Vodafone India wants to double the impact of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. Last year, around 50 employees volunteered for CSR initiatives, working for eight weeks at 25 NGOs and impacting about 1 million lives.
“This year we are looking at impacting almost double of last year (2 million lives). In fact, the target is to reach out to 10 million lives by 2020,” said P Balaji, director, regulatory, external affairs and CSR.
A case study by PFC Social Impact Advisors on World of Difference (WoD), a Vodafone Foundation initiative, was launched Monday. This will become part of the curriculum in the impact investing programme at the Said Business School, University of Oxford, UK.
It will also be featured in the forthcoming Stanford University Press book, ‘Good, Evil, Wicked: The Art, Science and Business of Giving,’ on the future of social investing, philanthropy and impact investing.
Through the WoD programme, Vodafone employees can donate their time, skills, expertise and passion to work for an NGO of their choice for eight weeks. “For all of these eight weeks, our employees would get their salaries,” Balaji said.
Vodafone India launched its version of WoD in 2011, which constitutes about 10 per cent of the company’s CSR budget.
“Vodafone in India is offering new models for other CSR initiatives and social investors as they grapple with the most complex challenges facing India and the world,” said Gayle Peterson, senior managing director, PFC Social Impact Advisors and associate fellow and programme director at Said Business School.
This article was taken from here.