Helping CSR Succeed in India
By Priya Naik, Founder & CEO Samhita Social Ventures
As originally featured on CECP’s Insights Blog
A leading media company is using its storytelling expertise to change sanitation and hygiene behaviours of beneficiaries in Mumbai slums; a transport finance company is training men and women to become truck drivers, providing them with livelihoods opportunities; an Indian conglomerate is implementing systemic socio-economic empowerment programs in villages around its factories. These are just some examples of how companies are implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India today.
10 years ago, few companies apart from large conglomerates participated in CSR consistently, let alone from a strategic perspective. CSR activity remained largely ad-hoc, leadership remained un-invested, or dictated spending based on their preferences.
In 2014, this changed with the Indian Government passing the Companies Act, 2013, that mandates CSR spending by companies (2% of profit of companies that meet certain criteria).
Driven largely by compliance, CSR spending touched $1.4 billion in Financial Year 2015, and later in Financial Year 2016, 19,000 companies collectively spent $2 billion on CSR in India.
Now, the CSR sector in the country is undergoing another transformation.
Read the complete blog CECP's website
