More than a year after we published our last post on inspirational people of our generation, we are back with another very inspiring story. This is the story of Shakira's philanthropy. Yes! Shakira - the famous Colombian singer best remembered for her single "Hips don't lie" and the grace with which she moves those hips. We are reproducing below an article that appeared in The Hindu Business Line on Nov 25, 2011. It talks about how Shakira has been doing philanthropy for the last 15 years. Considering that she is 34 today, she started really young at the age of 19 and that is the message we want to bring to today's youth. Start young, you have more time to effect change.

Shakira, the Barefoot do-gooder
by Tatiana Rodriguez

For 15 years, the Colombian singer has been promoting children's access to education. The name Shakira has several meanings, and one of them, in Lebanese Arabic, is “full of grace.” The popular Colombian singer by the same name has certainly tried to live up to that ideal. With her big eyes and long, blond tresses, Shakira, now 34, has spent the past 15 years promoting access to education for children and youth all over the world.

Her achievements go beyond the two Grammys and eight Latin Grammys she has been awarded over the years, or sharing the stage with famed musicians such as Bono, Alejandro Saenz, Gustavo Cerati, Beyonce and Mick Jagger, or even selling more than 70 million records worldwide.

That is because Shakira, through her “Pies Descalzos” (Barefoot Foundation), has helped more than 6,000 needy children, offering them free education, nutrition and healthcare. Born in Barranquilla, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (her full name) has not only been successful as an artist, but also as an agent for change in a society marked by inequality, violence and underdevelopment; perhaps because she herself has had firsthand experience of it all growing up in Colombia.

In October, US President Barack Obama appointed Shakira to the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. This distinction came because of her sustained efforts to promote “the democratisation of education.” She was also recently named the 2011 Latin Recording Academy person of the year because of her commitment to social causes. She is the youngest artist to receive the award, presented during an event prior to the Latin Grammy celebration at which she also garnered yet another Latin Grammy — Album of the Year — for Sale el sol (The Sun Rises). Just a couple of days earlier, Shakira became the first Colombian to be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

She set up the Barefoot Foundation in 1997 following the wave of success she had with her second album by the same name. The singer had chosen the name in an attempt to draw attention to the hunger and poverty children faced in Baranquilla. From then on, Shakira decided to allot a share of her earnings to nutrition and education projects in Colombia. She became a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 2003, to promote the expansion and improvement of comprehensive early childhood care and education across the world. Her philanthropic work has covered countries such as Haiti, where, after the 2010 earthquake, she offered — through her foundation — to rebuild schools in conjunction with the Inter-American Development Bank.

The Barefoot Foundation has funded 20 educational projects in Colombia and built six schools there in the last seven years.  These schools, supported by Shakira, provide food for the children, use the latest teaching methods, are bilingual and have sports facilities, orchards and plots for produce cultivation. All of these endeavours provide employment and activities to more than 30,000 people. The artist, with 11 musical productions behind her, funnels a million dollars into the construction of each project and 40 per cent of her earnings to maintain extra-curricular activities at the schools.


Bringing in the private sector has been indispensable for each educational project, because only a few backers can really continue to support school management. Shakira has forged alliances with powerful private donors, including Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim, also of Lebanese descent. Six years ago, she became a founding member of Latin America in Solidarity Action (ALAS, or WINGS, by its Spanish acronym), a coalition of artists and business leaders seeking to promote integrated early childhood public policies.

For her, engagements as an artist are no impediment to continue her charity work. Not long ago, after a concert at the Rock in Rio Festival, where she swayed her hips in her trademark style, Shakira launched a cooperation programme to protect early childhood. Also contributing to the project are Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, and Xuxa Meneghel, a well-known local singer and television host, through her own foundation.

The goodwill ambassador filled with the Caribbean spirit and endowed with sensual hips, a magical glance and a marvellous voice plans to continue to “fill with grace” not only the world's pop music stages, but also those places where the neediest are hurting.

Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-life/article2657442.ece

Sevalaya is a GiveIndia listed NGO that provides education to over a 1,000 orphan and destitute children in and around Chennai. In addition, they also run an old age shelter, conduct medical camps for the community around them and conduct vocational training classes for young people in the summer.

Cognizant, as part of its employee engagement programme launched GiveIndia's Payroll Giving Programme (PRG) earlier this year.  More than 3,000 employees have signed on to the programme , donating roughly Rs 7.5 lacs p.m. to different causes through various NGOs across the country. A visit for all employees of the company was organised by GiveIndia in an attempt to provide donors the opportunity to see for themselves the difference that they were and potentially could make to the lives of the less privileged.

We present to you here an account from Aarti one of our long-term volunteers who co-ordinated the visit from our end and gave us this lovely hands-on account of the trip

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At 8:30 AM a small group of 10 employees set off in a van to visit Sevalaya, which was about an hour from the city. Our drive to the NGO was not as uneventful as we thought  it would be :-). For starters, Ramu who was the SPOC from CTS had not actually met any of the others that we were picking up enroute - so he had to coordinate the exact location where a person had to wait,describe the van, which had the name of another large IT company on it(!!!) and also ask for the colour of the person's apparel to ensure that we were indeed picking up the 'right person'. :-) Just like any project that is undertaken at Cognizant, all the hurdles were overcome as Ramu did an outstanding job and everyone was in the van by 9:30 AM, all set for the long drive to Sevalaya.

We arrived at Sevalaya at about 10:45 AM, to be warmly welcomed by Jayanti, Sevalaya's trustee who told us all the history of the organisation, its vision and values, its activities, achievements and plans for the future over a much needed nice hot cup of coffee and biscuits. We then were given a quick tour of the vast school, the computer lab, and the classrooms which were abuzz with the happy chatter of children. the group then split up into two - some of us proceeded to the primary section. It was their play time and it was simply wonderful to see the faces of many happy toddlers who ran upto us enthusiastically to show us their play things- balls of different sizes, coloured blocks , a rocking duck meant for two but a la desi style had 4 children on it trying to rock it back and forth and actually managing to do so too :-). We had a blast with the little ones while some others in the group had started on a game of cricket with a group of older boys.

Couple of the team decided that cricket was far too common place and played a short high energy game of volley ball - these were with the high school boys. The girls in our team thought up an interesting guessing game and taught it to a bunch of shy at first and giggly girls who had a barrage of questions for them on their job, where they were from, what they liked and didn't and soon it was hard to hear anything above the din being caused by the friendly and excited chatter of a bunch of 15 year old teenage girls.

It was nearly lunch time and we had to break up the party with much reluctance, to go and have lunch with the children in their hostel. It was a lovely homely meal, served by the children ...the bonus for all of us was an additional sweet from Sree Mithai, that some other donor had brought and served to all of us. The children who live in Sevalaya's hostel are orphans - they have absolutely no one in the world that they can call their own and I think that having lunch with them and chatting to them, hopefully gave them some solace, albeit briefly. As for us, it was pretty over whelming.

We then went on to meet the elderly in the residential care centre , just to say hello because it was nearly 1:45 PM and time for their siesta. As we trooped across to the centre from the school amid lush green paddy fields, all a result of the organic farming pioneered in the area by Sevalaya and some of the school students, we couldn't help admiring again the commitment of the Sevalaya family that was making all this change happen. Well, we went to meet some of the elderly- it was evident that they were taken very good care of . One of them complained that she wasn't allowed to watch the re run of the TV serials by the others but she needed to because she was unable to remember the episode details from the previous evening :-)!! The others of course shushed her quickly retorting that she was just being difficult amid great mirth. It was really heartening to see them all happy and cheerful and once again, we realised how much work the Sevalaya team would have put into making this happen.

We walked back to our van , after a wonderful 2 hours of interaction, overwhelmed by the experience but hopefully also returning with the resolve that we could try and participate in making the change happen by supporting efforts like that of Sevalaya and others. Here is what some of them had to say after the visit.

Continuing from our last post, this is one more in the tradition of guest posts. Natasha is the writer of this piece which describes her very interesting experience on her first really deep engagement with an NGO. She was accompanying one of our long-time volunteers, Aarti on a trip to an NGO in Dindigul.

The below experience tells a fascinating tale of a typical NGO which does not have people with skills and required competency but more than make up with sheer passion and a never-ending ability and enthusiasm to learn. It also shows us that while NGOs do have a lot to learn from corporate professionals, professionals are often humbled in how much they learn, especially on the softer skills, from NGOs. Also clearly shows that professionals can create greater impact by leveraging on their skills honed to perfection in the corporate sector rather than doing things which they neither have the experience for or are very simple in nature with lesser impact.

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My good friend Aarti Madhusudhan consults for NGOs on their governance policies, and she also volunteers a lot of her time creating various formats in which "regular folks" (read me) can work with NGOs. She believes strongly in this mission, and has succeeded in getting professionals to volunteer their skills, stay-at-home moms to return to paid and unpaid work in the NGO sector, people to work for free for NGOs and just about anything that she puts her mind to.

I had shared with Aarti my desire to volunteer my professional skills for an NGO’s benefit. I had evolved to this point after toying with the idea of doing things like teaching children English, and other such hands on activities that did not really harness my professional skills. Finally I realized that what I do every day – strategy, project  planning, tactical execution, people management – are perhaps things that NGOs need as well. So, at Aarti’s urging, she and I set off for Dindigul, to work on a two day organizational strategy planning session for an NGO that I shall call Freedom.  Freedom’s director, Horatio, had come to Chennai for a day to meet with me and Aarti. We sat down together and mapped out the overall goals of the organization over 3 years. They turned out to be very simple – the organization needed to become independent of their Indian partner in one year, and to become financially self sustaining in 3 years, so that no more funds would be needed from their UK donor.

We travelled on the Pandiyan Express, where Aarti was very worried about my sensibilities, since she firmly believes I lead an elite life in the corporate world. Not true, of course. On the train we dealt with one small rat, a fat man who jostled Aarti, sang along with his mobile, and then snored through the night finally reaching Dindigul early in the morning. There we were met by our auto driver Arokyasamy, a friendly soul sent by the NGO, and put up in the wonderfully comfortable and charmingly named Hotel Paarvathy. This again was for my benefit, because Aarti thought I would not be able to deal with the privations of the convent where we were going to hold the workshop.

Day 1: We got to the beautiful convent promptly at 10 am, and found the entire staff of Freedom of about 30 people assembled in a large room. 30% men and 70% women.  The first thing I noticed was that there were no laptops, there was no projector, no flipcharts. All we had was a large blackboard and a box of chalk. There went our plan to take notes on our laptops. The next thing I noticed was the obvious and wide variance between the people in the room in terms of class. Horatio had been insistent that everyone in the organization (as he put it, even the cook in the crèche) needed to understand the overall goals and strategy of the organization. So we had the ladies who worked in the crèche with the children, as well the project leads who looked better dressed and were better educated, plus the administrative personnel who were familiar with computers. I realized I’d have to communicate in Tamil (which is what I would call serviceable but hardly up to explaining complex concepts) to reach this audience. So be it.


We started off with Horatio introducing us as these wonderful people who had arrived from the city to help the organization decide their 3 year plan and strategy and we did a round of introductions around the room. Then I started the session by standing up and explaining, as simply as I could, the two most important things: a) the need to become independent of the Chennai organization in one year and b) the need for financial sustainability in 3 years. Horatio told them that the annual budget was 80 lakhs. Blank looks all around….we were rapidly losing the crowd. Even the project leads looked baffled.  Though I tried to use the simplest of terms, as did Aarti, even the words “donor” and “funds” made little sense to the overall group. The 80 lakhs and the concept of sustainability seemed to panic them.  With much urging though, they slowly revealed that they actually do raise some funds in kind from the community – such items as carrots and potatoes and rice donated by the local farming community.

Then we made a further mistake. At Horatio’s urging, we referred to the project plan which had been submitted to the UK donor and began to try to explain the various areas it covered – governance, management and administration, capability building – before the organization could become independent. More blank looks. The group was undoubtedly wondering what the hell these MSWs and MBAs were talking about. So…..what to do? We regrouped. We gave them a 10 minute break, and Horatio, Aarti and I sat down together and decided instead of this top down approach, we’d ask them to split up into their real field teams and do a bottom up detailing of their very own project. We divided up the teams and asked some very basic questions:
•    Name of your project? For example, Vocational Training Centre.
•    Activities? For example, training in welding and tailoring.
•    How many beneficiaries? For example, 20 each for welding and tailoring.
•    How much do you spend per year on this project, including your salaries?
•    What is going well, and why? What is not going well, and why?

Suddenly, there was a great deal of enthusiasm. After all, each team knew exactly what they did in the field. They quickly assembled into groups, with much giggling and excitement all around, and began to write things down on large pink charts. Men and women worked together, and the organizational hierarchy broke down since we had said we would not allow the project leads to present.

Two hours later, it was time for each team to present (in Tamil).  Each team did a very good job in describing the range of activities they performed. They also tried hard to accurately estimate their operating budget, down to the level of each activity, though they had no concept of formal financial reporting.  But Aarti and I were  very insistent on pushing on two themes: a) what is your target, and how many beneficiaries are you actually helping? b) what is the per child cost?

It turned out that, though there were dozens of programs, the dropout rates were high. Also, the field teams had little idea of current targets, let alone future targets. With respect to per child cost, no one had a clue, including the director of the organization. But the session proved wonderful.  First of all, the pride and level of detail and ownership which each project team possessed was remarkable. Secondly, though they did not have clear targets, they understood the point quickly – and they also realized they could either raise targets, or raise efficiency (i.e., decrease dropout rate), or both.  We had some hilarious moments when we questioned the need for something called a Cycle Rally (this remains mysterious to me), which cost Rs. 25,000 and had no clear benefit that anyone could see. Aarti often questioned details, such as why their printing costs were so high, and gently got them to realize that they could save money by, for example, giving all their printing to a single vendor and asking for a volume discount.

At the end of Day 1, therefore, we had some happy people. We had a very good idea of the current state of the organization.  Every single program had been listed and described and its costs accounted for, though at an approximate level. Having had a wonderful lunch and tea, we had all developed a rapport with each other and there was much merriment all around. We had not yet approached the future state of the organization and the 3 year plan.…that was for the next day. But this was when Horatio decided to throw a curve ball at everyone.  Now that everyone was 100% clear on their own projects, Horatio decided that in fact, there were only three overarching themes for the entire organization (for example, advocacy),  that needed to be addressed for the future planning. Mass confusion! Suddenly we had gone from a project level plan to this theme based plan. None of us, including Aarti and I, had a clue what he meant. We went round and round, mixing up projects and themes. Our faces fell. Finally, Horatio decided that there would be 3 teams that would work on the future plans for these 3 “themes” and present them the next day. Aarti and I returned to our exciting hotel, somewhat crushed. What on earth would the poor teams make of these themes, we wondered? Weren’t we leaving out all the project details? What kind of theme based future plans would we get? Aarti muttered to herself darkly, but the excellent pooris in the Hotel Paarvathy cheered us up.

The next day, when we showed up, work was in progress. All the 3 teams were fully engaged, writing away on their themes. They were large teams (upto 10 people), and they were a mix of people from all the different projects.  The informal feedback we got was that the first day was very good – people were very happy with the level of detail and planning.  One of the trustees told me that this was the very first time he had ever thought about the actual number of beneficiaries, dropout rates, and targets!

The first team began presenting on the theme of advocacy. Within 2 minutes, they had launched into all sorts of methods – cycle rallies (!!), white papers, house visits, etc. This is when I jumped in, and firmly reiterated the point that there had to be some targets for all this advocacy work. WHAT WERE THEY TRYING TO ACHIEVE? IN ONE YEAR? IN THREE YEARS? All of this stuff about rallies were mere methods/tactics.  The OUTCOMES had to be defined first!!

I drew a simple chart on the board:
ADVOCACY -> Various Areas of Advocacy (for e.g., school dropouts) -> Various methods and tactics (for e.g., house visits) -> OUTCOMES (for e.g., cutting dropout rates in half within one year). Then Aarti stood up and led a highly participatory session that listed all the areas in which they did or wanted to do advocacy work. These ranged from school dropouts, to early marriage prevention, to children with HIV, to runaway children.  As a group, we then categorized these areas. Some were genuinely areas of advocacy; some could be addressed through on the ground projects; and some were out of scope (for e.g. HIV), and all that could be done was to refer to another NGO.

At this point, we created a 2x2 matrix (the dream of every management consultant :-)), where we mapped out all the areas the organization wanted to work in, what kind of work they would do in each area (advocacy, project, or referral), and how these mapped to their 3 ongoing on the ground projects. Just to make sure everyone understood, we made people come up to the chart and explain back to the group. Aarti and I then walked them through a working example of how they would need to do a one year plan and a three year draft for each work area. Taking the example of school dropouts, we worked with them to set targets on how much they could cut the dropout rate in each of their field projects, and what that would mean for their tactics (such as house visits, teacher counseling, etc).  This proved to be a wonderful exercise, dragging down into the real world what they needed to do, down to calculating the number of house visits per week. At the end of this exercise, when everyone was feeling very happy that they knew what they needed to do for their specific little project plan, we then reintroduced the dreaded word sustainability.  By now though, we had much more buy in, and we managed to bring out a lot of creative ideas on how a given project could start becoming sustainable.

We were approaching the end of the day….everyone knew what they needed to do next, which was to map out their project plan and their sustainability plan.  Everyone was tired, but most looked happy. We asked for feedback, and by and large it was positive. Two negatives – one that I needed to speak more in Tamil (note to myself), and two that the introduction up front of the 80 lakhs had confused the entire group. We agreed on next steps – the project leads would come to Chennai with their draft plans and Aarti and I would tie them together – and then Horatio gave a little thank you speech. This had me in splits, since it specifically referred to the fact that I had a super posh office (true), that I apparently was a super important person (not true), and that Aarti had to accompany me because I was afraid to come alone to Dindigul (partly true).  He thanked both of us enthusiastically and then that was it.

Overall it was a great experience. I learned a huge amount about how to apply basic planning concepts in an unstructured environment, and work with a large and diverse group.  I thoroughly enjoyed talking about the real world and real targets (i.e. children) and was highly impressed by the dedication of the staff.  I hope they too benefited.  I would absolutely love to do this type of workshop again.

- Natasha Oza

Natasha has 19 years of strategy, marketing and project management experience, primarily in technology companies. She currently works for Accenture Management Consulting in Chennai, India.

This week we have a story from one our listed NGOs - Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital

The NGO has 3 surgical centers in UP and Rajasthan, where only cataract surgeries are undertaken. Through these centers they are able to cater to the old and poor patients of rural backgrounds, who would have otherwise lived a life of abject darkness.

The touching story below was sent by the Eye Consultant of Rampur, in Saharanpur district of UP

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Our Rampur surgical centre got an opportunity to operate on its oldest patient. A lady, by the name of Bundiya who turned 110 and hails from the Saharanpur region of UP. 


The patient was brought on the back of one of the attendants and according to attendant the patient was not able to see and slowly she was losing interest in her life and waiting for death. Looking at her age and lack of anaesthetic backup during surgery we were bit reluctant to operate but later we decided to operate for cataract on her right eye.


After surgery patient regained a vision of 6/18 unaided (6/6 is complete vision) next day which remained as is on her first follow up after four days. According to the patient's attendant, she has now started eating well, taking interest in daily activities and planning for the future, even encouraging other elders to go to hospital and get operated. When I asked her how she is feeling after surgery, she replied "Mohe phir se duniya dikha deen" (you made me see this world again)". Now we are planning to operate on her other eye very soon..


Now we realize that a simple cataract surgery can make a BIG IMPACT in the life of people as well as in the community as whole. Feeling proud to be part of the Shroff family.
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For Rs. 1,200, you too can help a poor person regain sight through a cataract surgery

On November 10th, when the winners of India Giving Challenge 2011 (a Joy of Giving Week event) were announced, a new record in online fundraising was set in India. Over Rs.3 crores was raised from ~9,000  donors in the third edition of what has from its very beginning been India's largest online fundraising event and largest in terms of number of donors it engaged in the online medium. Larger than even the Mumbai Marathon! An interesting comparison can be drawn to the India Against Corruption movement of Anna Hazare that raised Rs. 2.94 crores. While this was one over 6 months, the above event accomplished this task in 45 days.


The Challenge, an online fundraising event, motivates NGOs, corporates and individuals to raise funds for their chosen cause and get rewarded for their efforts in turn; through a matching grant given in various categories during the course of the event. 


A total of Rs. 96 lacs (compared to Rs. 65 lacs in 2010 and Rs. 56 lacs in 2011) was won as matching grants by 72 participating NGOs.  For the first time this year a donor (who wishes to remain anonymous) contributed Rs. 21 lacs to the overall matching pool.


The NGO Challenge was won by Teach For India who raised Rs. 43 lacs, overtaking the reigning champion of 2 years Parivaar Education Society (Rs. 39 lacs) who came in second after a tough fight. It was a battle akin to David and Goliath that was fought between the two as Teach For India’s 1,868 donors contributing an average of Rs. 2,348 per person slowly but steadily took over Parivaar Education Society’s 113 donors who contributed an average of Rs. 34,641 per person. Teach For India got 150+ of its fellows involved in their fundraising and each fellow was raising money for his/her own class in a municipal school. Relatives and friends of these fellows, who have taken a 2 year sabbatical from work, gave generously to their wards who have made a remarkable and not so common break from career paths that are followed by others. 
Down the leaderboard too some of the NGOs were really close together with third positions taken by  Apna Janakalyan (Rs. 12 lacs) and Vidya & Child (Rs. 11 lacs) coming fourth.


Mridvika Mathur, Manager, Development of Teach For India says, "India Giving Challenge 2011 was an opportunity where Teach For India encouraged its Fellows to raise funds for their own classrooms and community projects. It was a chance for them to demonstrate their leadership skills and take complete ownership to gather resources for a cause that was so dear to their hearts. It was due to their conviction and sheer passion that Teach For India could ace this challenge.” 


And it was sheer passion and conviction indeed that helped Fellows such as Aritra De to raise funds from family and friends. Aritra surprised himself by raising Rs. 1,48,000 -  over a lakh more than what he had aimed for. Says De, “I did not expect to reach my target but managed to cross it. I realised early on in my fundraising that connecting donors with the cause was important. So I connected with people over phone/email about my work with Teach For India but did not ask for donations. Only when they were keen to know more about what I do, did I make a donation appeal. People were more than happy to donate then and even volunteered to spread the word amongst their own networks.” De, who raised money to build a library at and improve the infrastructure of the school at which he teaches, sent pictures of his classroom and school to further engage people to his cause. 


It was the same for the team of the NGO Sahaara Mumbai too where all employees reached out to their friends and family.  Infact the annual event has become a much awaited one at Sahaara Mumbai for both the team as well as donors because of the excitement that it generates. 


This is the official press release of the India Giving Challenge 2011. It can also be found here.

Can you imagine a school where primary class children pour water on sand to build homes and ladoos instead of learning by rote from textbooks?

Effective Oct 1st, 2011, we have reduced retention on iGive pages from 9.1% to 6.5% (a reduction of 28%). This means that even more of the money donated by your network of donors will now reach you.

Earlier for every Rs. 1000 donated to your favourite NGO, Rs. 909 would reach the NGO and Rs. 91 was retained by GiveIndia. Now for every Rs. 1000 donated, Rs. 935 will reach the NGO and Rs. 65 will be retained by GiveIndia to manage its expenses including transaction charges, providing e-Receipts to the donors, disbursing the amount to the NGO as well as providing the technology platform through which you can do your fundraising :-)

We know some of you have used iGive pages before and we hope that this reduction will help many more of you to try it out. We also hope as a result of this, your friends, family, colleagues & networks will give even more to your favourite NGOs.

Some links to get your started:
What is an iGive fundraising page?
Create an iGive page in 3 simple steps
Ideas to raise more funds