Ankuram offers a range of services to different stakeholders based on their needs. Our services, solutions are customised to meet the strategy and requirement of the partners.
Starting from strategy to working with our partners to solve operational issues, we provide support on a range of issues. For us, technology is a medium that can bring in the benefits of social change soon to everyone.
We do not differentiate or work in one specific domain as we believe that we can add value with our expertise across any domain – be it education, livelihoods, health, financial inclusion – to accelerate social change / outcomes for the final beneficiaries or participants.
We bring in expertise in programme management, governance and leadership development to the table. Our teams have years of experience in handholding and supporting various types of organisations in the fields of financial inclusion, community development, and institutional development. We work with organisations that are interesting and are committed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
We work with different type of social enterprises – whether they are for-profit entities driven with a passion to bring in a social change, or not-for-profit entities that are driven by social mission. There is no one-size-fits-all solutions or approach for all the social enterprises: they work in different domains, their organisational sizes are different, they work in different geographies and in different contexts. We understand these differences as we customize our services to meet the needs of the organisations we work with.
Fund raising is one of the key challenges faced by non-profit organisations. Given the increased focus on impact investing and potential availability of corporate social responsibility funds, the non-profits have options they can explore. Ankuram helps such non-profits and/or social enterprises raise funds by offering guidance on developing funding strategy, resources and platform.
With rapidly changing technologies or work environment, there is a need for the social enterprises to keep up with the changes and build their capacities to deliver on projects more effectively. We provide training and capacity building for the staff and leadership of social enterprises to develop their capacities.
Mission being the purpose for which social enterprises exists, our objective is to collaborate with the social enterprises to facilitate development of their vision, mission, strategies that align with each other and help these organisations develop and implement action plans to bridge any gaps. We help organisations in strategic planning and building organizational performance metrics.
We work with those corporates who care to to make a difference in this world through implementing social responsibility and sustainability projects. We work with corporates from various sectors and help them design, implement, monitor and evaluate the corporate social responsibility projects.
The provisions related to the CSR under the Indian Companies Act, 2013 requires the qualifying companies to constitute a CSR committee of the Board of Directors. This committee is required to formulate and recommend a policy on the activities to be undertaken, expenditure to be incurred and monitor the CSR policy. Ankuram can help organisations in developing the policy and engaging with the Board.
With corporate social responsibility gaining momentum in India due to the provisions of the Indian Companies Act, 2013, there are many corporates looking for advisory support that can help them design and implement CSR projects on a larger scale with greater impact.
Engaging employees in the designing and implementation of CSR is critical to get the buy-in from all stakeholders. Ankuram can help companies develop strategies on employee engagement including identifying the key messages, components of the project that employees can be engaged in and developing metrics.
We work with funders and impact investors who invest resources in social enterprises or non-profits. We collaborate with the donors, funding agencies and impact investors to help them identify the right partner by conducting due diligence; assess the institutional capacity or social performance by conducting audits; and build capacities of the investees or partner organisations based on the gaps identified.
Achieving social impact can be an arduous challenge for an organisation. Everything - from determining the social issue to work on, to establishing its outcomes - requires a strategic impetus. We offer support to those who seek advisory on strategic planning for result-oriented accountability of social initiatives.
Selecting the right partner to work with involves researching and assessing several aspects – be it governance, finance controls, human resource capability, management capabilities and the like. We work with investors and funders to conduct due diligence on potential organisations and help them decide with the association.
We conduct social performance assessments, social audits to assess whether the social enterprises are implementing activities in line with their mission and if they have systems in place to achieve and track the outcomes.
Some challenges are faced by all types of stakeholders in the social sector. For instance, how to monitor the work being done, whether the projects are yielding results as expected, whether we are being efficient and effective in implementing projects, are we communicating adequately with all relevant stakeholders among others. We provide support on some of those common challenges and work with various stakeholders according to their requirement.
Collaborations are very essential for non-profits, social enterprises, social investors or corporates implementing sustainability projects. We can help them identify the right partner and offer continuous support to the partners to achieve the common goals.
Project management is one of the complex issues in the social sector where multiple projects are implemented at the same time with limited resources. And projects are the way in which the desired outcomes are expected to achieve. Given the importance of the right project design and effective project management, we work with our partners to plan, design, articulate the projects in alignment with the mission. We help organisations implement end-to-end project management systems.
One of the questions frequently asked in the social sector is whether the projects’ performance is being tracked and if the intended results are being achieved. Ankuram designs and puts in place monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the right indicators are being measured to achieve the progress against plans. We also help organisations set up evaluation systems or even conduct mid-term or end-term evaluations.
It is important for social enterprises, investors or corporates to track and use the information collected from the project implementation so as to take appropriate decisions to improve outcomes. So, Ankuram offers support to help set up the entire reporting structure and communication plan – both internal and external.
Knowing is believing. No knowledge can be said to be complete without reliable data informing it. Ankuram will work toward building a body of knowledge closely aligned to 3 mandate, significantly reinforced by pertinent conceptual understanding and duly informed by data drawn from existing sources as well as emerging from its own work. This institutional knowledge will drive not only its technical support and advisory services projects, but also its general and particular advocacy across sectors for making social projects more focused and more out-come oriented.
