Social entrepreneurship seamlessly integrates business principles with a dedicated focus on social or environmental impact. Unlike conventional entrepreneurship, which often centers solely on profitability, social entrepreneurs prioritise generating societal value. They pinpoint unaddressed needs, devise sustainable remedies and gauge success not only by financial metrics but also by social and environmental achievements.
Given their intimate connection to the communities they serve, social entrepreneurs possess unparalleled insights into local dynamics, challenges and the bespoke solutions necessary to address them.
Though these initiatives start with limited resources, they possess immense passion and determination. By mobilising community resources and building partnerships, grassroots entrepreneurs can affect meaningful change where it is needed most.
Social Entrepreneurs in India that are empowering grassroots
- Urvashi Sahni, Founder & CEO of SHEF
A renowned social entrepreneur whose organisation the Study Hall Education Foundation has been empowering underserved children with educational support by providing them with engineering or business scholarships.
- Hanumappa Sudarshan, Founder of Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra
An awardee of the Padma Shri Award, Hanumappa Sudarshan runs a well-known non-governmental organisation that works to provide quality education in rural India.
- Anshu Gupta, Founder of Goonj
An awardee of the Ashoka fellowship and Social Entrepreneur of the Year award, Gupta’s NGO- Goonj has been meticulously working to ensure equal urban-rural distribution of items, where his NGO collects basic amenities from the urban section to distribute among low-income families and street children in India.
Looking at the phenomenal work of some of the best social entrepreneurs in India, the future of the social entrepreneurship landscape in India seems promising. Smile Foundation is working in India for over 20 years and is helping the grassroots levels of India with their problems.
The Smile Foundation’s – ‘Change the Game‘ Academy has been working closely with Indian grassroots organisations across the country to empower them with resources and support that enable them to keep going forward with their initiative for their community.
Successful Grassroots Initiatives by Social Entrepreneurs with Smile Foundation
Janki Vasant, Founder of Samvedna Trust Gujarat
A survivor of the Panama flight attack, Janki wanted to do more with her life after surviving the attack. She started Samvedna, with 70 children and seed funding from Smile Foundation to ensure that children and women get holistic nutrition, education and skill development. Over the years the partnership with Smile Foundation enabled Janki to expand Samvedna and benefit over 300,000 beneficiaries.
After joining Smile Foundation’s programme, Janki learned the importance of documenting good work on paper to have a safer and transparent working module and the future of the organisation.
Sandeep & Sunita Bhatnagar, Founder of Jupiter Academy, Uttar Pradesh
With a strong knowing in his heart, Sandeep never equated true contentment in life with money. In 1998, he started his social entrepreneurship journey of educating children. From an 8×6 ft room and two students, Sandeep began working towards educating children, later joined in by his wife.
Both of them laid the foundation of Jupiter Academy to empower underserved children with quality education. However, due to a lack of resources, their efforts were going in vain until the time they got the required support.
Today, the couple has successfully branched out their efforts in Lucknow with 8 branches of Jupiter Academy.
Prafulla Kumar Panda, Founder of Udiyaman Matrukshetra, Odisha
When just a college student, Prafulla Kumar Pande and his friends already knew that they had to do something for their community and its future. With a strong determination to empower their village’s children with education, the group started the Udiyaman Matrukshetra. It is a haven for children of the tribal community to come and garner quality education.
The Udiyaman Matrukshetra partnered with Smile Foundation to develop their education center where they were supported with all the resources they required to continue their mission of empowering tribal children with quality education. Today, the Udiyaman Matrukshtera is a name represented by alumni studying in reputed universities and successfully established professionals in different fields.
Change the Game Academy- Results of Social Entrepreneurship
Our Change the Game Academy is specially designed to cater to the new-age problems of the India grassroot communities with new-age solutions. Keeping itself aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development programme’s core of – “no one shall be left behind”, the academy aims at supporting community initiatives that shall help the community grow holistically while paving the way for a brighter and financially sustainable future.
By helping over 1400 community-based organisations, the academy is successfully empowering organisations across India. These grassroots organisations get training and support to align their goals and plans with a sustainable method.
Change the Game Academy has helped organizations with-
- Fundraising training
- LFR activities training
- Maintaining transparency through published annual reports
- Donor expansion and retention
- Funding from Individual donors
Empowering social entrepreneurs is a win-win for all. It is through social entrepreneurship communities shall get closer. By involving stakeholders in the decision-making process, they build trust and ownership, leading to more sustainable outcomes.
The aim is to solve social problems by applying advanced thinking in the day-to-day operations of the organisation. By using technology for grant-making techniques, and innovation to expand large-scale systemic thinking, the grassroots initiatives will move towards success.
The Change the Game Academy aims to make social entrepreneurship effective through rigorous measurement and evaluation of impact. It trains the upcoming social entrepreneurs to collect data and feedback. They can continuously improve their interventions and demonstrate their effectiveness to stakeholders.
In today’s time, grassroots initiatives are the real game changers of social entrepreneurship. These passionate individuals are turning their vision into reality, one community at a time. Thus, by learning from their successes and challenges, we can build a better future for generations to come.
