DeAsra Foundation will work closely with SVP India and its consortium partners to grow micro entrepreneurs in Pune and nearby areas
Social Venture Partners (SVP) India, a non-profit membership organization of socially responsible business leaders committed to creating a more just and sustainable world, has partnered with deAsra Foundation for its Million Jobs Mission. As one of the 15 Design Partners, Pune-based deAsra Foundation will work with SVP India to create an ecosystem to train and empower one million people for sustainable livelihoods in the country by 2020.
Social Venture Partners India’s Million Jobs Mission aims to identify and support social organizations that share its passion for creating jobs and improving incomes. As part of the mission, SVP and its consortium partners have selected 15 social organizations – one of them being deAsra Foundation – with an aim to create a cumulative of 1,000,000+ sustainable livelihoods each in the next five years, across diverse sectors. SVP and its consortium partners will provide a range of support to each of these organisations over the next 5 years to make these plans a reality.
On being selected as one of the Design Partners for SVP’s Million Jobs Mission, Ms Pradnya Godbole, CEO of deAsra Foundation, said “We at deAsra Foundation feel privileged to be selected for the SVP’s Million Jobs Mission. SVP is a global network of local partners aligned in passion and purpose. The SVP Million Jobs Mission to identify and support social organizations for creating jobs and improving incomes aligns perfectly with the vision of deAsra Foundation’s founder Mr Anand Deshpande, who believes in supporting entrepreneurship by providing a scalable business model while minimizing the risk. The SVP India association will not only help us achieve our goal, but will also help us create better quality entrepreneurs through their valuable inputs. We are excited at the opportunity to work with SVP and benefit from their global experience. We are glad to partner with SVP. Together we can try to address the issue unemployment in India.â€
Under its ambitious Million Jobs Mission, SVP aims to create a robust ecosystem to support non-profit organizations that are working on the objective of creating jobs. SVP has shortlisted 15 such social organizations (called Design Partners) spread across India, that have a model to create a cumulative of 100,000+ sustainable livelihoods each, in the next 5 years. By bringing together a group of experts (called Consortium Partners) from Foundations, Corporates, Impact investors, Global Multilateral agencies, Consulting Organizations, Government and Academia, SVP intends to create a platform that will catalyse the journeys of each of its Design Partners to make their plans a reality over the next 5 years. By creating active partnerships between the Design and Consortium Partners, SVP aims to make a significant difference to the livelihoods landscape in our country.
SVP makes powerful investments in non-profit organizations like deAsra Foundation by combining their human and financial capital to help them scale up their efforts to address the most entrenched social problems. It runs an annual selection process to identify non-profit organizations with innovative ideas, proven results, and potential for growth. The shortlisted Design Partners represent major livelihood-generating organizations that reflect a diversity of sectors, models, motivations and approaches to scale. On successful selection, SVP commits a multi-year, comprehensive investment of grant making, consulting, and direct engagement to support capacity building for selected organizations.
The Planning Commission report titled “Creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India” states that India needs to create 1-1.5 crore jobs per year for the next decade to provide gainful employment to its young population. The report points to the fact that neither the public sector nor the private sector in India has “generated significant employment in the past few decades.” For the country to balance the scales of employment, entrepreneurship may be the only way. deAsra aims to bridge this gap. Experience across many countries suggests that vibrant entrepreneurial activity significantly improves social harmony, living standards, and quality of life. deAsra believes that this can happen in India as well. deAsra plans to generate 100,000 jobs by 2020 by facilitating the creation of 25,000 enterprises grouped into 250 Business types, with 100 Businesses of each type, each employing an average of 4 people per business.
