http://aartishrivastava.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/social-entrepreneurship-in-india/

A venture funded company (Seedfund, Aavishkaar and Oasis Fund), Vaatsalya is building India’s first network of hospitals focussed on semi-urban and rural India.

More at http://www.vaatsalya.com

At the ground level a social entrepreneur like me faces these problems -

1. If we are not that concerned with making money for ourselves, we surely don’t have money to give away in commissions and kickbacks. Number of school principals in Delhi who would award a contract without a cut, is not more than a dozen.

2. Lack of trust and a feeling of general hopelessness among the customers. We Indians don’t trust each other much and certainly not someone who comes to us talking of a greater good.

3. Attractiveness to investors – Lets face it…a social enterprise is not attractive to the VCs or so called angels. They believe they are already doing India a favor by their mere presence.

This is a fantastic post and I just happed to read it. As other readers mentioned, there are various other social enterprises in India which focus on solving a particular social problem.

The main reason for not many individuals venturing into this area is because of the lack of education. First of all, many people (including me) do not understand aspects of entrepreneurship and adding to that, Social Entrepreneurship is far away from the common man. Unfortunately, not many educational institutes in India offers courses on Social Entrepreneurship (EDI offers one post-graduate program)

@Srinagesh Eranki: Your post attracted me immediately as you brought out CKP’s name. The book itself is a great contribution, however, please be careful that not all case studies in the book are showcasing Social Entrepreneurship This is just FYI. Case’s which can be referred to are Amul, Arvind Eye Clinic, Jaipur Foot, Cemax.

Coming to your point of Government initiatives, there are a plenty of them for people to take advantage. Our Indian Government has few of the best policies for people who work for social change. It is a matter of interested parties to understand them and make use of them.

Media definitely needs to play a greater role in many aspects of society, unfortunately, all organizations are only interested in making money and have no time for actual stories…a pathetic situation in almost all the countries around the world. Media has time, money and patience to showcase what Madhuri Dixit’s life is or recipes at Sachin’s restaurant…but have no time or avenue to showcase social change makers information.

Adding to your point of awards, there are quite a few global organizations, which come to India and award Social Entrepreneurs in appropriate way. I am listing few organization which have operations in India below:

Ashoka
Smile Foundation India
India Rural Development Fund
India Development Foundation
The George Foundation
The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation
Bhagavatula Charitable Trust
Karuna Trust
Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Jendra
SELCO

The Nanad & Jeet Khemka Foundation gives away Social Entrepreneur of the Year award to deserving candidates in association with Schwab Foundation. I have a post which highlights 2007 selection and the final winner on my blog http://harisays.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/social-entrepreneur-of-year-2007/

I suggest an insightful book – How to Change the World by David Boreinsten. This book gives insight into the working of Ashoka Foundation and has excellent case studies of Social Entrepreneurs in our Country. BTW, India has more than 250 Ashoka Fellows.

It is just not “profitability” or making money which drives entrepreneurs. It is the pace at which your idea comes to light and social status is what counts maximum points. Social Entrepreneurship is a journey, where you might reach your destination or might not. You might enjoy the benefits, but high chances are that, next generation will see the fruits of the seed you have planted. In today’s education system in our country, the term “Entrepreneurship” is not found in any book, it is only the interest of the individual to understand. There are organizations which invite people and organize speech’s and workshops on Social Entrepreneurship, but unfortunately the same organizations do not back up people who are interested.

Before I close, just wanted to share my understanding of Microfinance (MFI). If you notice, MFI is a very profitable business where the returns of investment are on a great scale of 97%. If you carefully examine the interest rates of these organization, they are close to our credit card rates

As for the recent increase in the background noise attributed to social “for-profit” entrepreneurship, a lot of it is the outcome of pure greed and the reason for the vacuum is consistent, which ever sector you choose!

1) Governments also need to come to the party with incentives for Private Equity/Venture Capital to invest in such causes.
2) The media needs to play a greater role in highlighting such efforts. Something along the lines of
– A “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” award (if one doesn’t exist already).
– Probably even a reality show which showcases such efforts.

HLL’s Shakti Project for increasing distribution reach in rural hinterland using MLM model is another example .

Most of the time social entrepreneurship is confused with charity . thats the biggest problem .

and i think All this new hype about Micro financing is a joke .from the get go most of the banks who gets in to Micro Financing assign a very high NPA rate to the Micro finance funds so parent entity never bet serious money on Micro financing. these bankers organize conferences to understand the Micro Financing but they would do good to spend some time with local “Sahukar” in village . and let me tell you all the sahukar are not like the one portrayed in Bollywood Movies .

There are other similar ventures making significant strides in combining both the motives though at a much smaller scale as compared to AMUL. The first thing that immediately comes to my mind is Arvind Eye Care in Tamil Nadu.. they are providing quality to people at very nominal price ( even free for very poor people) for about 30 years now.

Then we have examples of Fabindia and Anoukhi .. both have been able to create successful ventures selling garments, handicrafts etc from procured from rural artisans and thus generating livelihood oppurtunities.

Then Mcleod Russel’s work in the field of Bio-diesels…n if u will search u will find many more such stories

Most of the readers of this post must be aware of the AMUL story .. would encourage you highlight other initiatives doable even without government help ..