Of the many causes he espouses, the betterment of the girl child is foremost for Anand Mahindra. And with Nanhi Kali, he is helping you help them too
From the beginning, Hajiya Begum’s future looked bleak. Her mother could not forgive her for being a girl and deserted her. Her father died when she was young. It was left to her grandmother, who worked as a maid in a Hyderabad suburb, to raise her. Hajiya’s education remained in doubt, given that her grandmother made a meagre Rs 2,000 per month. And then, in 2006, everything changed. Hajiya, then in Class 4, became a Nanhi Kali. She continued her education and went on to score 93 percent in her Class 10 exams; her photograph appeared in local newspapers. In the 2014 Board of Intermediate Exams (equivalent of Class 12), she scored 944 out of 1000 marks. Her dreams too have grown: She now wants to work in a company like Microsoft.
Over a thousand miles away in Sonthwa village in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, girls don’t study beyond Class 5. They are typically married off at 13. Parina Meena, born to parents who could barely rustle up Rs 2 lakh a year working on agricultural farms, faced a similar eventuality. Parina loved studying but dreaded the day she would be married off. But her fears dissipated when she became a Nanhi Kali, on reaching Class 4, in 2006. She went on to get 92 percent in her Class 10 exams. She now wants to become an engineer.
“M&M’s focus areas when it comes to CSR are education, especially for the girl child and for the economically/socially disadvantaged sections of society; environment, with special emphasis on green cover and water conservation; and public health, including sanitation,” says Rajeev Dubey, president (group HR, After-Market & Corporate Services). “Anand Mahindra is the prime moving force when it comes to the strategy of all our CSR activities.”
Mahindra’s other experiment with social enterprise has been in the area of skill building.
Coffee grown in Araku Valley, located in the Eastern Ghats of the Vishakapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, has a special flavour (hence, value). However, the area had a high Naxalite influence and local tribals lacked the skills to process the coffee, brand it and market it. When Mahindra learnt about it, he helped form a coffee co-operative (Mahindra is the single largest funder and has roped in people like Satish Reddy, chairman, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories). Processing facilities were set up, quality control measures were introduced and the Araku Coffee brand was created and promoted.
The results are beginning to show. Today, 100 tonnes of coffee are sold to international buyers and about 25,000 acres are under coffee plantation. The co-operative has become the largest organic coffee farming effort in the world. “The initiative has improved the lives of 1 lakh tribals in the area and about 10 percent among them are lakhpatis. It has empowered women farmers and, most importantly, eliminated the Naxalite influence significantly,” says Kumar.
These days Mahindra is bullish on the concept of shared value. “It is a more sustainable form of philanthropy where businesses create a shared value rather than issuing a cheque,” he says. “Writing a cheque will vanish if profits vanish.”
Shared value is the foundation of the group’s Mahindra Rise campaign—driving positive change by doing well and doing good.
Some examples: M&M’s Samriddhi Centres provide fee-based service to farmers on technology, soil testing, irrigation and modernisation of agricultural practices. The group’s housing finance business is offering products that provide small ticket loans for each stage of housing construction. Its insurance arm has designed products targeted at the emerging sections of society, inspired by the concept of shampoos in sachets.
“Anand’s philanthropy is exemplary in inspiring other corporates and business leaders to give by way of personal engagement that assures the outcomes are met with credibility and impact. I have seen this at close quarters through the work at Naandi Foundation and the social enterprises I co-support with Anand such as the Araku Coffee Project,” says Satish Reddy.
His personal engagement in terms of time spent is significant. “He attends 20 board meetings for CSR-related activities every quarter. Each meeting lasts at least half a day. He also holds brainstorming sessions when required. A simple calculation shows that he spends over 30 full days on philanthropy-related work,” says Kumar.
As a business leader, he has the responsibility to set an example. “But we are on the right track,” Mahindra says. “When we were a poor country, a person’s social hierarchy was derived from his personal wealth and conspicuous consumption. Post-liberalisation and the growth it offered, it was how well your company was doing. Now we are heading to a far more virtuous way, which is how much of your wealth are you giving back to society.”
And this is true not just among the rich. People across the board are giving and, also, moving to the next level. That is “strategic giving”, or giving for a focussed cause after fully understanding it, he says. And this can only be good news to the many Hajiyas and Parinas of India.
Correction: This article has been updated. The print version had stated the number of Nanhi Kali's as 91,000. This has been updated to one lakh on the web to reflect the latest data.
(This story appears in the 09 January, 2015 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)