Fund Raising Coaches for Runners!

Breakthrough with Coaching!

I've had a great opportunity to work with Dream A Dream to do something unique in fund raising. But first let me tell you about Dream A Dream. Started by Vishal Talreja in 1999 it has helped hundreds of kids. Vishal by the way, is a financial analyst who decided that instead of running spreadsheets he wanted to teach life skills to street kids in Bangalore.

Vishal and I knocked some ideas around and decided that we should expand what he was last year and get more people functioning as coaches to the runners.

I trained about 15 enthusiasts who will act as fund raising Coaches for Runners. We've gone through the basics of coaching and ran practice rounds so that they would be equipped to help the runners break through blocks and keep the conversation going. It certainly has been a high-energy workshop!

Vishal, by the way, is an Ashoka Fellow. This is a exciting group of people who have been selected by Ashoka as changemakers. Operating in over 60 countries, Ashoka has done probably more than any other organization to bring social entrepreneurship to the fore.

Check out these links
www.dreamadream.org
www.ashoka.org

UnLtd - building leaders one at a time

I'd promised to write about UnLtd India in my last blog. They are the face of what's new and happening in the social entrepreneurship. Led in India by Richard Alderson and Pooja Warrier, they pulled off this conference along with their partners CSIM. Richard used to work in IBM before he set out down this path - first in the UK and now in India.

Invest in Ideas --> Build Leaders --> Change the World

Seems like a plan alright. The hard work of thinking through ideas, and then building leaders seems like a no-brainer. Yet could we do a better job of it? Organizations of all shapes and sizes suffer from a lack of leaders to drive their growth. Most are simply 'hoping' their way to success.

UnLtd has helped to identify the leaders and then spent a considerable time investing into them. That means not just helping them think through their ideas, but coaching them 1-on-1 to get over obstacles. Here are couple of heroes I met.

Inir Piheiro from Grassroots in nurturing a plan to provide income generation opportunities with the idea of ecological tourism in villages.
Then there is Partho Bhowmick who is leading a mind-blowing idea of getting visually impaired people to photograph - yes, photograph - and exhibit at the finest art galleries.
Or there is Sailesh Mishra from Silver Innings, working on creating an elder friendly world. In a world intoxicated with youth, that's a refreshing approach to ageing.

With literally dozens of others, this is clearly a hopeful trend for the world.

Check out these links:
www.unltdindia.org

Social Entreprenuership - Doing Good while making Money!

Here's a powerful idea that's slowing going mainstream. During the International Conference on Social Entrepreneurship held at Chennai in 4-5th December 2008, I had the opportunity to meet some fascinating entrepreneurs. Since I played the role of the moderator, I got to meet them by default. (Yes I know... zilch effort!) The conference was organized by Richard Alderson and Pooja Warrier from UnLtd India and the folks of CSIM. I'll cover them in a separate post.

For now, I'd like to introduce you to Harish Hande. Co-founder of Selco India he was the essence of what's great about this movement. Selco sells solar energy solutions to the bottom of the pyramid - they are well on their way to a 100,000 installations. He's quite self-effacing and looks like an average joe. Look deeper, and you can see his fire and determination. He told this great story about how he convinced rural banks to loan money to his clients. How did he do it? Very simple... he took his sleeping bag and slept outside the bank for over a month, till the Chairman agreed to see him. And as soon as he got a letter of commitment, he went and beat all the other doors!

Was it radical? Of course.