DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE

Dear Readers,

Greetings from the Indian School of Development Management!

As we step into the second quarter of the year, we come bearing encouraging updates for our readers. Firstly, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who contributed towards the success of Development Management Day. The sessions conducted during the Development Management day were a great reminder of our vision and Development Management day momentum we need to maintain to achieve it.

With support from our well-wishers, we have made many positive strides that take us a step closer to our goals at ISDM. In that regard, we are excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the "Women on Boards" program under our Strategic Capacity Building vertical. We have also launched some exciting initiatives at the Centre for Philanthropy and Social Justice, including a speaker series with eminent leaders and philanthropists from the sector.

The Post Graduate Program in Development Management (PGP DM), our flagship program, is looking forward to its next cohort of 2022-2023 as we accept applications; and our current cohort moves to the next term in their journey with us.

It makes us very happy to share that although the pandemic compelled us to take an alternative approach to many systems and processes, we are now on our way back to the campus slowly and steadily. The first step to make up for it was a long overdue in-person convocation ceremony for our PGP DM classes of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, which was conducted on March 26-27, 2022. We were all thrilled to meet our alumni after all these months and wish them the best for their future endeavours as Development Managers.

There is a lot more in store for our readers and well-wishers. We look forward to your continued support, encouragement and faith in ISDM.

Warmly,

Ravi Sreedharan,
President
(Founder, ISDM)

Sharad Agarwal,
Director
(Founder, ISDM)

DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT DAY

ISDM organised DM Day on January 28 & 29, 2022. The theme for this edition of the DM Day was TARGET 2030: What Matters. It focused on initiating dialogues on Development Management for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. The two-day program brought together social sector stalwarts highlighting the need to focus on the development sector, by collaborating critical voices and significant stakeholders that drive the Development Management agenda forward in a purposeful way.

attendees

countries represented

eminent speakers
to shed light on talent,
diversity, philanthropy
to achieve SDGs 2030

insightful sessions

Keynote Speakers

Kris Gopalakrishnan
Co-founder Infosys and
Chairman Axilor Ventures

"When I see the youth of India, I see the opportunity to re-think the development model. Every aspect of the 20^th Century growth model has left disparity in income, issues about climate change and many inequities. We need to come up with a development model which is equitable, inclusive, sustainable and affordable. India has a big role to play in this."

You can listen to the keynote address here.

Vrinda Sarup
Former Education Secretary,
Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India

"By the time women move into leadership roles, they bring to the table a variety of feminine attributes in decision-making and negotiation, strengthened by their own experience of patriarchy, and are able to coalesce them into creating a fairer and more sensitised management system. My compliments to ISDM for initiating Women on Boards, as training is vital and needs to be continuous to be able to keep up with changing governance and participative patterns."

You can listen to the keynote address here.

Sunil Kant Munjal
Chairman, Hero Enterprise

"The subject of philanthropy is both critical and important for all of us, as Indians and as citizens of the world. We need to understand the relation between philanthropy, donation, business, impact investments and doing good through sales and marketing budgets/company resources. All of these are complementary and play a role in building our society."

You can listen to the keynote address here.

Announcements

Launch of the ISDM Centre of Philanthropy for Social Justice in partnership with Ford Foundation

Launch of Women on Boards in collaboration with Dasra, ISDM and Governance Counts

Neera Nundy
Founder and Partner, Dasra

"If we can incorporate gender diversity in our boards, we can simultaneously ensure community inclusion. Women on Boards creates a platform and pathway for women by placing them on boards. We need women to share power with men and bring in the feminine attribute and voice to the board."

CENTRE FOR PHILANTHROPY
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The 2022 Philanthropy & Social Justice Conversation Series

ISDM's Centre for Philanthropy and Social Justice (CPSJ), launched on DM Day 2022, has kick-started its 2022 Philanthropy & Social Justice Conversation Series. This video-interview series will feature conversations with thought leaders and action leaders on the need to reshape the role of philanthropy and tap the potential of philanthropy for social justice in India.

The first conversation in the series between Ashish Dhawan, Founder & Chairperson, Central Square Foundation and Co-founder, Ashoka University and Urvi Shriram, Lead, ISDM Centre of Philanthropy for Social Justice discuss the role of philanthropy in reducing inequities by addressing deeply entrenched social issues in our society. Listen to the conversation here.

The ISDM-CPSJ Research Grant Program

We are excited to announce the ISDM-CPSJ Research Grant Program.

Every year, the program will award grants to four to five proposals by individual researchers who have experience in social justice, philanthropy or social sector research. The grant is envisioned for people who are interested in exploring the intersections between philanthropy and social justice in the Indian context.

Our goal is to create a community of inquiry by broadening participation in CPSJ, providing seed grants for initiating new research and supporting scholars in the area of philanthropy for social justice.

The duration of the program is 18 months. The applications for the program are now open.

LEARNING PROGRAMS AT ISDM

Post Graduate Program in Development Management (PGP DM)

The PGP DM cohort of 2021-2022 is currently in Term V. This term marks the shift from development to management courses. Three management courses have been introduced in this term:

Marketing Management: In this course, students are oriented on the principles of marketing management and ways to apply them to the social sector.
Operations Management: This course familiarises the learners with tools to analyse process flows, capacities, etc. to examine operational systems in terms of quality, cost, delivery and flexibility.
Behaviour Change Communication: This course introduces participants to the tenets of Nudge Theory and provides examples of the theory (that have) has been applied by different social purpose organisations.

Faculty

LS Murty
Professor,
Operations Management for
Quality and Impact

Dr. Chiranjeev Kohli
Professor,
Marketing Management

Kanupriya Sekhri
Professor,
Writing in the Discipline

Guest Lectures

ISDM introduced a multi-domain lecture series called ‘CEO Talks' for its students to engage with SPO leaders who shed light on various aspects of the Indian social sector. Term IV and Term V saw many other interactions from speakers renowned in their fields.

Nidhi Pundhir
Director, CSR Effort, HCL Foundation

Nidhi Pundhir is the Global Head of CSR for HCL. With more than 23 years of experience in actualising human rights at the national and global level, Nidhi shapes and executes programmatic frameworks that are aligned to Sustainable Development Goals for the most disadvantaged and isolated communities, including environmental targets.

Dr. Y Suresh Reddy
Director, CSR, SRF Foundation

Dr. Y. Suresh Reddy is the Director of SRF Foundation. He is a PhD in Public Administration. Dr. Reddy is a prolific writer, having authored various books, such as the "Co-operatives & Rural Development" and "Child Labor in India". He has more than 24 years of experience in philanthropy, social change and nonprofit leadership.

Manjari Gokhale
Founder-Director, Maya Care Foundation

Manjiri Gokhle Joshi is CEO, Global Talent Track and Maya Foundation. She has a master's degree in Mega-Project Management from Said Business School, University of Oxford. Manjiri and her husband Abhay co-founded Elephant Connect, helping students and professionals transform their lives through school and university education and leadership training. She received the British High Commission Chevening Scholarship in 2006.

Mohammed Asif
Executive Director, PLAN India

Mohammed Asif is the Executive Director, Plan International (India Chapter). He has led successful implementation of over 500 development projects across India, with an aggregate budget of USD 250 million in partnership with more than 100 grassroots organisations. He has been an active member of several working groups within Plan International and is the global Chair of Plan's National Office Programme Directors Network.

Context-Based Collaborative Learning in Action

Encouraging learners towards context-based learning that goes beyond the classroom is an imperative part of the PGP DM. In that regard, students from the current PGP DP cohort encapsulated their key takeaways from the recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). The key learning for our students was that there was a major shift in enrolment from private to government schools across the country in children of all age groups and sex. Though knowledge dissemination through WhatsApp, textbook distribution has been really high, the ability of children to critically articulate learnings especially the ones from poor backgrounds has left a huge dent in their learning abilities. The full report is available here.

Participating students: Akansha Borah, Jonathan John, Nikita Shaw, Prachi Sharma, Rahee Mujumdar, Sharika, Tenzin Chorran

STRATEGIC CAPACITY BUILDING

We are thrilled to announce that the applications for Women on Boards are now open.

Women on Boards is an immersive program customised for women corporate professionals and entrepreneurs to take on advisory and board-level roles in social purpose organisations. In addition to developing a pool of women ready to take in leadership positions, the program also intends to:

Build an understanding of the Indian social sector among women professionals.
Create better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a board-level position.
Generate awareness about structures and processes that can improve governance.

Interested candidates may apply here.

RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT

Execution partners:

For more details, visit:isdm.org.in/talent-management

Talent Matters!

ISDM's research study, Benchmarking Talent Management in the Indian Social Sector, has been receiving positive response from the sector with more than 200 organisations signing up to participate in the empirical exercise. We are excited to share that data emerging from the study shall empower leaders, funders and ecosystem enablers to develop strategies for effective talent management practices and nurture an ecosystem that is able to attract, motivate and retain committed and skilled talent in the sector as we stride towards the 2030 goals of equity for all.

During the panel discussion on Building an Ecosystem for Talent Towards Achieving Target 2030 on DM Day, Amit Chandra, Managing Director, Bain Capital Private Equity and Philanthropist said, "We need to invest in building training programs for leaders in the social sector. Unless we have a social sector, which has leaders who are as well equipped with skills and tools as the leaders in the corporate sector, we cannot ask not-for-profit organisations if they are performing optimally."

Career Trajectories in Development Management

ISDM is initiating a longitudinal study on career trajectories in Development Management in the Indian social sector. The study shall map the professional growth trajectories of ISDM alumni over the next 15 years with insights on professional growth and leadership journeys of development management professionals having gone through transformative learning experiences in early years of their engagement with the sector akin to that of the PGP DM. The highlights of the study are as follows:

Release of study reports every three years on leadership trajectories of ISDM alumni.
Annual features on leadership journeys of ISDM Alumni sharing stories of challenges, learning needs, practicing innovations towards transformative change.
Research design that accommodates for shifting needs and life circumstances of Development Leaders and Managers over time.

To know more, please visit: Longitudinal study with ISDM Alumni | ISDM or write to us at research@isdm.org.in

Invest in People for Organisational Effectiveness

A blog by Dr. Aruna Pandey and Dr. Yogita Patra explores the different kinds of talents that are often engaged in the Indian social sector, categorised as volunteers, the fortitudinous, the agnostics and the switchers. The authors call for the need among social purpose organisations to nurture appropriate strategies to work with such a diverse workforce and highlight some interesting strategies in the current context. Read more here.

PLACEMENTS

As the class of 2021-22 progresses towards the final terms of the PGP DM program, it is now time for all to explore the potential opportunities that lie ahead for our students. We would like to invite social purpose organisations to reach out to us for potential placement partnerships. We will start scheduling interviews from April 2022 to June 2022 as our students will graduate by the third week of June, and will be available to join organisations by July 2022. Interested organisations can write to placements@isdm.org.in for more information about the placement process.

To help prepare for the upcoming placement season, the students of Term V attended a module on "Writing in the Discipline." It focused on writing and interview skills for placements including:

Writing a resume that reflects the learners' strengths and competencies, outlines their work experience and aspirations for the future.
Writing a cover letter that accompanies the learners' resume for potential employers.
Writing a strong and relevant LinkedIn profile.
Developing learners' interview skills by writing their answers and seeking feedback.

KEY PARTNERSHIPS

We are excited to announce our partnership with Citi as one of their 'Leadership for Tomorrow' initiatives. They've chosen to invest in our core areas of work – nurturing talent (Post Graduate Program-Development Management), knowledge creation (Global Knowledge Hub) and capacity-building (Strategic Capacity Building programs). Citi's support is truly invaluable and we look forward to growing our partnership and creating impact in the development space.

Ambarish Raghuvanshi

We are very excited to have Ambarish Raghuvanshi join the fraternity of ISDM supporters and welcome him as a Founder Sponsor. Ambarish is currently an angel investor, mentors early stage companies and helps organisations planning an IPO. He is a Chartered Accountant, holds a PGDBM from XLRI Jamshedpur and a BCom from St Xaviers' College, Kolkata. Ambarish has had a splendid career at some of the most noted organisations - HSBC Bank, Bank of America and Info Edge (India), where he was CFO and director of finance.

LIFE AT ISDM

Alumni Day on January 30, 2022

To continue the fervour of the DM Day celebrations, ISDM hosted "Alumni Day" on January 30, 2022. The virtual event provided a platform for our alumni from the last four cohorts to get to know each other, share their experiences, success stories and learnings, discuss the upcoming initiatives, and most importantly, have a good time! The event also witnessed the launch of the alumni-led book club.

Convocation for ISDM's Outgoing Development Managers

Due to the ongoing pandemic, ISDM could not bid the classes of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 a celebratory farewell. While our students have graduated and have embarked on their respective journeys to realise their aspirations of creating impact at scale, we at ISDM decided to make up for the lost time, celebrate our trials and victories against challenges faced during the pandemic and create new memories with our students and the rest of the ISDM family.

ISDM held a two-day retreat and a convocation ceremony for the Class of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 on March 26-27, 2022 in Gurgaon. The Guest of Honour was Dr. Bibek Debroy, noted economist and the Chairperson of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. In his keynote speech, Dr. Debroy emphasised the importance of asking critical questions related to governance and law as development professionals. He also highlighted the role of the citizens in the development of India.

Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairperson of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India

"In his speech on India's 75th Independence Day last year, the Prime Minister used the expression Sabka Prayas. India will become a more developed, better governed and more prosperous country not because of what the government alone does, but because of what all of us citizens of the country do together."

Back to Campus

To kickstart the teams' return to our campus in Noida, the ISDM team went for a picnic to witness and celebrate spring season at Delhi's lush Sunder Nursery on March 5, 2022. The picnic gave all the staff members an opportunity to connect, interact and have fun together - not virtually but in-person!

Development Managers in Action

Arpit Jain
Class of 2017-2018
Consultant, Dalberg

In his current role, Arpit is using his professional strengths as well as his curious nature to solve different problems across different development organisations through social impact consulting. He is trying to catalyse organisations and initiatives that work on the world's most pressing social issues. The visible change as a result of his efforts is his key motivation to work hard. A true believer of the quote "Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity", Arpit's long-term vision is to learn, enhance his skills and work as a leader in the sector. In his impactful career, he has already published a book titled "Women for Water" that narrates the stories of women connected to earth and water.

Abhijit Patwal
Class of 2019-2020
Program Manager, Shakti Foundation

Abhijit believes that commitment is the cornerstone of human social life. With that at core, Abhijit is currently working towards improving the lives of waste pickers as Program Manager at Shakti Foundation. Through the programs, the organisation has provided alternative livelihood to more than 200 women. Moreover, the programs have impacted more than 2500 children by improving access to education and promising a brighter future. Abhijit is truly passionate about the cause and a large part of it comes from his time at ISDM. He shares that the ISDM journey has been life altering for him with respect to the exposure, in-depth interactions, the ability to ask meaningful questions, etc. His long-term vision is to improve the lives of the waste picker community at scale.

Welcoming New Members

Amita Wadhwani
Manager, Marketing

Amita comes from a background in marketing, advertising and communications. She holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Delhi University and an MBA degree from the DPC Institute of Management. Previously, she was associated with World Animal Protection. She has worked with advertising agencies and handled brand building, marketing and strategic planning for leading brands. She is passionate about protecting animals and believes that animals should be off plates. Know more here.

Dr. Ria Sinha
Senior Manager, Research Fellow

Dr. Ria Sinha is an expert in Climate Finance, Voluntary Sustainability Standards, Sustainable Finance, ESG with ten years of experience in research and academia. Ria holds a PhD in Sustainable Finance from TERI School of Advanced Studies (TERI SAS) and a Masters in Economics from University of Calcutta. She has previously worked with The Energy and Resources Institute, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability and Development Alternatives Group. She is a Visiting Faculty at TERI SAS. Know more here.

Shubhi Sharma
Associate, Global Knowledge Hub Operations

Shubhi is a postgraduate in Management Practice and Leadership from Vedica Scholars Programme for Women. During her masters, she worked on examining the impact of caste and gender on mental health economics in India. She hails from Bhiwani, Haryana and has worked with Lok Seva Charitable Trust to raise awareness about girl education in the state. After completing her Bachelors in Computer Science Engineering, she worked in the edtech sector in Bangalore. Know more here.

Tuhin Ghosh
Associate, Admissions

Tuhin is a Food Technologist and holds a bachelor's degree in Food Science and Technology. The organisation focused on aiding women from the rural parts of Solan, Himachal Pradesh in earning a livelihood. He pursued PGP DM from ISDM to advance his career in the social sector. His professional experience spans across social media marketing, people management, product management and marketing and design in the corporate and social sectors. Know more here.

OTHER UPDATES

Digital Transformation

The current phase of Digital Transformation at ISDM involves enhancing capability of all functions through automation and application enhancement and laying the foundation for the next phase. As part of PGP DM, major enhancements to all student journey applications have been completed and a new placement application is being implemented. To support the Strategic Capacity Building operations, lead management/marketing automation applications were implemented. Additionally, the Knowledge Management System project has been kicked-off to create a central system for data management at ISDM.

ISDM Releases
Annual Report

2019-2020 & 2020-2021

ISDM is glad to announce the launch of its first-ever Annual Report. The report is a comprehensive compilation of all our achievements in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. The report also sheds light on what's coming next! Read more here.

ISDM Features in
IIM-A Alumni
Magazine Article

We are thrilled to share that ISDM featured in the February 2022 edition of the IIM-A alumni-led magazine. The article revisits the journey of ISDM thus far in the words of our founders Sharad Agarwal and Ravi Sreedharan. Read more here.

From Charitable Giving to Social Justice:

Reimagining the role of philanthropy in India

In a blog for the Times of India, authors Urvi Shriram (Lead, CPSJ) and Dr. Samar Verma (Program Officer, Ford Foundation for Technology and Society, Future of Workers, and Philanthropy) share their views on approaching philanthropy through the frame of social justice giving, based on data and knowledge. Read more here.

WHAT ARE WE READING?

Here's a peek into what our students, faculty and staff are reading

The Goal by Eliyahu M Goldratt and Jeff Cox

This management-oriented fiction novel, published in 1984, explores concepts like theory of constraints, bottlenecks, etc., and tries to alleviate their impact by applying them in real life situations. It stresses on the importance of identifying bottlenecks and developing alternatives to eliminate the constraints in production, thereby demonstrating it as an effective method to measure and control the flow of material. The book serves as an excellent tool for case studies in operations management and emphasises on the importance of strategic capacity planning and constraint management.

Don't Beg.Inspire. by Suman Srivastava

The importance of marketing in bringing about a social change has remained largely unexplored and underrated. All organisations in the social sector deal with things like raising funds, creating a social impact, advocating a cause and engaging with people. The book employs the concept of Nudge Theory to help organisations do better in the aforementioned areas. Ditching the conventional academic style, it adopts a captivating storytelling approach by discussing different examples from within India and around the world.

21 Lessons for the 21^st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

The book questions the present form of education system which is largely focused on giving specific instruction to students and providing them with a certain skills set. Acknowledging that although the current system of education has worked well so far, the author argues that due to advances in artificial intelligence, it is difficult to cast an image of market that would exist and the skills set that people will require in a world where AI can do programming swifter than humans and enable people to communicate seamlessly in any language despite that a person has no knowledge of it all. In that context, the author propounds a 4Cs approach that urges the education system to shift focus on building critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

The Challenge of Sustainable Development Goals in India by V. Mahajan and J. Singh

This paper attempts to address the complexity that surrounds the historical dependency of humans on natural wealth that brings rich traditional ecological knowledge and creates tension due to overexploitation of resources. The authors propose a twin strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to lives, livelihoods, and environment in India and subsequently address this over dependency: (a) improving the lives and livelihoods of India's population, which is in the first decade of the demographic dividend phase and (b) regenerating the degraded natural resources-water, forests, land, livestock and wildlife and climate.

Contact Us: C 20/5-6, Sector-62. Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301. (Opposite JSS Academy of Technical Education) | Phone: +91 99997 88216 | Email: contact@isdm.org.in

CENTRE FOR PHILANTHROPY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

CENTRE FOR PHILANTHROPY
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE