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Shifting Systems - Organisational Innovation for Transformational Change
The
desire to create social and environmental impact at scale is central to
the mission of many social purpose organisations. Like any other
institution, they need resources to fulfill their goals and create
impact in their chosen fields of work. Over time, grant funding has
become increasingly difficult to obtain, particularly from multi-lateral
sources, governments, foundations, private corporations and even
individual donors, all of whom have begun to expect more “bang for their
buck”.
Most development initiatives have a linear approach to scale, in which every addition to output and outcome targets needs a corresponding increase in funding – something that is frowned upon by funding agencies, who are quick to point out that NGO programmes are “not innovative enough” when it comes to devising strategies for impact at scale. Ironically, most of these donors also refuse to part with funding for innovation or the incubation of new ideas, considering them to be “too much of a risk”. Where do traditional ‘Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) or other not-for profit entities’ stand in such a scenario? How do they continue to pursue their mission and thrive without the support of generous philanthropic funding? Several organisations have found an answer in “social entrepreneurship”. They have moved into spaces where societal or environmental challenges in fields such as health, education, waste management etc. are inadequately addressed by both the government and the private sector. Successful social entrepreneurs have combined development goals with business like methods to leverage resources and create impact. Having said so, it is also true that they have found it difficult to attain even a small fraction of the scale of a mainstream public sector initiative or corporate business model. There is evidence to show that social entrepreneurship can in itself be a trap for NGOs. At their core, they do not have the “DNA” required to run businesses and find it difficult to leverage resources and institutional systems that would take their business model beyond the scale of what, in the larger world, would be called a “pilot”. Impact is limited and the original objective of creating systemic change is rarely fulfilled. Are there lessons here for us to learn? Some organisations have been able to “step-back” and “step out” of a conventional understanding of what it means to ‘go to scale’. They have moved from linear, direct action based projects to more systemic, non-linear approaches to creating impact and in the process, have carved out catalytic roles for themselves as “systems entrepreneurs”.
Partners of the la Caixa Banking Foundation
supported “Work 4 Progress” initiative in India, Mozambique and Peru.
They have adopted a social innovation approach for inducing
transformational change. It is based on the principles of collaboration,
learning and community led action to accelerate the rate at which
micro-enterprises are set up and jobs are created in underdeveloped
village communities. The initiative operates as an open innovation
platform to create a diverse portfolio of “entrepreneurship enablers”
from a small amount of catalytic resources.
Work 4 Progress teams have found new enterprise models that can be co-created by re-framing questions related to the purpose, nature and ownership of a local business, as well as looking at how it might provide multiple benefits to the community in which it operates. The Iberdrola International Energy Cooperation Award winning ‘e-rickshaw model’, for which Pragya Devi has also received State Government recognition, was co-designed with the women entrepreneurs who now run the transport service, in an area where there are no women entrepreneurs and no such existing mode of transport. In addition to generating profit for the entrepreneurs and creating local jobs, it ensures safe transportation to young school girls and offers an alternative supply chain logistics option for farmers. Catalytic investments made by the project in “systemic prototypes” provide amplified and exponentially growing returns in terms of impact. For example, co-creation efforts of the order of INR 1 million over 15 months (in terms of facilitation only and no subsidies) have resulted in incremental investments of over INR 1.2 million by 16 entrepreneurs, who have upgraded their Common Service Centres to become hubs for enterprise support services, realising additional income of about INR 3.6 million in the current financial year. The “Information Kiosk” prototype – co-created through dialogue in the Work 4 Progress programme is now poised for replication through other projects with very little funding. Work 4 Progress effects deep, transformational change by breaking silos, building shared narratives and capitalising upon multi-stakeholder ‘equity’, thereby ensuring that entrepreneurial aspirations do not need to conform to the provisions of a pre-determined, top-down solution. The social innovation methodology allows the Development Alternatives team and partners to ask significantly different questions from those posed in a conventional development project, such as, “how tools and processes can be designed to provide a space for communities to empower themselves and respond to their challenges and aspirations?” The Work 4 Progress programme requires team members to go through ‘individual and collective transformation’ in order to disrupt typical organisational structures and inter-organisational processes of collaboration, whether at the level of action on ground or meso-level influence of a district level entrepreneurship ecosystem. Entrepreneurship Coalitions such as the “Vindhyachal Udyamita Manch” in five districts are examples of how silos between government offices, training institutes, livelihood promotion schemes, rural banks, micro finance institutions, NGOs and entrepreneurs can be broken to create a multi-stakeholder learning and action platform for co-creating solutions and facilitating convergent action for entrepreneurship led job creation. Since the nation-wide lockdown was announced in March 2020, all three coalition platforms have been meeting every month with focus on responding to immediate needs of the entrepreneurs and rural communities. In this manner, Development Alternatives Group has positioned itself in the role of a “systems entrepreneur”, as distinct from being an innovator or implementing organisation. With partner organisations committed to creating systemic shifts – addressing underlying causes of joblessness, rather than reacting to its symptoms – we have been able to chart new pathways for viral replication of entrepreneurship and job creation solutions in underdeveloped economies. Development Alternatives is experiencing how, as an NGO, it can optimise resource intensity of projects and make effective use of grant funding to unleash deep-rooted processes of transformation and create impact at scale. ■
Shrashtant Patara
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