Social Entrepreneurship in India

Profits are no longer contradictory with social upliftment. Making organizations that are self-sustainable and still impacting the society through a bottom-up approach is absolutely possible.

Learn some successful examples of social entrepreneurs in India and how they are impacting the society. Also, discover what it takes to be a social entrepreneur.

1. Ms.Anubha Rastogi
Astt. Prof, VidyaSchool Of Business
2017-18

2. SaudaagarKiranaStores for
Physically Handicapped
persons in Villages.
Case 1:
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

3. Case 2: Access To Clean And Affordable Drinking Water
Mobile water ATMs at high footfall
spots
Already operating 24 mobile water ATMs in
Lucknow and soon launching in Kanpur
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

4. There are many manymore…
•All attempt to provide solutions to real mundane problems
•All working to help underprivileged people
•All are profit-oriented
They are inventing a solution to a problem and NOT inventing a problem to suit their solutions
What Is Social Entrepreneurship?
Nonprofits making money
For-profits doing things to show they are not evil
•Process of creating value by bringing together a unique package of
resources to exploit an opportunity, in pursuit of high socialreturns
•An independent business
•with the goal of “generating profit”,
•having an “explicit mission to create social impact”
•whose operations “directly improve the lives and livelihoods of those
residing at the bottom of the social pyramid”.
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

5. Social Problems: What Solutions do we have
•Government –alone is not the answer
•Inefficiencies, slow, bureaucratic, prone to corruption….
•Nonprofit Orgs.–inadequate
•dependent on donations (uncertain, demand far exceedssupply)
•“compassion fatigue”
•Raising money takes time and energy, which can be spent planning
growth/expansion
•Multilateral Institutions (World Bank…)-ineffective
•Conservative, slow, under-funded, unreliable
•Success is measured by
a) GDP (might not be helping poor)
b) Volume of loans negotiated (not measuring impact)
•Exclusively work with the government
•Corporate Social Responsibility -fundamentally flawed
•“as long as it can be done without sacrificing PROFITS”
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

6. New kind of Business Social Business
•Creating business modelsrevolving around low-cost products and servicesto resolve social
problems
•Social business is for ‘more-than-profit’
combine revenue-generatingbusiness with a social-value-generating structure
•Can be two kinds
•Creating services for poor
•Owned by poor (** not a SB )
Socialenterprisesarenotcharitiesor
welfareagencies.Theyareprivate
businessesestablishedbyentrepreneurs
withanemphasisonhumanvaluesrather
thanjustprofit.Thesebusinessesfocus
onworkingwithandenhancingthesocial
capitalwithinthecommunity by
encouragingparticipation,inclusionand
utilisingabottom-upapproachtoachieve
socialchange
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

7. Elements of Social Enterprise
•Three core elements:
•Created to provide benefits for a community
•Creates opportunities so people can help themselves as well as others
•Utilises sound commercial business practices to ensure its sustainability i.e. the business will naturally
uphold and encourage environmental sustainability as well as ethical considerations
Characteristics of a Social Entrepreneur
•Not bound by sector norms or traditions
•Not confined by barriers that stand in the way of their goals
•Develop new models and pioneer new approaches to enable them to overcome obstacles
•Take innovative approaches to solve social issues
•Transform communities through strategic partnerships
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

8. Social entrepreneurs are
“… a path breaker with a powerful idea, who combines visionary and real world problem-solving creativity, has a strong
ethical fibre..”
“ ..combines street pragmatism with professional skills..”
“ they see opportunities where others only see empty buildings, unemployable people and unvalued resources”
“..Radical thinking is what makes social entrepreneurs different from simply ‘good’ people.”
“they make markets work for people, not the other way around, and gain strength from a wide network of alliances”
“they can ‘boundary ride’ between the various political rhetoric and social paradigms to enthuse all sectors of society”
Where do you find social enterprises?
Social entrepreneurs find opportunity in most economic sectors. The growth areas for social enterprises are
identified as:
Environmental |Housing |Health and care | Information services |Public services |Financial services |Training and
business development |Manufacturing |Food and agriculture
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

9. How can you do business and serve social goals?
Why is profit-making not conflicting with social objectives?
Profits -
•Promotes R&D, innovation, new technologies
•Increases efficiency
•Enables penetration to new geographical areas and serve deeper layers of low-income people
•Helps recover costs and pay back investors, thus encourages investments
PMBs(profit max. businesses)vs. SBs(social businesses)
How they are same yet different
•Employ workers, create goods & services for consumers
•Must recover full costs
•Profits are important
•YET objective is to create social benefit and not limited to personal gains
Anubha Rastogi | VSB

10. Some More examples:
Banking and financeis the biggest beneficiary of technology-
enabled social startups , VikramAkula, SKS Microfinance(Social
Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2006)
Energy Solar Electrification-Harish Hande, SELCO(Social
Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2007)
Education (Same Language Subtitling, Janarth-education solutions
for children of migrant laborers)
For further references visit :
•https://consciouscompanymedia.com/social-
entrepreneurship/19-social-entrepreneurs-watch-2017-2/
•http://www.asianentrepreneur.org/top-10-social-
entrepreneurs-of-india/
•http://listcrux.co/top-10-inspiring-social-entrepreneurs-
india/
Anubha Rastogi | VSB