BHUMI

Background

There are 3.5 million Self Help Groups (SHGs) in India. 90% of these are women’s groups. This program is aimed at enterprising women from these SHGs. 50 women who have already initiated enterprises in villages are being invited for this unique learning journey. The only qualification criterion is a burning desire to be a social entrepreneur.

Intellectual Premise

The enterprises started by these women become the learning ground of social entrepreneurial leadership. The day to day business operations of these women and the life of members in their community will be leveraged to build their conceptual understanding of entrepreneurship, management and leadership principles. This will foster a self-reinforcing positive cycle of benefits for their environment. To do so, these budding social entrepreneurs will take responsibility for their own development, rather than relying on the NGOs or governments for development.

Program Description

BHUMI will provide participants with ideas, techniques, and tools to assist in their leadership development journeys. The curriculum is designed to help participants take enterprises and innovative models to the next level by refining their ideas and leveraging their impact. The program also incorporates five years of pioneering social entrepreneurial experience that BHUMI is renowned for. The course will cover the entire life cycle – from conception, through start-up to scaling and then exit – with an emphasis on how business considerations, strong social change theories, and financial tools are critical to achieving social and financial goals.

The three year learning journey comprises four distinct stages:

Stage 1 - Building Conceptual Frameworks of Social Entrepreneurial Leadership and Business Management.

This stage gives a theoretical framework for better appreciation of the key features and principles underlying the “business models” of successful social entrepreneurial ventures along with enhanced understanding of the mechanisms of social innovation.

Stage 2 - Wealth and Value Creation for Self and for the Community

This stage provides the skills required to leverage the links with NGOs, banks and funding agencies effectively and explore ideas to promote sustainable value creation.

Stage 3 - Scaling up Solutions

This stage enables the participants to learn new capabilities for building relationships and alliances across nonprofit, public, and private sector boundaries and develop the capacity to thrive in complexity and chaos.

Stage 4 - Enabling Learning Journeys of Fellow Community Members

This stage gives participants an improved ability to lead rapidly growing organizations by fostering and sustaining an entrepreneurial culture and encouraging fellow members to undertake leadership journeys of their own.

The program will culminate for these women when they come back into the program as mentors for the next batch of participants and share their experiences.

Program Mechanics

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty will connect BHUMI with 50 participants from rural Andhra Pradesh in India for the first phase of the program. This program will be conducted in Hyderabad by BHUMI through interactive learning sessions. Each 10 day learning journey will be sponsored completely by a business corporation as part of their CSR initiatives.