta's book, Democracy: The Revolution from Above, I realised the way forward is for an 'enlightened elite' to mobilise, put societal interest above self-interest and work towards creating institutions in partnership with government, business and civil society. It's a long and difficult road but ultimately the only viable path in our democracy.

The Social Venture Partners (SVP) model demanded a change in the way we Indians have approached philanthropy. It is not just about giving money to a charity or a temple but about deciding which causes to support, to make a difference. Our objective is to 'scale excellence'-find good organisations in the livelihood sector and help them scale.

The odds he faced

The time factor is still a challenge but we've been able to overcome this by having a large diverse partner base in each city- people at different career stages, "empty nesters", already committed social activists and so on. What is fundamentally different about us is that we don't just write cheques - we bring tremendous expertise and connections through our partners. Another challenge has been about doing many experiments to develop our "theory of change" which is deciding how we will intervene and add value to make a real difference.

Our fundamental objective is to "scale excellence" i.e. find good organisations in the livelihood sector and help them scale. But it took a while for us to understand that the way we add value is by acting as a strategic thought partner, helping raise their ambition around impact, by opening doors to bigger donors and companies and bringing expertise in areas like IT, board governance, process management and HR. Not all organisations are open to such inputs; most in fact are happy to simply receive a grant.

Through mistakes, we have learned that what matters most is the quality of the leader of the NGO or social business - their passion for impact and openness to new ideas and ability to let go.

How he overcame it

Fortunately, in cities like Bangalore, Pune and Indore , I found many like- minded people who have been quite successful and now want to make a difference in the world; however, they don't know where or how to start. So we took this model of "venture philanthropy" that had been developed in Seattle and brought it to India. We have started creating communities of like-minded people across India who are committed to making a difference not just through writing checks but by giving time and expertise to a common cause which is livelihoods.

We took a model of 'venture philanthropy' developed in Seattle and brought it to India. We select local NGOs or social enterprises creating jobs or improving incomes and then use the expertise, networks and our partners' generosity to help these organisations scale their impact.

Our Pune chapter started working with the Jagruti Sanstha which mobilises women from poor communities, trains them as nursing aides and places them in hospitals. Jagruti had been placing 25 nursing aides each year; in the first year, we helped them double the number. This year, they'll place 500 and the next, 1,000. The process of engaging with such organisations changes us, we become more engaged citizens. It's a win-win."

Funding is met through the donations of our partners who have so far contributed about 18,000 hours of time and Rs 6 crore. We are now beginning to partner with other organizations such as Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), Tata Trusts, Draper Rockefeller Foundation, Richards Kaplan, Edelgive Foundation and others. SVP India has grown to six chapters in India (Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Indore) with 185 partners (or donors) comprising entrepreneurs, CEOs, professionals, home-makers and retirees ranging in age from 30s to 70s.

We work with over 20 organizations focused on livelihood creation resulting in over 15,000 beneficiaries. Our mission is to help impact a million lives and create a movement with 1000 engaged philanthropists by 2020. We recently convened all stakeholders relevant to the challenge of job and livelihood creation in Delhi under the "Million Jobs Mission" .

Fifteen carefully selected organizations with proven models ready for scaleup had the opportunity to present their work to a room filled with over 75 representatives from companies, banks, foundations and government. The idea was to coalesce the ecosystem around the scale up of the impact of these 15 organizations to improve a million lives by 2020. It was a first-of- a -kind experiment in advancing the idea of collective action and impact. Gandhiji said, "Find the purpose, the means will follow." That's been our credo and its working well.