Salaried Social Entrepreneur Fellowship : From NABARD, Pan IIT & ISB
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efarm Venky
Feb 24, 2013, 12:26:12 AM2/24/13
to ef...@googlegroups.com
Announcing the Salaried Social Entrepreneur Fellowship
With Rs.1 Crore pre-approved funding to get you both a salary and start-up capital, a unique Salaried Social Entrepreneur is being launched to help You take that plunge!If you believe in the power of applying business principles to solve social problems and want the road less travelled…
Do send in your applications by 3rd March 2013, 11:59 PM with detailed resume(s) and business plan. http://www.isb.edu/gsvc/SSE.htm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Saw this posting in jagriti yatra .... interesting initiative , but some 'real world' experiences below of a iit-alumni/social entrepreneur, and specifically with the organisations which seem to be sponsoring this ....
I head efarm , a social enterprise from chennai , operating as a for-profit private limited company model for over 4 years .I understand raising funds and working without a salary for a 'cause' rather too well ... but what is MORE disturbing is the fact that organizations which claim to help firms like us , ending up using us to fulfill their own internal agendas.
In brief -
- I am an IIT alumnus (1995 batch - Kharagpur) ...been featured
in the 'Game Changers' Book of KGP e-cell under the 'iit
subjiwallah' chapter..
- I have participated in Jagriti yatra - as a panelist in 2011 dec...
- have assisted NABARD in several of their agri maketing inquiries , and my proposals under 'rural innovation fund' have been idling in not one, but FOUR states for over 3 years !...
- we participated in the WHEELS-PAN IIT socent contest , and
were supposedly to be a finalist in the Kolkatta PAn IIT event-
and mysteriously the entire contest was taken off agenda and
never heard off since !
To elaborate ,
Most of rural development work has predominantly been done with government funding and by 'non-profit' NGOs over the years . Most funding is 'linked' to some government scheme and only NGOs which 'implement' the schemes get funded. Most NGOS are good at 'capacity building' - a term in simple words means - taking classroom sessions ... and have very little real world business experience. Several NGOs have 'milked' this utopian myth and public perception that 'NGO' by default is 'non profit' and hence huge amounts of money can be siphoned off , as very little accounting or scrutiny is mandated for NGOs !! The so called 'tsunami' rehabilitation done by NGOs in coastal belt is a classic example !
Thus NABARD even after 60+ years of operation , has failed to make any dent in rural economies - such as farming , handicrafts, textiles- all are dying with huge migration of rural youth to cities.
And the 'NABARD is corruption free' myth has been blown to bits by their OWN chairman (The Hindu news: )
- http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rs-37-crore-handed-out-for-publicity/article4181803.ece
- http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/as-farmers-suffer-nabard-offers-soft-loans-to-corporates/article4181802.ece
and the recent CAG report of massive scam in the farmer debt waiver (Outlook cover story).
In the words of many of their own employees, NABARD is steeped in bureaucracy.
of IIT , my alma mater, the less said the better .... the majority of them have already emigrated abroad and care too less. Those who do, are 'remote arm chair' socialists , who 'visit' India (which itself is a large village) once in a year and bleed for its betterment ... I dont know how many of them have visited a REAL village ?
The really serious ones , - (like harish hande) - who are hands on - often avoid all the limelight ... strangely got all the spotlight only AFTER he won the Magsaysay after 15 years- as he was running around in villages of Karnataka with only a solar torch battery - i dont think even his own friends would have cared. His speeches, though often brief, but so direct - the message is very clear . Don't wait for banks to lend money... rather focus on a business model , ensure your customers see benefit, give REAL service, and work on a financial model which is most suitable to your CUSTOMERS.
Nowadays, it has become a 'fashion' to have social enterprise conferences, contests, workshops- with a dead-pan economy - suddenly everybody is searching for the fortune under the pyramid ... but having searched for the 'rainbow' i can say one thing for sure.. the fortune , as you are searching is not MONEY but 'HAPPINESS' - and have you wondered how sometimes the roadside pavement dwellers often seem to be having a full smile, with kids playing in open and managing a family when the guy inside the air conditioned MW watching him is neck deep in debt, fighting a divorce case and evenings spent on booze or shrinks ?
Happiness is something money cant buy .. and as you get closer to it you'll realist, seeking money and seeking happiness are often contradictory ! You CAN run a successful social venture , AND serve the poor and needy customers ... and to do that you don't need to fill forms or win a contest -- just get out there are WIN a heart - better still win a 'crore' hearts ;-)
.. for the rest who do need the money and have time to kill.. go ahead and fill the form(s) !all the best ....
venkat efarm
Feb 24, 2013, 3:53:30 AM2/24/13
to eFarm
Hi
Nice to see the flurry of emails , some personal , on this topic. I
guess lot of young and restless want to pursue their dream to do
social good and make money and stuck at various levels.Thought this
'follow-on' note would help - most points from my personal point of
view - bit too long for the twitter generation - but hope it answers
some of the queries which young startups face...and often too afraid
to ask..
Firstly , after 4 years if running my first entrepreneurial venture ,
(at 40+), , i can say for certain than the very term 'entrepreneur' is
MUCH HYPED - like 'sex' . Once you go throuhg the motions , and after
a few years of it... it is just routine job .. sometimes much worse ;-
( .. then why do we carry on ? well, as rashmi bansal's book title
(borrowed from steve jobs) - "staying hungry and staying foolish"
.. maybe we like the 'feeling' of it.
Secondly, the word 'social' entrepreneur is EVEN more abused/raped/
maligned terminology to describe a concept so vague - making money
from poor people who already are below poverty level !!Thanks to B-
schools , we have several 'vaguer sounding terms now ' like 'creating
shared value', 'impact enterprises', 'triple bottomliners' et al. All
BS .
Thirdly, social VCs, do not invest THEIR OWN MONEY. Infact they dont
even have any money. They are firms which BORROW money from
Philanthropic individuals, Govt funds etc and are actually glorified
money lenders who "Invest money" in order to generate "interest/
returns" to pay BACK the original owners. Most contests , the carrot
is often the 'chance' to pitch to the 'mythical' VC with a midas
touch ... but fact is you can count the most active ones all with just
fingers in ONE hand . After wasting time and money in 2-3 conferences
youll realise it is the SAME faces EVERY year !With recession, there
is a drop in philanthropy as well - so next time someone asks you for
a business plan, please ask them if they have a 'check book' and a
bank balance ...
Fourthly , the people with REAL money are the PUBLIC sector banks .
They all have a rural / agri lending division. But their lending is
often owing to a 'pressure' from RBI that unless they fulfill a
certain value of loans in rural areas, they will not get commercial
(read urban bank) licenses. Hence they often lend 'blind-folded' if
you have collateral - preferably land , jewels, assets.
NABARD , first of all is NOT A BANK . They have innumerable
'schemes' , 'subsidies' and even sherlock holmes + james bond cant
decipher through their maze of websites/forms and procedures. Each
state has a NABARD office where your 'monopoly' game begins. Even if
you do manage to find the right form and the right department to
apply, as they process applications only once a month, expect a flurry
of activity only every beginning of the month . Often each state level
heads have a limit , and projects of higher value (which is anybody's
guess) all have to go to head office (Mumbai) which is a black hole of
einsteinian proportions.
If you are a frequent inter-galactic traveler and can shuttle their
offices often enough (or better be a close relative of the Finance
minister), your proposal will get sanctioned . But then begins the
REAL process of getting REAL money ... if you didnt read the first
line - NABARD is NOT a BANK . It sanctions loans, but it still has to
be routed via a bank manager, who invariably dont want to risk any
venture where there is even a remote posibility of a NPA , which will
spoil all his retirement plans. So now you have to convince the 'local
satraps' or bank manager of any public sector bank to actually lend
you the money. Frankly guys, i have never even got to this stage ...
but another agri-entrepreneur shared his expereinces which i quote ...
Mr.XXX got his funding for a farm based project approved but was sent
to the Vice chancellor of a agri university for 'clearance'. The VC
asked him for 1C ... he thought 1C was another 'FORM' he had to fill
like 22A , 29F etc and naively asked where he can download 1C from ...
the people laughed and said '1C' stands for 1Crore cash in advance,
and they can 'add that' amount to his sanctioned project value and get
it thru any bank ... obviously, his proposal didnt go any further ...
Now the Government departments ALSO have funds for
entrepreneurs ...now you will need a Phd to figure out how many govt
departments deal with rural/social themes ...
agriculture v/s horticulture v/s agri marketing v/s animal
husbandry v/s rural development v/s textiles/handlooms v/s tribal
welfare v/s minorities welfare...
http://www.tn.gov.in/departments.html
and then ofcourse CENTRAL ministries v/s STATE ...
http://www.indialib.com/govt_poli/central_govt.htm
and then the classic 'MISSION MODE' projects like rural
livelihood , horticulture mission..
Specialised BOARDS like tea, coffee, coconut, ...
Heads spinning ? already ?
the typical IAS officer who heads these units has a average term of
'4 months' ... and in case you are really luck to get all your
paperwork approved in record time ... just in case any elctions comes
around - ward, panchayat, state, central, by-elections .. ANY
election.. then election commision norms forbid ANY money transaction
from government to ANY person ... so you will have to wait ... and
pray that SAME person is still on seat when it is over....
The bright side ...
While all this is happening , you will also get lots of 'free press' ,
publicity and the proverbial 'case study' by leading business
schools . here is a little secret on case studies... most cases are
written completely on material online , and the professors hardly even
contact us to cross check stuff (lot of it is ancient data). Even
those who do , hardly have a few emails or phone calls and NEVER once
have visited us ... as it adds to the ego of any entrepreneur that
thei business is being analysed in top b-schools, we all play the
game ... often with amusing results ... sometime we have sent the
'balance sheet' of infosys slightly fudged, and one top B-school even
published it as ours !!
and to top it all would be being published in a book by none other
than my own alma mater (IIT !!) - when the book game changers was
being written, fact is, IITian felt a litt;le perked by rashmi bansal
focusiing only on IIM grads in her book 'stay hungry..' .. Not to be
upstaged by IIMs, so they managed to cream out only those IITians who
have NOT gone to IIM and still made it .. as law of probability would
have it.. I happned to make the cut ! The first draft the stundets
wrote was so poetic and yawning that i myself couldnt bear to read it
and had to chop it/edit it drastically ... . they had a grand
inauguration , but they informed that as there was 'no budget' they
could not even give 2nd class train fare for people who were featured
in book to attend .. and if we so badly needed the photo oppurtunity
to stand next to lot of IIT NRIs/'phirangi' to launch the book, we
have to pay and come on our own. My self respect ( and bank balance)
couldnt take it ...
Funny thing ... this circle of life ....
so. after knowing all this, as they say 'the curtain of maya drops' ..
and expereincing all this.. do i still want to continue what i was(am)
doing ?
the answer , strangely is yes. why ?what has changed ? Outside -
NOTHING ... but the REAL change is 'Internal'...
The goal is the same , just that the goal posts have slightly
shifted ... we have been chasing 'Money' and wrong idols , with the
pre-conception that MONEY = HAPINESS , we always equate Poverty as a
'$2' line ... is a rich man happy ? is EVERY rich man happy ? Then why
is Bill gates not living in his Billion dollar mansion, enjoying his
wealth and early retirement but running around remote villages of
africa and india trying to cure cholera & aids ? with ALL his money ,
and ALL his power and ALL his might of running his software on every
desktop - why eradicating polio is somehow a mission impossible theme
for HIM ?
strangely ,
as you let GO , you realise true happiness lies in simple concept -
"Less is MORE".
and the most critical commodity for a social entrepreneur is NOT
money, but TIME ...
you are no longer HELPING the poor, but THEY are helping YOU , to
realise your REAL goal - of self happiness ! of finding your OWN
purpose , a reason to LIVE.
a Raison d'être ....
comments and feedback :efarm dot venky at gmail dot com
On Feb 24, 10:26 am, efarm Venky <efarm.ve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Announcing the Salaried Social Entrepreneur Fellowship
>
> WithRs.1 Crorepre-approved funding to get you both a salary and start-up
> * have assisted NABARD in several of their agri maketing inquiries ,
> )
>
> *http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rs-37-crore-handed-out-for-publ...
> *http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/as-farmers-suffer-nabard-offers...
>
> *http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283757
Nice to see the flurry of emails , some personal , on this topic. I
guess lot of young and restless want to pursue their dream to do
social good and make money and stuck at various levels.Thought this
'follow-on' note would help - most points from my personal point of
view - bit too long for the twitter generation - but hope it answers
some of the queries which young startups face...and often too afraid
to ask..
Firstly , after 4 years if running my first entrepreneurial venture ,
(at 40+), , i can say for certain than the very term 'entrepreneur' is
MUCH HYPED - like 'sex' . Once you go throuhg the motions , and after
a few years of it... it is just routine job .. sometimes much worse ;-
( .. then why do we carry on ? well, as rashmi bansal's book title
(borrowed from steve jobs) - "staying hungry and staying foolish"
.. maybe we like the 'feeling' of it.
Secondly, the word 'social' entrepreneur is EVEN more abused/raped/
maligned terminology to describe a concept so vague - making money
from poor people who already are below poverty level !!Thanks to B-
schools , we have several 'vaguer sounding terms now ' like 'creating
shared value', 'impact enterprises', 'triple bottomliners' et al. All
BS .
Thirdly, social VCs, do not invest THEIR OWN MONEY. Infact they dont
even have any money. They are firms which BORROW money from
Philanthropic individuals, Govt funds etc and are actually glorified
money lenders who "Invest money" in order to generate "interest/
returns" to pay BACK the original owners. Most contests , the carrot
is often the 'chance' to pitch to the 'mythical' VC with a midas
touch ... but fact is you can count the most active ones all with just
fingers in ONE hand . After wasting time and money in 2-3 conferences
youll realise it is the SAME faces EVERY year !With recession, there
is a drop in philanthropy as well - so next time someone asks you for
a business plan, please ask them if they have a 'check book' and a
bank balance ...
Fourthly , the people with REAL money are the PUBLIC sector banks .
They all have a rural / agri lending division. But their lending is
often owing to a 'pressure' from RBI that unless they fulfill a
certain value of loans in rural areas, they will not get commercial
(read urban bank) licenses. Hence they often lend 'blind-folded' if
you have collateral - preferably land , jewels, assets.
NABARD , first of all is NOT A BANK . They have innumerable
'schemes' , 'subsidies' and even sherlock holmes + james bond cant
decipher through their maze of websites/forms and procedures. Each
state has a NABARD office where your 'monopoly' game begins. Even if
you do manage to find the right form and the right department to
apply, as they process applications only once a month, expect a flurry
of activity only every beginning of the month . Often each state level
heads have a limit , and projects of higher value (which is anybody's
guess) all have to go to head office (Mumbai) which is a black hole of
einsteinian proportions.
If you are a frequent inter-galactic traveler and can shuttle their
offices often enough (or better be a close relative of the Finance
minister), your proposal will get sanctioned . But then begins the
REAL process of getting REAL money ... if you didnt read the first
line - NABARD is NOT a BANK . It sanctions loans, but it still has to
be routed via a bank manager, who invariably dont want to risk any
venture where there is even a remote posibility of a NPA , which will
spoil all his retirement plans. So now you have to convince the 'local
satraps' or bank manager of any public sector bank to actually lend
you the money. Frankly guys, i have never even got to this stage ...
but another agri-entrepreneur shared his expereinces which i quote ...
Mr.XXX got his funding for a farm based project approved but was sent
to the Vice chancellor of a agri university for 'clearance'. The VC
asked him for 1C ... he thought 1C was another 'FORM' he had to fill
like 22A , 29F etc and naively asked where he can download 1C from ...
the people laughed and said '1C' stands for 1Crore cash in advance,
and they can 'add that' amount to his sanctioned project value and get
it thru any bank ... obviously, his proposal didnt go any further ...
Now the Government departments ALSO have funds for
entrepreneurs ...now you will need a Phd to figure out how many govt
departments deal with rural/social themes ...
agriculture v/s horticulture v/s agri marketing v/s animal
husbandry v/s rural development v/s textiles/handlooms v/s tribal
welfare v/s minorities welfare...
http://www.tn.gov.in/departments.html
and then ofcourse CENTRAL ministries v/s STATE ...
http://www.indialib.com/govt_poli/central_govt.htm
and then the classic 'MISSION MODE' projects like rural
livelihood , horticulture mission..
Specialised BOARDS like tea, coffee, coconut, ...
Heads spinning ? already ?
the typical IAS officer who heads these units has a average term of
'4 months' ... and in case you are really luck to get all your
paperwork approved in record time ... just in case any elctions comes
around - ward, panchayat, state, central, by-elections .. ANY
election.. then election commision norms forbid ANY money transaction
from government to ANY person ... so you will have to wait ... and
pray that SAME person is still on seat when it is over....
The bright side ...
While all this is happening , you will also get lots of 'free press' ,
publicity and the proverbial 'case study' by leading business
schools . here is a little secret on case studies... most cases are
written completely on material online , and the professors hardly even
contact us to cross check stuff (lot of it is ancient data). Even
those who do , hardly have a few emails or phone calls and NEVER once
have visited us ... as it adds to the ego of any entrepreneur that
thei business is being analysed in top b-schools, we all play the
game ... often with amusing results ... sometime we have sent the
'balance sheet' of infosys slightly fudged, and one top B-school even
published it as ours !!
and to top it all would be being published in a book by none other
than my own alma mater (IIT !!) - when the book game changers was
being written, fact is, IITian felt a litt;le perked by rashmi bansal
focusiing only on IIM grads in her book 'stay hungry..' .. Not to be
upstaged by IIMs, so they managed to cream out only those IITians who
have NOT gone to IIM and still made it .. as law of probability would
have it.. I happned to make the cut ! The first draft the stundets
wrote was so poetic and yawning that i myself couldnt bear to read it
and had to chop it/edit it drastically ... . they had a grand
inauguration , but they informed that as there was 'no budget' they
could not even give 2nd class train fare for people who were featured
in book to attend .. and if we so badly needed the photo oppurtunity
to stand next to lot of IIT NRIs/'phirangi' to launch the book, we
have to pay and come on our own. My self respect ( and bank balance)
couldnt take it ...
Funny thing ... this circle of life ....
so. after knowing all this, as they say 'the curtain of maya drops' ..
and expereincing all this.. do i still want to continue what i was(am)
doing ?
the answer , strangely is yes. why ?what has changed ? Outside -
NOTHING ... but the REAL change is 'Internal'...
The goal is the same , just that the goal posts have slightly
shifted ... we have been chasing 'Money' and wrong idols , with the
pre-conception that MONEY = HAPINESS , we always equate Poverty as a
'$2' line ... is a rich man happy ? is EVERY rich man happy ? Then why
is Bill gates not living in his Billion dollar mansion, enjoying his
wealth and early retirement but running around remote villages of
africa and india trying to cure cholera & aids ? with ALL his money ,
and ALL his power and ALL his might of running his software on every
desktop - why eradicating polio is somehow a mission impossible theme
for HIM ?
strangely ,
as you let GO , you realise true happiness lies in simple concept -
"Less is MORE".
and the most critical commodity for a social entrepreneur is NOT
money, but TIME ...
you are no longer HELPING the poor, but THEY are helping YOU , to
realise your REAL goal - of self happiness ! of finding your OWN
purpose , a reason to LIVE.
a Raison d'être ....
comments and feedback :efarm dot venky at gmail dot com
On Feb 24, 10:26 am, efarm Venky <efarm.ve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Announcing the Salaried Social Entrepreneur Fellowship
>
> capital, a unique Salaried Social Entrepreneur is being launched to help
> You take that plunge!
>
> If you believe in the power of applying business principles to solve
> social problems and want the road less travelled...
> You take that plunge!
>
> If you believe in the power of applying business principles to solve
>
> Do send in your applications by3rd March 2013, 11:59 PMwith detailed
> resume(s) and business plan.http://www.isb.edu/gsvc/SSE.htm
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________
>
> Saw this posting in jagriti yatra .... interesting initiative , but some
> 'real world' experiences below of a iit-alumni/social entrepreneur, and
> specifically with the organisations which seem to be sponsoring this ....
>
> I head efarm , a social enterprise from chennai , operating as a
> for-profit private limited company model for over 4 years .I understand
> raising funds and working without a salary for a 'cause' rather too well
> ... but what is MORE disturbing is the fact that organizations which
> claim to help firms like us , ending up using us to fulfill their own
> internal agendas.
>
> In brief -
>
> * I am an IIT alumnus (1995 batch - Kharagpur) ...been featured in the
> Do send in your applications by3rd March 2013, 11:59 PMwith detailed
> resume(s) and business plan.http://www.isb.edu/gsvc/SSE.htm
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________
>
> Saw this posting in jagriti yatra .... interesting initiative , but some
> 'real world' experiences below of a iit-alumni/social entrepreneur, and
> specifically with the organisations which seem to be sponsoring this ....
>
> I head efarm , a social enterprise from chennai , operating as a
> for-profit private limited company model for over 4 years .I understand
> raising funds and working without a salary for a 'cause' rather too well
> ... but what is MORE disturbing is the fact that organizations which
> claim to help firms like us , ending up using us to fulfill their own
> internal agendas.
>
> In brief -
>
> 'Game Changers' Book of KGP e-cell under the 'iit subjiwallah' chapter..
> * I have participated in Jagriti yatra - as a panelist in 2011 dec...
> * have assisted NABARD in several of their agri maketing inquiries ,
> and my proposals under 'rural innovation fund' have been idling in
> not one, but FOUR states for over 3 years !...
> * we participated in the WHEELS-PAN IIT socent contest , and were
> not one, but FOUR states for over 3 years !...
> supposedly to be a finalist in the Kolkatta PAn IIT event- and
> mysteriously the entire contest was taken off agenda and never heard
> off since !
>
> To elaborate ,
>
> Most of rural development work has predominantly been done with
> government funding and by 'non-profit' NGOs over the years . Most
> funding is 'linked' to some government scheme and only NGOs which
> 'implement' the schemes get funded. Most NGOS are good at 'capacity
> building' - a term in simple words means - taking classroom sessions ...
> and have very little real world business experience. Several NGOs have
> 'milked' this utopian myth and public perception that 'NGO' by default
> is 'non profit' and hence huge amounts of money can be siphoned off , as
> very little accounting or scrutiny is mandated for NGOs !! The so called
> 'tsunami' rehabilitation done by NGOs in coastal belt is a classic example !
>
> Thus NABARD even after 60+ years of operation , has failed to make any
> dent in rural economies - such as farming , handicrafts, textiles- all
> are dying with huge migration of rural youth to cities.
>
> And the 'NABARD is corruption free' myth has been blown to bits by their
> OWN chairman (The Hindu news
> <http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/as-farmers-suffer-nabard-offers...>:
> mysteriously the entire contest was taken off agenda and never heard
> off since !
>
> To elaborate ,
>
> Most of rural development work has predominantly been done with
> government funding and by 'non-profit' NGOs over the years . Most
> funding is 'linked' to some government scheme and only NGOs which
> 'implement' the schemes get funded. Most NGOS are good at 'capacity
> building' - a term in simple words means - taking classroom sessions ...
> and have very little real world business experience. Several NGOs have
> 'milked' this utopian myth and public perception that 'NGO' by default
> is 'non profit' and hence huge amounts of money can be siphoned off , as
> very little accounting or scrutiny is mandated for NGOs !! The so called
> 'tsunami' rehabilitation done by NGOs in coastal belt is a classic example !
>
> Thus NABARD even after 60+ years of operation , has failed to make any
> dent in rural economies - such as farming , handicrafts, textiles- all
> are dying with huge migration of rural youth to cities.
>
> And the 'NABARD is corruption free' myth has been blown to bits by their
> OWN chairman (The Hindu news
> )
>
> *http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rs-37-crore-handed-out-for-publ...
> *http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/as-farmers-suffer-nabard-offers...
>
> and the recent CAG report of massive scam in the farmer debt waiver
> (Outlook cover story <http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283757>).
> and the recent CAG report of massive scam in the farmer debt waiver
>
> *http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283757
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