(1888PressRelease)
November 02, 2008 - Every successful venture needs a ‘Delivery Model’.
Smile Foundation for the first time in the development sector adopted the unique concept of ‘Social Venture Philanthropy’ (SVP). The model is inspired from a successful business concept, ‘Venture Capital’, where networks of accomplished individuals combine financial contributions and professional skills with a passion for philanthropy. The reason to choose SVP model was to leverage the collective expertise and resources of business managers to create the maximum community impact.
Motivated from the achievements of the corporate world in spreading consumerism, Smile Foundation thought to apply the concept for the development of the underprivileged.
The SVP model has a multiplier effect, particularly in the optimum distribution of resources. In other terms, the strategy involves providing seed money for the project, expansion, professional guidance, training support, capacity building and even counselling on productivity and efficiency enhancement. Under its SVP model, SMILE identifies and nurture grass root efforts in order to achieve four key aspects; substantially, accountability, credibility and leadership in the development sector.
The SVP model seeks consciously to broad-base investment in the belief that this will maximise reach and optimise returns. Instead of confining attention to a single project and a limited number of beneficiaries, the model helps reach out to and strengthen a large number of like minded individuals and organisations countrywide.
The methodology has helped Smile Foundation reach out to an exceptionally large number of beneficiaries, primarily children, than it would have done with any conventional model prevalent in the sector so far. The most important gain of SMILE’s delivery model is reaching to the un-reached without wasting a fraction of the resources.
SMILE through this model had been successful to make intervention at national level and experience delightful results from across 21 states. In a nutshell, Smile Foundation has been successful in replicating SVP model in a decentralized and vast scale.
The social entrepreneurs from Smile Foundation include a barely literate woman working for empowering children and women, a retired head master dedicating his life to teach rural children in rural Rajasthan, a group of educated and employed youth making a movement and transforming lives of thousands of orphan and street children in remote Orissa, two young MBA graduates in Chennai working hard to make hundreds of underprivileged girls employable in retails chains and many more.
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