BackSocial Venture Partners unveils million jobs mission
Non-profit body Social Venture Partners will work with social organizations and expand its presence in India to help create around one million jobs
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Mumbai: Global non-profit body Social Venture Partners (SVP) on Wednesday launched the Million Jobs Mission in India, an initiative to help create around one million jobs by partnering with social organizations and expanding its presence in the country.
The US-based organization founded in 1998 has a large network of philanthropists with over 3,500 investors or partners in eight countries. So far, it has raised over $54 million globally and supported around 700 social organizations.
In India, SVP is present in four cities—Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi—and plans to expand to Hyderabad and Indore soon. It has a network of around 175 partners or donors who are mostly business leaders and philanthropists. As part of the plan to achieve the goal of creating one million jobs in the country, the organization is looking at taking the number of partners to 1,000 in five years.
“We have picked a single focus area, which is livelihood, or more simply speaking, jobs. We see job challenges being the most significant challenges faced by every country, specially India. Most people say India has to create 12 million jobs a year which is one million jobs a month in order to absorb the demographic dividend and that’s a big deal. So, it is a huge crisis in the making," said Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, SVP India and chairman of Bank of Baroda.
Venkatesan was also the former chairman of Microsoft India and Cummins India.
Through the Million Jobs Mission, SVP plans to select 10-15 social organizations with the potential to create around 100,000 jobs in the next five years. It plans to identify these organizations in the next three months. SVP will help them in providing funds and mentoring or strategizing their growth plans.
In India, the organization supports four social organizations—Industree Foundation, Vrutti, The/Nudge Foundation and Milestone Project of NES—in creating large-scale jobs by providing them with funds and expertise.
Some of the sectors it has identified include healthcare, agriculture, handicrafts, hospitality and services.
“The idea of the Million Jobs Mission is reach out to all kinds of organizations across all corners in the country and try to figure what is that we can add value to them. The other point is that there is a lot of work happening in silos and collaboration is not happening in the way it should happen," said Madan Padaki, co-founder and trustee, Head Held High Foundation and co-convener of Million Jobs Mission said.
He said the initiative would involve partnering with funding agencies and social organisations that would enable scaling up of job opportunities. It has also plans to tap the CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds of various reputed organisations in India as part of the initiative. At present, SVP India works with three organisations like McKinsey Social Initiative’s Generation Program, Mumbai-based S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and Samhita Social Ventures. It plans to partner with around 50 such organisations in the next five years as part of its Million Jobs Mission.
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