Introduction

“Whatever you hear about India, the opposite is also true.” This popular saying seems to be more applicable than ever. A prosperous economy yielding opportunities and wealth to a constantly growing middle-class already half the size of Europe on one side and growing poverty for hundreds of million people throughout the country on the other.

Why? Isn’t India the country of the NGOs? Their number has grown from perhaps a hundred thousand in the end of the eighties to over a 3 million nowadays. What has to change?

Approach

Effectiveness, efficiency and scalability; concepts from the business world are needed to tackle issues at large. That is why Business- NGO-Partnerships can be a crucial part of the answer and create tangible values for all stakeholders at the same time.

German companies operating in India reported a number of typical challenges they face, such as recruiting and retention of qualified staff, local security issues, relation to authorities, media attention and public awareness. These can be addressed by social programmes in vicinity of the site.

Magic Bus

Magic Bus’ mission is to empower deprived children, youth and communities in India in the areas of education, gender, health, leadership and livelihood using sport as a development tool. Empowerment is understood to enhance an individual’s or group’s capacity to make choices and transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Sports and activitybbased learning is a platform to achieve these development goals.

Magic Bus is India’s largest “Sports forbDevelopment” organization with today more than 3,000 volunteer mentors delivering programmes to more than 150,000 children across six states every week. By 2014 Magic Bus aims to reach 1 million children in 10 states throughout India. The holistic programme has been so successful, that the Indian Government has chosen Magic Bus as a partner.

How does the change happen? Working with concepts from the business world, Magic Bus over time developed a number of core competencies:
1. A unique, impact driven and steadily enhanced curriculum
2. Mobilizing and training a huge number of volunteers delivering the programme on the ground as qualified Community Sports Coaches, gaining a vocational education for sustaining their own lives at the same time
3. Scalability of the organizational structures
4. A robust funding portfolio including own revenue streams
5. Incubation of self-sustainable organizational unites with a strong local funding base

Summary

Partnering with Magic Bus opens opportunities to create immense value for society and business in India and implies working with an NGO, which speaks the same language.

Key Facts

> The first organization in India to deliver high impact development programmes combining a sport based curriculum with community action
> Founded in 1999,Magic Bus is one of the fastest growing indigenous NGO’s in India with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, London, Munich, San Francisco, New York
> In 2011-12, will enroll 200,000 children. By Dec. 2014, Magic Bus aims to have 1 million children. Our average per child attendance is for 4.5 years.
> The charity currently runs programmes in 6 Indian states, with plans to increase to 10 by 2014
> The Magic Bus programme content is being integrated into the Indian Government curricula
> 42% of Magic Bus children are girls
> In 2010, 78% of out-of-school children on the programme went back to school
> 85% of children who graduate through the programme join a livelihood initiative, linking them to further education, training and the workplace