In November of 2011, the Community Foundation’s Vice-President, Bibi Patel, received what she describes as a “pinch-me-I-can’t-believe-this-is-true” opportunity to travel, work and volunteer in India for a month. To our good fortune, she performed much of her work on our – and several of our donors’ – behalf.
Triggered by a highly successful panel discussion she led with a group of CFO donors at the Community Foundations of Canada conference in Vancouver last spring, Bibi was invited by the delegate from India to travel to India to help her foundation with its donor engagement strategy. As the Managing Trustee of the Nav Maharastra Community Foundation (Navam, for short), Dr. Nirmala Pandit was amazed at the level of engagement we had with our donors, as evidenced by their willingness to share their personal philanthropic stories. She made a strong case for us to impart the knowledge and experience CFO has gained in this area with her team.
With the assistance of one of the Foundation’s most engaged donors, her wish was to come true – along with the wish of yet another donor we featured in our Annual Report last year. For the volunteer portion of her great Indian Adventure, Bibi leapt at the chance to visit and teach at the school run by Dr. Anant Anantaraman in Tamil Nadu. There, she and her husband Haroon taught a variety of subjects and introduced the children to a unique Canadian tradition – all of which we are pleased to share with you through the following personal account of Bibi’s once-in-a-lifetime month in India. Following are excerpts from the weekly email updates she shared with us at the Foundation.
As promised, here I am with the first update on our trip. It’s currently 7:30 p.m. in Yercaud, 5,000 feet above sea level in the mountains of Tamil Nadu.
It’s been an amazing week hanging out with Dr. Anantaraman and having the experience of being with the truly wonderful students at his school. The school was set up in memory of his wife who, along with their two daughters, perished in the Air India bombing in 1985. This was a chance to actually participate in transformative philanthropy at its most basic yet most pivotal level. We taught English, Social Studies, Math and Poetry at all levels of the school. The students, some of whom come from harrowing home environments and would not otherwise be able to afford it, enjoy free tuition, uniforms, books and lunch daily.
The experiences here are all real…power comes and goes, etc. But we are seeing and experiencing people at their very best. I really can’t describe adequately what the children are like. I have a pile of gifts and cards from them and so does Haroon. I lead daily cricket matches during morning recess so I am very popular with the boys. We went for a walk in the forest as part of the module on The Forests of India and they couldn’t wait to show me all the unusual vegetation literally at their doorstep.
Having carted all the components from Ottawa to the top of that mountain, we made s’mores for the children and staff. I was determined to pull off a touch of Canada for them! Speaking of which, everywhere I looked, I saw traces of Ottawa…in the science lab where university-grade microscopes have been donated by the University of Ottawa. Dr. Anantaraman used to teach there and the university maintains strong ties with him. Books in the library are from a local Ottawa school, and on and on. The Canadian flag flies proudly side-by-side with the Indian flag. Much as we are told we made a difference in the week we were there, I feel strongly that it was the reverse.
Tomorrow is Saturday and we leave in the dead of night to cross over to Kerala (the other southern Indian state) by bus. It is going to take eight hours and the bus leaves at 1:45 a.m. Despite it being the weekend, the children are coming to spend the day with us.
So far, the experience has been more than I imagined and it seems our trip to India so far is a little bit unusual. In my inbox this evening, I found all the invitations that have gone out for the work I have to do in Pune and Mumbai so that too will be here before I know it.
Munnar was our first stop and as we approached I realized that words would fail me as I try to describe what I was seeing…14 peaks (the highest being 8,500 feet above sea level); an undulating vista of tea bushes manicured to perfection; green lakes; waterfalls that made me think of bridal veils fluttering down the mountain sides; blooming jacaranda trees; and on and on.
Kerala is known as God’s Own Land and I would have to agree with that. It has been identified as one of the must-see destinations in the world by National Geographic, as well as one of the ten most charming spots of the millennium. It has the world’s first democratically-elected communist government; has a literacy rate of almost 100%; and a life expectancy of 80. It counts Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and remnants of Judaism among its religions.
We leave Kerala tomorrow for Mumbai and then it’s on to Pune and time to switch my brain back to corporate- and philanthropic-speak and get to work!
To start with, Dr. Nirmala Pandit asked if I would work with her and her colleagues on strategic philanthropy and donor engagement. She had been so very impressed by the three CFO donors on the CFC conference panel and knew that in order to get to that point, we must be doing something right with respect to donor engagement.
Before I knew it, that simple request had grown to include a presentation on corporate philanthropy and next generation donors at a 6,000-employee IT services company in Pune; another one to the members of the Maharastra Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, and yet another to stakeholders of the Centre for the Advancement of Philanthropy (CAP) in Mumbai, which counts high-net-worth donors, charitable organizations, private and corporate foundations among its members.
Navam was established in 2003 with funding from the Ford Foundation. It has no paid staff, so my day-long meeting was held with their volunteers at the foundation. I found myself with a group of seven of the smartest, most expert, vocal, articulate, committed, and passionate women, the likes of whom I’m not very likely to be with again anytime soon.
They approached me after the session to tell me more about what they were doing and get my advice. Frankly, I was blown away. Picture young people who earn lots of money, relatively-speaking, who live at home with no real expenses, who could be spending their time and money on all manner of things, and what do they do on the weekends after working killer hours all week? They head for the slums and work with the kids there – every single weekend for the past four years. And that’s just one example…I really could only congratulate them and offer them one suggestion. Having myself worked on community relations for a global corporation based in Ottawa, I was so impressed by how on par (if not above) KPIT is with respect to its corporate social responsibility focus. This sensibility and dedication is deployed vertically from top to bottom. The co-founders truly do value and commit their resources to improving the quality of life for all the communities in which they do business.
The other two presentations were equally impressive. So much of what we do here in Canada is also happening there. I heard about social enterprise initiatives; donor circles; environmental projects; collaboration at all levels; etc. The one question I would get at every session was about program/project evaluation. They have a rigorous system including quarterly site visits to go over grantees’ finances, and couldn’t quite believe that we require just one report at the end of a project without frequent active “checking up”.
The highlight of all the presentations was definitely the intellectual prowess and passion of those who are shaping the India of tomorrow. I was quite simply awe-struck.
For more information on the Nav Maharastra Community Foundation, visit www.navam.org.
Dr. Anant Anantaraman established an endowed fund with the Ottawa Community Foundation in 2010. It will be a lasting legacy to the family he so tragically lost and to the causes he furthered in their memory.
For more information on the Bhawani Anantaraman Memorial Foundation, visit www.bamf.uottawa.ca. To read the 2010 Annual Report story about his Community Foundation fund, visit here.