Creating local entrepreneurial leaders

           To DF co-founder Desh, the importance of leadership at any level of an organisation cannot be emphasised enough. He notes that non-profit organisations are typically headed by strong leaders but severely limited by weak middle management. While many in the social sector come from reputable academic backgrounds, they lack the professional skills and experience required to effectively manage an organisation.

       The Deshpande Fellowship Programme (DFP) was therefore created to cultivate middle managers who can serve as a facilitator between a non-profit’s founders and its grassroots beneficiaries. The rigorous programme, which draws 23-28 year-old graduates and postgraduates interested in social development sector, covers 28 diverse modules using a hands-on approach to equip participants with skills to communicate effectively, analyse project needs and manage team operations.
In addition to DFP, Sandbox has developed a holistic range of training programmes, each designed to nurture various members of the workforce:

• Deshpande Koutilya Fellowship (DKF): A 5-month programme to help individuals translate academic qualifications into practical skills needed in fields such as accounting, banking, finance in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India (defined respectively as populations between 50,000 to 99,999 for Tier 2 & 20,000 to 49,999 for Tier 3).
• Deshpande Susandhi Fellowship (DSF): A 4-month residential programme to build leadership skills, entrepreneurship & high work ethics to boost employability.
• Susandhi Krishi Chetana (SKC): A 4-month intensive residential course that prepares young agriculturalists for future challenges. Participants are educated on better cultivation methods and trained to take up management responsibilities. The programme also aims to support the agricultural industry by training facilitation officers who can effectively liaise between farmers, agricultural companies and governments.

Sandbox Hubli-Dharwad’s experiences are shared through the Development Dialogues, the Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) and the Champions Programme. ^[15] In particular, the Development Dialogue is a strong example of how local experiences can be shared outside of Hubli-Dharwad, annually gathering approximately 2,000 diverse practitioners, professionals, entrepreneurs and college students for a 3-day conference to discuss the potential of entrepreneurial initiatives in nurturing solutions for development. ^[16] By drawing external parties into the region, Sandbox presents its organisations with greater exposure to other innovative ventures and approaches to pressing social problems both within and outside of Sandbox. The sheer magnitude of the conference works to create enthusiasm around Sandbox’s activities, inspire its own entrepreneurs, and promote the region as a leading center for social innovation.

Engaging leadership potential of youth

Fostering the next generation of regional leaders lies at the heart of Deshpande’s many training programmes. One such initiative is Deshpande’s LEaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) programme, which encourages students from universities located in the Sandbox region to select social issues they care about in their local communities and implement their own creative solutions. Guided by mentors and LEAD alumnus, these students are required to immerse themselves in fieldwork and grassroots operations to gain hands-on experience.
LEAD’s sample has created a case for entrepreneurship in a community in which many parents and school administrators valued academics over extra-curricular activities. It has since inspired a younger generation of social workers by presenting them the opportunity to get in touch with business practicalities while making an active contribution to society. By 2015, the programme had received an overwhelming 50,000 student participants from more than 100+ different colleges and universities within the Sandbox region.^[17]
LEAD’s success prompted DF to integrate with the Sandbox Startup programme to encourage more students to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to social development issues. Through the Sandbox Startup programme, DF was able to partner with local universities to formally integrate the practice of entrepreneurship into school curriculums by introducing courses on its practical applicability in society. ^[18]

Enabling social entrepreneurs

Desh insists on supporting experimental approaches to social innovation to maintain Sandbox’s status as “a place where individuals and organizations with innovative solutions to pressing social needs could experiment and build their organizations to scale without fear of failure.” ^[19]

Under the Enable stream (see image above), Sandbox supports entrepreneurs across various sectors of the economy through the Navodyami, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence programme (now known as Sandbox Startups) and traditional grant making. Navodyami operates in five districts in North Karnataka and enables rural entrepreneurs earning 5,000-10,000 INR (US$77 – 153)^[20] a month to scale their enterprises. By 2014, “out of the 120 Navodyami graduates, 43 have grown by three to four times successfully incubated in the programme and are in various stages of scaling up.”^[21]

In addition to this, the incubator programme Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) (renamed Sandbox Startups in 2015), proudly serves as a “ready living laboratory” for committed individuals to test and scale their innovative ideas in Tier 2 & 3 cities in India.  Sandbox Startups invests in adept leaders and ideas with significant potential to improve the welfare of local communities in areas of agriculture, education, health and livelihoods.  Sandbox selects its partners in tri-annual cycles and supports a range of organisations at various stages of growth in a 200 km radius around Sandbox.

Throughout its engagement, Sandbox Startups provides the organisation with assistance in the forms of mentorship, physical space, seed funding, networking opportunities and event exposure.

The incubation process begins with piloting new ideas. Sustainable interventions that yield significant returns during its testing stage will then undergo plans for scaling. These successful innovations will receive referrals from Deshpande Foundation to other potential partners, including state/government organisations, private investors, individual entrepreneurs and other community actors.

http://avpn.asia/2015/11/05/