"We have been experimenting with this model for three years. Now it has got to become something which we truly commit ourselves to. It is time for us to scale up. We want to come to Chennai," said Ravi Venkatesan, former Chairman of Microsoft India and the founder Chairman of SVP in a programme organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai chapter.
According to reports, the network has set a goal to help create one million jobs and 1,000 philanthropists by 2020. In order to help creation of one million job, the network is required to work nationally with some of the organisations which works on addressing the social problems. SVP has two models, in which some of its partners work to bring in scale, while some are focused on a particular hands on works.
In its expansion to new areas, the network is looking at five to seven people as core leadership in the city to start with, especially a chapter chair and an executive director or general manager who takes care of the activities. This leadership team could gather 25 people who are like minded.
"The financial commitment minimum is Rs 2 lakh a year over three years, which will be Rs 6 lakh. Some people contribute more. With 25 people and Rs 2 lakh you get a critical mass to start. Then the chapter has to form a grant committee of five to seven people and float a Request For Proposal for the whole bunch of organisations in Chennai," he said. Once the funds are allotted, based on partner interest, the chapter should work with particular organisations and create engaged citizens through education, he said.
"Distinction between NGOs, not for profit, philanthropic and social enterprises has disappeared, that boundary is looking blurred," he added.
There are three promising areas for creative solution for job issues. Most of the entrepreneurial activities are taking place in big cities and log of work has to be done to ignite entrepreneurship across the country. SVP has been into identifying good entrepreneurs in these areas and help them scale up.
Supporting artisans, a job which is getting extinct over the period and finding new methods to support agriculture are the other areas the network is looking at. The social sector organisations need to look at outsourcing some of its activities such as handling the accounts, rather than keeping them inefficiently inhouse, he said.
The organisation is also engaged in civic action, the solve the issue with garbage in Bengaluru. It has finalised three projects to address the issue. "One is to create a large scale recycling centre, second one is to take industrial producers to take accountability for their waste and the third one is to get buildings to segregate wet garbage and dry garbage," he said.
