Mumbai, December 2022: The Shahani Academic and Global Empowerment Foundation (SAGE Foundation), the non-profit arm of The Shahani Group, has announced that effective January 2023, it will take over the brand and operations of UnLtd India, a leading Indian incubator for social enterprises, from Social Entrepreneurs Foundation India (SEFI).
SAGE Foundation will now incubate social startups and NGOs in addition to the work it already does towards upskilling low-income youth for white-collar jobs. As part of their efforts to scale up the operations of UnLtd India, SAGE Foundation intends to incubate 1500 social entrepreneurs, Founders of NGOs/ Social Enterprises over the next 5 years.
UnLtd India was one of the first incubators to support early-stage social entrepreneurs and Founders of NGOs / Social Enterprises across India. Over the last 14 years, it has incubated 318 social entrepreneurial ventures, including Phool, Arpan, FUEL, and many others. Its incubatees have impacted 19.5 million lives and raised more than Rs. 30 billion until now. UnLtd India supports young organisations across the spectrum, from livelihoods, climate change, education to gender, and inclusive development. These organisations are built on ideas that will lead to an increase in income and or reduce the vulnerability of underserved communities and the environment as a whole.
SAGE Foundation has been working tirelessly to provide key in-demand industry skills to under-privileged Indian youth, to make them job-ready and secure employment in the BFSI sector, with support from Thadomal Shahani Centre For Management. To date, they have trained over 12,000 youth and have successfully placed over 90% of its graduates with leading Indian companies, such as Deloitte, Accenture, HDFC, Kotak & others
Combining these job skilling and incubation activities under one roof allows sharing of resources to reduce costs and enhance scalability. Transitioning the brand and operations of an incubator from one non-profit, Social Entrepreneurs Foundation India (SEFI), to another, SAGE Foundation is the first such transaction of its kind in the Indian non-profit sector. It could serve as a model to other non-profits looking to consolidate their operations.
Commenting on the development, Dr. Akhil Shahani, MD, SAGE Foundation, The Shahani Group, TSCFM, and ask.CAREERS, said, “We are thrilled to bring UnLtd India into our fold, and become a part of their amazing journey. At SAGE Foundation, we have been tackling the pressing social issue of empowering under-resourced youth with the education and skills that will enable them to obtain sustainable livelihoods so that they may uplift their and their family’s lives through white-collar employment, which offers job security and better incomes, as opposed to the daily wage jobs they would otherwise have to take.
By adding UnLtd India’s brand and its operations, we have further deepened our commitment to solving India’s social problems – this is a natural extension of the work we have already been doing, and we now look forward to helping social entrepreneurs and NGO founders in realising their vision for the betterment of Indian society. UnLtd India and Anshu Bhartia have already done some really excellent work in the past decade and a half. We intend not only to continue these efforts but also to scale up the operations exponentially.”
Discussing the announcement, Anshu Bhartia, CEO, UnLtd India, said, “UnLtd India has been committed to supporting passionate individuals who want to solve a pressing social need through entrepreneurship. Our commitment is to help an individual in their journey of becoming an entrepreneur and an idea for a sustainable high-impact organisation. Scaling our work using technology, partnerships, and ecosystem resources, at the most optimal cost was a key consideration for our long-term continued impact, meeting a deeply underserviced need. Transitioning the brand and its work to the SAGE Foundation led by Dr. Shahani, a Founding and Governing Board Member of UnLtd India was a no-brainer. The team of UnLtd India and I are very excited that the organization will be scaling under the umbrella of The Shahani Group and with Akhil’s leadership. This will ensure that UnLtd India’s focus on supporting social entrepreneurship will not be diluted and that the organisation will be able to help much more social enterprise and NGO founders every year.”