A unique foundation in itself, Naandi Foundation in Bangalore seems to work with a motto of “Serve and survive.” Led by Manoj Kumar since 2000, Naandi focuses on three major issues of Child Rights, Safe Drinking Water and Sustainable Livelihoods. During the visit at one of their largest kitchens in Asia, serving more than 1.5 lakh students every day on an average, we witnessed the optimized use of technology in meeting the purpose. The success story of the Naandi foundation can be adjudged from the fact that in just about 10 years of its foundation, it has spread its wings across India. The best thing about the interaction with Manoj Kumar was his clear direction and motive to have a session with us. “I agreed to have this session with 350 young entrepreneurs, not because of charity but because I hope atleast 200 of you will join the foundation…,” said Manoj. His determination of not doing anything small is shared by his team in full faith. The beauty of the Naandi foundation is that is works as a corporate and hates to call itself an NGO. Just like any other corporate, it has a focus on sustainability of business, scalability- horizontal and vertical, and earning profits. It pays its volunteers at par with the corporate world and yet, is open to any kind of scrutiny by the government. Meeting the people at Naandi emboldened my view of the difference between a Social and a Business entrepreneur – it is just the motive and the aim that differentiates the two. Whereas a Social Entrepreneur earns money and finds means to distribute it in the society, a Business Entrepreneur earns money and finds ways to multiply it.
(Visit www.naandi.org for more information on the organization.)
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