A social impact analysis of Deshpande foundation

Abstract

Emerging countries are more than ever confronted to social problems stemmed from unmet needs. In order to address these, numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Indian ‘Deshpande Foundation’ are trying to provide innovative solutions by applying the concept of social entrepreneurship. As Seelos and Mair (2004) point out, social entrepreneurship is aimed at “creating models for efficiently catering to basic human needs that existing markets and institutions have failed to satisfy”. However, those NGOs have to deal with an environment that is becoming even more competitive, as the growing number of social entrepreneurs is competing for funding and resources. Therefore, those organizations need to innovate in their business models to achieve self-sustainability, as demonstrated by Devine (2003). Since 2007, the Deshpande Foundation in Hubli (Karnataka, India) has been comprehensively supporting local and innovative social entrepreneurs through their Sandbox ecosystem approach. This foundation offers financial as well as strategic resources and it challenges the local entrepreneurs for further improvement and scaling. The foundation was praised numerous times for the apparent success of its initiatives. In 2011, Gosh and al. studied the Sandbox project and pointed out that the Deshpande Foundation however still seemed to lack a comprehensive way to measure its true impact on society. Our study is therefore aimed at investigating the Deshpande Foundation’s social impact as well as providing an update of the organization’s potential strategic challenges.