Corporate world is increasingly getting conscious of it’s social commitments and realizing the resultant benefits accruing from CSR initiatives. Not surprising therefore, Corporate and business houses have laid down a formal CSR policies and agenda backed-up by an appropriate fiscal and managerial outfit at their command for the purpose.

In view of this the Social Awareness Programme organized by the Smile Foundation for final year outgoing students of MBA (IB) of the prestigious Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi has been very appropriate as it was an exercise to “catch them young”- being on the verge of entering the corporate world, after completing their professional degree in International Business Management. The programme, of 2-weeks duration, introduced for the first time by the IIFT for it’s management students, has been initiated with an objective of sensitizing the young Management Graduates about social sectors - welfare initiatives, non-governmental interventions, problems and constraints and the corporate social responsibilities (CSR).

The programme provided an orientation to the students/Interns, 8 in all, about social sector, Smile Foundation’s Vision and Mission, it’s activities and partner NGOs across various states in the country. Subsequently, the students, divided into different teams, were attached to different partner NGOs for about a week to work with/ for them as per their individual needs. The exposure visit to these NGOs included, first of all, knowing and understanding the organization and their activities, doing a quick SWOT analysis, and also assisting in areas such as developing organization’s brochures and website, proposal making, following –up with donor agencies (where proposals have been already submitted), identifying suitable funding and other resource generating avenues.

The programme concluded with each team presenting a report -summarizing their experiences and recommendations along with organizational development strategies, communication and visibility, and identifying possible funding sources.

The Social Awareness Programme thus organized by the Smile Foundation was a success, a new experience altogether and very interesting as admitted by the students and highly appreciated by the NGOs with whom they were attached.

IIFT proposes to organize similar programmes for their students on regular basis. Smile Foundation welcomes such initiatives from IIFT and other Management schools in NCR region. Such exposure programme is expected to strengthen CSR initiatives of the corporate institutions these business managers are on the verge of entering.