Are you M A D ?

Give a hungry man a fish to eat & you feed him for a day, But teach a man how to fish & you feed him throughout his life.

Each one of us is a philanthropist at heart & we all have contributed in big and small ways to help our fellow citizens. I would like to ask you this question – Have you fed them for a day or have you fed them for life? 

Are you Making A Difference?

Let’s go back to December 2014 & transport ourselves 532 kms from Pune to a small town called Digras in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. Here we meet Sunita Jadhav who lives with her husband Balu and 2 school going children. Balu is a daily labourer & works very hard 12 hours a day & 7 days a week to make ends meet for his family, but life is a constant struggle. Sunita is smart & ambitious and she also has tailoring skills learnt at her parent’s house. But she cannot utilize her skills in this small town without setting up her own business. She cannot take a loan from the local banks or credit societies as she is not creditworthy enough for them. The local moneylender would happily provide her with the required loan against collateral of her jewelry and at a very reasonable interest rate of only 10% - per month. So what can she do now?

Cut back to present date & we find that Sunita has been running a small tailoring business for the last 14 months. She has been contributing Rs. 3000/- every month to the household which now is nearly 40% of the monthly inflow. Instead of using firewood, she now uses a LPG cylinder for cooking & plans to construct a toilet outside the house. She now has a bank account & also saves around 400 rupees every month, which she plans to increase every year. She is now more confident due to her new-found success and also meets other women in her town to encourage them to use their skills to set up a business too. Do you agree with me that this is excellent example of Making A Difference?

You might now be wondering about what caused this transformation? Sunita had connected with a local NGO & was provided a collateral free loan thru a non-profit platform called Rang De. She bought a sewing machine & required raw materials for her tailoring business and started making children & women clothing which she sold at a decent profit to people in the locality. She repaid the loan in 12 easy installments at an interest rate of 10% per annum & now plans to buy another pico machine which will further enhance her business.

Rang De is a crowd-funding platform which helps philanthropists like us to connect with beneficiaries like Sunita. We can channelize a small portion of our overall investment portfolio into Rang De as social investments & this amount is then used to provide loans to rural poor to set up small businesses. The amount repaid back by the beneficiary can then be reinvested or withdrawn back by the investor. In this way we can utilize some of our investment portfolio to improve the lives of multiple people thereby Making A Difference.

Rang De has complete transparency in their transactions, follow 6 Sigma processes and is supported by grants from organisations like ICICI Foundation, World Bank & Tata Trusts. They have been in operation for the past 8 years, disbursed loans worth Rupees 46 crores & have directly impacted 50,000+ families. Again would you agree with me that this is an affirmation of the principle of Making A Difference.

I have personally been an investor in Rang De for the past 3 years & have invested over 1.74 lacs till date thereby directly impacting 286 families. It gives me tremendous sense of satisfaction and therefore I would like to make a sincere appeal to each one of you to consider Social Investing thru Rang De thereby help in Making A Difference.

The "Art of Giving"

Almost everyone has contributed something to “Make A Difference” within the community and world that all of us are a part of. This contribution can be in the form of money, time, expertise or support. The contribution could be substantial, given willingly or a small amount or grudgingly given out due to indirect coercion. People contribute money directly to charity, NGO’s and to religious trusts who are involved in social work. Many people also put in selfless service in terms of personal time at old age homes, orphanages, volunteer NGO work or in some other personal way for eg. teaching someone free within the community etc. If one extends this slightly further, even the efforts taken to provide inputs to others without any financial gain can also be included in this definition. Today’s article focuses on the “Art of Giving” and how we could make this effort more effective.

To begin with, we need to answer the question “Why should we give?”. To most folks the answer is obvious & they give as a way to contribute back altruistically to society in their own way. They feel that they have been fortunate & prefer to share with others who are less fortunate. Others might give as a way to accumulate good deeds & maybe negate bad deeds. Some others also do it to ensure that they get due recognition for their contribution. Lastly others also do it due to social coercion. Whatever the motivation for giving, it still serves to add value to others directly or indirectly. The best way to give is obviously where one does not seek credit for one’s contribution or expect to be rewarded or recognized for the same. This act then is truly altruistic in nature & defines the concept of the “Art of Giving”.

As a personal perspective I would like to add another key concept here. In my opinion it is better to have a consistent & recurring contribution rather than something which is one time or random. After all even if the latter does help in their own way, it also has some other downsides. As a recipient, one will benefit more if this contribution is received consistently when required or in the required quantity when needed. Taking the analogy of watering a plant, one can understand this better. A plant will always be better off when a small amount of water is available every day over a period of time, versus a large amount of water poured just once. Even if we assume that different people are pouring water every day, the inconsistency might itself contribute to the drying up of the plant, which no amount of water poured subsequently helps. I would therefore recommend that aim for sustained contribution in whatever you plan to contribute which forms another key attribute of the “Art of Giving”.

Lastly another related concept to this central theme is a sense of gratitude for what we ourselves receive from others. Knowingly & unknowingly we ourselves benefit from a lot of things which come our way due to the efforts put in by others. Many of these things might involve a financial transaction or we might reciprocate back in other ways. But there will always be some things that we benefit from the altruistic efforts put in by others. We might or might not be seeking these altruistic actions for our benefit, but nevertheless gain from them. A sense of gratitude for what we have received equips us better to make our own altruistic contributions, whether these are big or small, material or effort related.

How do you plan to implement these concepts of the “Art of Giving” in your own contributions?