[RangDe Kolkata] The Official Rang De Blog

[The Official Rang De Blog]

The Official Rang De Blog

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We’ve hit a century! Posted: 22 May 2010 05:28 AM PDT By Arvind Sridharan, Rang De Team We at Rang De take pleasure in announcing that we have crossed the 100-blog post mark.  Even though we are on various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, we at Rang De feel that through our blog, we can keep people best posted on the happenings at Rang De and our Chapters.  In fact, we even encourage guest blogs from our chapter members and coincidentally, our hundredth blogpost is a guest post from Sri Ranganathan, a Rang De Bangalore Chapter Member. He has blogged about a Rang De stall that he setup at an Exhibit at International Tech Park-Bangalore. We at Rang De encourage guest blogposts. You could blog about topics such as (but not limited to) these. Your experience at RangDe.Org (could be live chat, social investments, content pages, or the Rang De blog). How you came to know about Rang De How you felt talking about Rang De to someone Your experience at a Rang De event Anything relating to the NGO and social entrepreneurship space that you would like to share with the Rang De community. And we can also give a link to your blog with an accompanying paragraph about your blog. Please feel free to share your comments on our social media. We would like to make the best use of our social media channels to communicate effectively with all Rang De supporters. Just comment on this post or drop us a mail at bl...@rangde.org with a subject similar to “feedback on your social media”. A few T-shirts are up for grabs for comprehensive and aggressive feedback. Kindly send your feedback in by Saturday May 29, 2010 to be elligible to win a T-shirt. Last but not least, we thank you for being a part of our social media community.

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[The Official Rang De Blog]

The Official Rang De Blog

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Sunfeast 10k 2010 Posted: 24 May 2010 04:52 AM PDT By Raghav Parthasarathy, Rang De Bangalore Chapter Member I was running in the Sunfeast Bangalore Marathon Open 10K, when all of a sudden a person running alongside me asked me “Are you a part of Rang De? Has Smita come? I was her classmate” and the next thing he said was “You guys are doing an amazing job”. The feeling was great! Being appreciated for supporting a wonderful cause and spreading awareness about Rang De’s microcredit model. This was what we hoped for when we decided to participate in the run. The idea to run for Rang De at the Sunfeast World 10K first occurred during a chapter meet at Jaaga and it seems we’ve done a good Job. Bangalore Chapter members who got together for the sunfeast marathon take a short break with a snap. Arjun Zacharia, Pranay Prateek, Sreekanth, Namita and myself, Raghav Parthasarathy of the Bangalore Chapter of Rang De participated in the event to spread awareness about Rang De. We reached the venue early in the morning and setup our banners. We felt we were well set to receive a large audience. However, we were constantly on the move and targeted places that offered good visibility. Namita and Sreekanth managed the stall at all times. The other members joined them before and after their respective runs. Namita demonstrated the use of RangDe.Org using her laptop to several folks and this would definitely go a long way in helping them understand the Rang De model of micro-lending.  The masterstroke, if the word may be used here, was to move to the junction near the Coffee Day square where we could reach out to a lot of runners and supporters relaxing over a cuppa after the marathon. Bangalore Chapter Member Arjun speaks to a couple of people about the Rang De model out side the CCD sqaure. Many runners took rest over there after the run. One thing that was evident during our interaction with various people was that most people are aware of the concept of microcredit. They were keen to know more about how Rang De managed to lend at low interest rates. This is where we could pitch in about maintaining low operations cost and about our active volunteer groups that handle several activities. As Rang De grows into a much bigger organization catering to a much larger audience, the volunteer group under the guidance of the Rang De team must take up greater responsibilities to ensure the success of our model. Last, but not the least, these Chapter members were able to raise close to thirty thousand rupees in social investments in the run-up to the marathon, by getting family and friends to invest in the borrowers of their choice! One girl I spoke to asked me “How old is Rang De?” and I replied “3 Years”. She was quick to say “Oh Congratulations!”. The Rang De baby is slowly growing up. We have already made a huge impact in the lives of thousands of borrowers and are entering into fields such as education and training. The Rang De kid is all set to Run!

[The Official Rang De Blog]

The Official Rang De Blog

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Paypal no more a Pal Posted: 24 May 2010 11:41 PM PDT Announcement from the Team In the last couple months, many of you would have realised that paypal payments are not going through on Rang De. We apologise for this huge inconvenience, especially for those of you who are investing from abroad. Paypal offered a quick and secure way of making payments but their policy have now changed. This is the e-mail we received from paypal and the account is now blocked. Hello RangDe.Org, We appreciate your interest in PayPal. As you are aware,  due to legal and regulatory constraints in India, PayPal Pte. Ltd. is unable to process payments for your charity and/ or non-profit organization, since it uses PayPal solely for online donations without involving the purchase of any goods or services. Please understand that this is a compliance measure intended to help ensure adherence to applicable laws in India. We apologize for any inconvenience. If your charity / non-profit organization uses PayPal to receive payments against products or services sold online, please contact PayPal by sending email to apacdd@paypal.com from your registered email address. We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Sincerely, J.R. PayPal Compliance Department PayPal, an eBay Company We are looking out for ways in which people can pay using their international credit cards. Do get in touch with us should you have any solutions.

[The Official Rang De Blog]

The Official Rang De Blog

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RangDe.org - an investment I’ll always cherish Posted: 26 May 2010 06:43 AM PDT By Nikhil Sheth, Rang De Social Investor A year ago, I had invested Rs.2000/- in a passionate 5-minute debit card transaction, with http://www.rangde.org website through which we can make small investments directly to help small entrepreneurs in some far-off places in India where we otherwise could not travel. Friends and family I later talked with about this, had cast doubts on the trustworthiness and effectiveness of such setups, they poo-poohed my unwise decision and our conversation had ended there… One year on, I’m proud to announce good news : performance is a better indicator than status and appearance…. while the huge banks of the world are having such a rut from their lending and then sucking money from taxpayers, it looks like micro investment options like Rang De are getting almost 99% of all the money lent out, returned on time. I will let the screenshots below speak for themselves - and am glad I was able to help out a small time entrepreneur in Andhra Pradesh. I now have nearly all my invested money back and am re-investing part of it with a breakfast vendor in Maharashtra. As little as Rs.100 can be invested by anybody here, using Indian debit card or netbanking or credit card. No hidden charges - I’ve tried, tested and can personally give it a thumbs-up. You get your money back in a year, which you can have sent back to your bank account, or, use the same to help another person in a few clicks. So this is an at-your-fingertips repeating, self-sustaining “charity” where entrepreneurs gain and donors don’t really lose anything except… …the tiny little bit of interest we’d gain with bank (and leaving stocks out of this as it’s a 1-yr duration — i cannot predict from today’s volatility). Soooo many people nit-picking on that! I like to consider THAT bit as the “charity” I’m giving - so practically speaking, in under Rs.50 or 20 (not sure what interest I’d earn in a savings account on Rs.2000 in a year, but I’m sure it won’t be much!) I have helped an entrepreneur already. What was the last donation you made, and did it help the concerned people - like, forever? Or will you have to help the same people again, next year as well? In my case, Jyothikumari will never need my help again. Scale this up and imagine what impact it would make if I was really spending, by way of interest lost, the amount middle class citizens usually spend on charity. Practically speaking, I’m able to have over 10 times greater impact for the same cost, and that too it’s not money spent but rather money not earned. If I instead consider, in my case, that the Rs.2000 I invested one year ago, was just money saved by forgoing a few parties and movies, then my net cost in this endeavor amounts to zero, plus I got my “party” expenditure returned to me, to celebrate in next year!. Hmm…. So invest a little time in a visit to http://www.rangde.org. And then if you feel like it, invest some money as well Nikhil Sheth is a social investor with Rang De. He has a blog titled Blog Trek, the next generation and he wants to use this blog to give a voice to his thoughts.  He has blogged about his social investment with Rang De on his blog too.