Best social startups in India

The Indian society is going through an interesting time of transition. We are now looking to move away from being the food bowl of the world to becoming a technology and IT hub. This transition is causing a further increase in the gap between the rich and the poor of the country. While more and more Indians are now a part of the billionaires club, there are now more poor and hungry people on the streets of India than ever before.

Amidst all this there is something else happening too. Social Entrepreneurship is now beginning to take shape in the country very firmly. Young Indians around the country feel that they can change India and a very good number of them decide to actually try it. There are now more social entrepreneurs in India than ever before. Youngsters are no more afraid to try this as a genuine career opportunity.

While social entrepreneurship may not pay as much as other startups can potentially pay, they are actually very satisfying. When you see a child attend school and you know that it is all due to you, well the satisfaction you get is tremendous.

In this article we cover a few big challenges that face the average social entrepreneurs today and how they can fight them.

1. Funding: Ask any social entrepreneur and they will say they never have enough funds. And it is true. But it is not because there is a lack of funding, rather there is a lack of proper distribution of this funding. While big NGOs have huge pockets, smaller NGOs find it difficult to fund even small projects. So how does one fight the battle of NGO funding? I believe that to do this it is very important for every NGO to have a business model, a way for you to generate funds continuously and sustainably without depending on donations from others. When starting out if you rely on donations to field your way through, then the chances of your success are quite low. You may have enough funds from donations for a while, however you can never really be sure how much will you have in the future and hence cannot plan anything for the future. That really cuts your chances. So it is always important to keep the funding in mind before starting out because only if you have funds can you do something worthwhile.

2. Lack of skilled man force: It is easy for every social entrepreneur to find volunteers. Set up a stall outside any college and you will easily get 100 volunteers. The challenge is to have volunteers who are really talented in what they are expected to do. For example you want to go and teach computers in an orphanage. However there is no use of your 100 volunteers if they themselves are not fluent with computers. Talented man force is a major concern from most small NGOs. You require dedicated, hard working, committed people who understand your ideologies. Generally there is very little training required to work in an NGO, hence it is important that the NGO takes the initiative to train their volunteers because only then can you get the best out of them.