A year and a half ago I was employed at a leading global education company, doing reasonably well by most standards. Deep inside, however, I was bored with what I was doing and racked with the sense that what I was doing was inconsequential. I felt that I had several good years still ahead of me and that I should not waste them doing something I just did not enjoy or relate to anymore. So, I decided to put in my papers and serve out my notice period. That was the easy part.

In search of new direction

The difficult part was to figure out what to do with the next chapter of my life. All I knew was that I wanted to step into a new territory and do something more exciting. That’s when I came across an article in the ET on ILSS. This piqued my interest and I soon discovered that someone I knew had gone through the program as well.  While contributing some of my time to the social sector had crossed my mind before, for the first time I began contemplating a future career in the social sector. Some friends and well-wishers I spoke to advised me to consider the downsides carefully – from significantly lower income, to having to make a fresh start in my career, the slow nature of change in the sector, the lack of defined processes in non-profit organisations, dealing with the long shadow of the government, etc. Others suggested that this could be the last opportunity to do something worthwhile with my life! All of this meant that while the social sector was in consideration, I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to head that way. So, the ILSS program seemed just right for a person at the fork, wanting a sense of what lay ahead if one was to venture onto this path.

The learning journey with ILSS

As things turned out, I quit my job a year ago and tumbled straight into the ILSS Leadership Program. It was, unquestionably, the best 9-day experience that I could have imagined. The content was new and stimulating, the speakers were inspiring (some of the sessions made our hair stand on its end), breakout sessions were invigorating and what was revealed about the issues, challenges, the scale and complexity of India made our usual corporate problems seem small and trivial. What Anu Prasad and her remarkable team at ILSS have managed to create is something that provides a great overview of the possibilities of the social sector without getting into the weeds, giving a taste of what could come without sugar-coating the future. The program energized me, filled me with a greater sense of purpose and imbued me with the belief that I could play a small role in solving these big problems. It also introduced me to a set of inspirational course mates and a larger network of corporate crossovers.

What I was not prepared for, however, was how invested the ILSS team would be in my social sector journey after the course. The team does a fabulous job of curating a whole range of social sector employment opportunities for those interested in making the switch. In addition to the efforts of the folks at ILSS, I also tried reaching out to people in the sector on my own. In doing so, I realized that people in the non-profit sector are generous with their time and advise. Despite everything, the right opportunities took time to come by and, in retrospect, I should have been more prepared for it.

Presently, I am serving a full-time contract with Central Square Foundation working on EdTech in government schools, which is a deep interest area for me. Further, I also serve on the boards of two other non-profits.

Key learnings so far

The journey thus far has been quite humbling and a great learning experience. I have had to adjust to several new realities and this is still very much a work-in-process. Some of my key learnings in the first few months of my journey have been:

1. Managing large scale of operations: The scale of a pilot ed-tech project in a single state in the government school sector is close to the size of an entire business catering to private schools. It takes getting used to.
2. Being patient and persistent: As a non-profit one may be offering one’s services for free; but getting the government to agree to avail of those services remains quite difficult. Patience and persistence are great assets and I know I have much work to do on both.
3. The need to be a self-starter: Given that many of the enabling structures of large or even mid-sized corporates are not to be found in non-profits, the sector demands insane levels of individual commitment and passion to drive things forward. The momentum has got to be all self-generated.
4. The importance of spending quality time learning about communities one works with: There is no substitute for field experience. Having entered the sector late in my career, it might be a bit late to make up for it. The next best thing is to learn from those that have great insights from the field. However young such people may be, it is likely that they may know more about how something might work on the ground. I need to keep reminding myself to be humbler to be more effective. 

It has been only a few months for me working in the social sector and I would be lying if I said that it has been all smooth sailing. I know that I need to commit to the sector fully without a Plan B in order for my work to create any meaningful impact over time. I am getting there!

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The sixth edition of the ILSS Leadership Program concluded on August 31, 2019 at Ashoka University with 27 senior leaders, largely from corporate organisations, participating in the nine-day immersion into the social development sector.

The largest-ever cohort at the ILSS Leadership Program featured leaders from companies such as IBM India, Facebook India, Genpact, Yes Bank, PwC and BNP Paribas, among others. Along with senior corporate executives, the cohort also included leaders from non-profits such as Janaagraha and Dream a Dream.

Over nine days, 35 speakers, including NGO founders, practitioners, development economists, foundation heads and philanthropists, helped participants gain a deeper understanding of social development issues, guiding them on how they can engage more deeply with the task of addressing persistent, complex development challenges. 

Speakers at ILSS Leadership Program, August 23-31, 2019

The experiential learning program includes talks, panel discussions, grassroots immersion visits, reflection sessions, self-awareness and leadership exercises and networking opportunities to connect with leaders in the social sector.

The sixth edition of the program concluded with a closing ceremony presided by philanthropist and business leader Anu Aga.

Applications for the next edition of the ILSS Leadership Program, scheduled for January 14-25, 2020, are open now. Register before December 15, 2019.

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Those of us familiar with the growth story of the corporate sector know how corporations, both big and small, owe a great deal of their ability to dream big and achieve great success to a strong supporting ecosystem, including  funders who provided capital to get ideas off the ground, consultants who provided strategic inputs, recruiters who helped get the right talent, specialists who helped build organisational capability, and so on. It took many actors in an interconnected ecosystem to enable businesses to achieve their potential.

At a critical time in the history of India’s social sector, an ‘ecosystem’ of this kind is the one factor that will decide how the sector grows in the years ahead. At the moment, though, this ecosystem is still an idea being discussed, sometimes vaguely, by a handful of people in the social sector.  So, what is this ‘ecosystem’ we are talking about, why do we need it and, importantly, who is to build it?

The role of intermediaries

As in the corporate sector, a set of intermediaries who create transparency and enable better decision-making is critical to India’s non-profit sector at this juncture. There is a range of possibilities and roles for these intermediaries but, to my mind, the most critical are those involved with talent and capital.

Let’s use a parallel from the Indian venture capital industry, where a sudden influx of capital from the likes of Sequoia, SoftBank and Tiger, allowed our entrepreneurs to dream bigger than ever before. However, as the capital came in, we also saw a situation where there was so much more to do, but not enough talent to seize those opportunities. Similarly, as the non-profit sector is poised for a phase of growth, talent could be one binding constraint in the near term.

The huge influx of capital, especially the INR 50,000 crore from CSR in just five years, has dealt a comparable kind of shock to the non-profit system. Domestic philanthropy has also seen a surge: who would have thought Mr Premji would give away another $20 billion! Whilst there isn’t, obviously, another donor of that size, many more people are now committing to give money and are willing to be much more active participants, not just donors, in the process of social development.

Just as the VCs demanded more accountability from Indian start-ups—the reason today’s start-ups are more professional than those of 20 years ago—today’s donors demand better processes, better utilisation of funds and more professionalisation within non-profits.

The talent factor

Having built successful for-profit companies, individual philanthropists are now demanding that non-profits focus on the talent piece. People like Amit Chandra, for example, focus specifically on capacity building grants. CSR is also demanding systems, processes, auditing, governance, etc. And so, this is the moment when the social sector needs to respond.

We are already seeing how organisations that have responded to these demands have grown rapidly. The likes of Magic Bus, Kaivalya Education Foundation and Teach for India have grown tremendously in the last five years because they realised they could tap into this pool of capital if they did the right things, hired good talent and professionalised.

Talent will have to be the single biggest investment in this sector going forward. We’re at a stage where good quality junior talent has started coming into the sector. What we will also need is a leadership pipeline; it’s going to be almost impossible to build the leadership and skills from within organisations in a short span of time. Which is why we now see initiatives like India Leaders for Social Sector, to bring in experience, talent and skills from the corporate sector.

Information and data

Another area where the social sector needs expertise is evidence, monitoring & evaluation, and reporting. If we want the quality of the sector to improve, we should demand more rigorous evaluation to determine whether something is genuinely working or not. Unless we see more rigour on this front, we will continue to compromise our ability to take informed decisions regarding our response to societal problems.

We certainly have a gap in terms of the information available in the public domain regarding how much philanthropists are giving, where they are giving, etc. I don’t think there are enough intermediaries that have done a good job at making such data available. In addition to more rigorous evidence, we also need evidence that is more readily digestible so that people don’t make the same mistakes that were being made 20 years ago.

Like Pratham created ASER, there is also a need to create similar tools or public good that can transcend their limited scope within programs and organisations to become useful to different organisations, across sectors. That way governments and organisations get access to a ready set of tested tools and won’t need to reinvent the wheel.

The role of philanthropy

The question, of course, is what will it take to build such an ecosystem? Philanthropy certainly has an important role to play here. Rather than fund organisations to just do more of what they’re doing, philanthropists must be willing to encourage testing of innovative models, making more risk capital available to non-profits.

Donors must make budgets available for capacity building and not just for programs. As organisations grow, donors need to be okay with, say, 20-25 percent of their grants going towards ‘administrative costs’ of grantee organisations, including investments in human capital, M&E, marketing, brand building, fundraising, technology and systems.

As India’s non-profits negotiate the opportunities that come with increased investment and interest, our ability to put in place an enabling ecosystem will be the key that decides how well, how quickly and how effectively they respond.

This article was first published in Financial Express. The original article can be found here

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This is about the inward journey of a person who grew up in a moderately conservative lower middle-class family, knew nothing better than to treat academics as the reason to live until “settling” in a job in the corporate world. A person who, despite being insulated from the real world, dabbled in some individual and corporate social responsibility to “give back” to society in a rather egoistical way. And how one fine summer, a “nine-day program” turned out to be a journey as profound as traversing the nine layers of Earth right through to the inner core. This is about me, and the shades of me in each one of you.

I sometimes wonder how, in our pursuit of that elusive ‘cosy corner’ in life, we keep getting disconnected from everything natural in and around us, only to walk back to the same fork in the path where we parted from our true selves. Sooner or later, everyone reaches a point when one asks: “What is the purpose of my life?”

Last summer, I found myself at a juncture in my life when I had “retired” from an overall satisfying corporate career with a rich chest of experiences and learnings. I tried my hand at a venture with a social angle and was learning a great deal from it. However, I realised that I had only touched the tip of the iceberg called the development sector. I wanted to learn more. The student in me got curious.  That’s when India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS) happened.

The journey, not the destination

ILSS turned out to be a life-changing experience. It is unbelievable how nine days can impact a person so deeply and how people can get transformed, if they go with an open mind, ready to unlearn and learn at the same time. It also showed me how the world that I had imagined needs us, is not even a fraction of the world that actually needs us.

The program has been envisioned, designed and implemented as a fast, action-packed ride into the development sector. The great line-up of speakers—experts from various fields —are truly invested in imparting as much wisdom as possible in the limited time available. The diversity of the cohort makes the experience interesting and enriching. The fact that the cohort is intentionally kept small, allows deeper interactions, while the “immersive learning” design enables participants to be unpretentious and uninhibited, understand everyone’s perspective, respect and accept each other for life. 

A big highlight of the program was the day-long field visit, where we experienced various aspects of the development sector first-hand. It was yet another reminder that it is not just the end goal but the journey that matters, and every small step makes a difference.

At the Ashoka University campus—with its sports complex, gym, running and walking tracks, library, and the charming dhaba—we relived our college days and felt like a bunch of teenagers at the end of the program. Rejuvenated to do our bit to make the world a better place.

The power of the self and the collective

Boond boond se sagar — how true it is of ILSS, which carefully collects the droplets capable of transforming Self and others, equips them and leaves them in the ocean, with the potential to create a beautiful ripple effect. At the end of the program, some may decide to take the plunge into the social sector, some may just want to continue to do what they are doing.  Whatever may be the case, there has already been a transformation at a personal as well as professional level. 

Unlike any other executive/ management workshop I have attended, ILSS nudged me to question things that I had never questioned before: my actions, reactions, how I handle situations, how I take certain things for granted. Unique sessions helped me discover my inner values and what I stand for! ILSS triggers the inner questioning that bring you close to yourself:

• What is the purpose of my life?
• Do I stay in touch with myself?
• What do I truly stand for?
• Are all my thoughts, words and actions in alignment with my true self?
• Have I found at least one way to be happy in other’s happiness?
• What is my contribution to the collective consciousness?  Positive, neutral or negative?
• What is that one “I was here” mark that I want to leave behind in this world?

“I was here”

“I am Vyjayanthi Mala.

“I stand for Energy, Inspiration and Love” 

#EnergyInspirationLove   

What’s your hashtag?

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I recently picked up Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, which I had first read as a teenager, and re-read the following from the preface:

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”

It’s only now, 30 years since I first read them, that I have realised the impact that these powerful words had on me at a subconscious level and how they influenced the choices I made in my adult life.

The context of the times I grew up in, through the ‘80s to early ‘90s, when India saw various social, economic and cultural churns, led to the formation of views and opinions that sometimes manifested as ennui, many a times as indifference and on a few occasions as a strong urge to do something more than just being an armchair critic. The other influence has been my family background, which may not be very different from others with whom I share a middle-class upbringing in a small town. My parents studied and worked their way out of their rural upbringing in agrarian families in western UP to join academic professions in the ’60s. They laid a strong foundation for my siblings and me to be principled, curious, enthusiastic and persevering. The emphasis was always on working hard, conscientiously, never giving up, and always giving our best.

Making ‘good’ choices

Being the youngest of high-achieving siblings was sometimes inspiring, sometimes daunting. With the eldest sister serving the country through the India Police Service, the second becoming a renowned doctor and the third becoming a scientist to discover new medicines, my parents expected me to also be a part of something meaningful and impactful.

That’s why when I chose to build a career in the private sector after my MBA, my parents’ excitement was rather muted. That however changed when I was selected into the Tata Administrative Service (TAS). Even though they did not know the breadth and depth of the operations of Tata companies or what I will be doing there, they had a sense that I was choosing to work with “good” people. To this day they share my satisfaction in the choice I made to be in a group which had chosen to make the society and the country a better place, while pursuing profitable and sustainable growth.

In my early days with the Tatas I looked after a brand focused on rural markets, which allowed me to travel to the remote corners of the country, connected me to “Bharat”, and sensitised me to the realities outside the big cities. When I shifted to a more “corporate” role in the holding company of the Tata group, leading investments into technology and services companies, I drove the shift towards supporting first-generation entrepreneurs and initiatives targeted at:

1. Making
   education more accessible through use of technology and skilling
2. Affordable
   and modern healthcare delivery through a virtuous business model
3. New solar
   technology with the potential to offer power to off-grid locations at a price
   less than conventional electricity.

One project worth a special mention is what was then known as the Tata Jagriti Yatra. My conviction about the impact of this initiative led me to reach out to the senior-most leadership in the group to gain support for it. The idea of taking a group of 300-400 young social entrepreneurs on a train journey across India led to a mid-career questioning of certain choices I had made.

In my most recent role as a Partner in the private equity business at Tata Capital, I chose to lead the initiative on setting up an Africa-focused PE fund. This choice was also partly influenced by my desire to work in a space which can have large-scale positive impact on large sections of population, and at a global scale.

Taking the plunge

Looking back at the way my career has shaped in the last two decades, I can now say that, even as we are busy with our lives and going about our work, at a subliminal level we are following a certain message or a pattern in what we do. It could find its expression in our interest in certain things, in the dissatisfaction with the current way of being, in the deep joy we find in certain activities. The challenge is to get connected to yourself, listen to these messages and be bold enough to take the plunge when the time comes.

For me, this point in my life came last year, when I decided to swap my corporate career for a career in the social sector. To ensure that I made this transition in a structured manner, I chose to enroll for the ILSS Leadership Program last August. I went in tentatively and emerged confident in the choice I was making. The time spent with the cohort, with experts from across sectors, with inspiring speakers and leaders who had made such a transition themselves, helped clear the cobwebs and fears and emboldened me to take a step forward.

Late last year I joined Social Finance, India which was set-up in the middle of 2018, adding to the existing chapters in the UK, USA, Israel and the Netherlands. SF India has been mandated to establish two interventions – The India Education Outcomes Fund (IEOF) and the India Impact Fund (IIF), both targeting to mobilise $1 billion each towards large-scale impact interventions through unique approaches.

IEOF is the priority for the team and it aims to propel India towards the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through catalytic pay-for-success funding for proven education initiatives. Together with state governments and the country’s best minds, we will fund innovative education and employment readiness programs to help scale them and improve their effectiveness.

India Education Outcomes Fund (IEOF) is an early step towards a larger movement of shifting the development sector towards success-based approaches with a clear focus on outcomes rather than outputs. We believe that crowding in private capital and improving program delivery, success-based approaches can shift the risk and allow development budgets to stretch further.

Chemistry taught me that a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a reaction without itself undergoing any permanent change. Where I differ, when told that our role can be that of a catalyst, is that we are looking to alter ourselves positively through our involvement. In that sense, it is a selfish pursuit. I look forward to contributing in every which way I can to the creation of a world of harmony, dignity and fairness for myself and others.

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