Making A Difference For Communities Online
By: Rubini Naidu
Tags: Personal Development, Social Impact, Enterpreneurship, Storytelling

First, Some Background

As an American-born Indian, I craved returning to India and servicing the region native to my family. This dream of mine developed most strongly through a series of documentary photography projects I conducted in India—first as an undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon and later as a staff of the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute. As I interviewed everyday locals I passed on the streets of Tamil Nadu, or later got to know better the challenges of local changemakers and nonprofits in New Delhi, I was moved by the power of storytelling and compelled to use it towards social good. It became clear to me that I wanted to direct my lived research experiences towards a sustainable and scalable infrastructure through which other people could also experience first-hand the transformative power of getting to know another person’s story. During my Master’s degree at Columbia University, I actively iterated upon both the theoretical framework as well as a sustainable business model through which I could help build a more empathetic and actionable community, with keen interest in supporting overlooked social causes and communities.

Just as I had made the mental leap of faith to remain in New York after my degree to bootstrap the company I was ideating, I was coincidentally awarded a yearlong Fulbright research grant in India. I was conflicted between moving forward with the startup I had faith in, or whether I should opt for my outstanding dream of living and serving in India, a nation so near and dear to my upbringing and identity. Trusted mentors suggested that I think out of the box and do both, and I followed their advice. I packed up my belongings and moved from New York to New Delhi. My intentions were to 1) channel my grant towards the initial phases of a social good startup, and 2) to strengthen my personal identity and relationship with the sacred country of India (especially as it relates to spirituality and my family).

My Fulbright focused on examining how international development can be decolonized through social enterprise and visual storytelling. Being an Indian American young woman, and given my work experiences on Melinda Gates’ flagship project in family planning and women’s health in urban slums of Asia and Africa, it was a very natural for me to focus specifically on working with women and children’s empowerment in New Delhi, India. I named this labor of love as “Krupa,” meaning “comprehensive compassion” in Sanskrit.

The Krupa project’s vision built upon decolonization methodologies I studied in my anthropology graduate coursework, which in short refers to the approach that community needs and preferences should guide any implementation and programming for that community. In this manner, I began Krupa by partnering with incredible New Delhi-based women’s and children’s empowerment organizations—ranging from supporting children of migrant workers to meeting the needs of domestic violence survivors—to learn about their needs. Next, in a decolonizing fashion, I worked alongside the partnering organizations to strategize a solution and test its effectiveness for their organizations. We found the largest pain point for the nonprofits to be a lack of funding, and that this could be addressed through connecting Indian community-based nonprofits to reoccurring US-based donors through visual storytelling updates—a personal victory to me given my love for documentary photography, which is a relatively taboo passion to follow in South Asian culture. Overall, the Krupa project culminated into hosting storytelling workshops to provide capacity building for the staff of the nonprofit organizations we had been working with, as well as meetings with the UN Women and Ford Foundation in India to explore next steps. The progress we had made was meaningful and I had to determine how to proceed.

Selfless Connects You With Personalized Ways To Directly Help Communities On Their Terms

Since then, my Fulbright grant has completed and I am back in the United States. Given restrictions from the onset of COVID-19, alongside a series of large logistical and Indian-market-readiness setbacks, we have taken the findings from the Krupa project and positioned it towards Selfless. Selfless is an online platform that facilitates direct and personalized matches between people who want to do good and community-driven opportunities to do so. Selfless is currently focused on US-based social causes—and we have a vision to expand worldwide, including my beloved India. During this time of physical distancing and isolation, Selfless is personally connecting individuals with US-based virtual and local opportunities to directly support social causes. These matches are customized to the skills and talents, availability, and other preferences of the individuals who approach us while also reflecting the bottom-up needs that are sourced from local organizations.

What if you could truly see and feel the impact that you are creating? At Selfless, we are on a mission to humanize the doing good sphere by not only facilitating direct community-driven change, but also by fostering authentic human-to-human conversations. We make this possible through live video calls between the ally and the receiver, as well as through photo and video storytelling updates from the organization that received an act of good. Upon seeing and hearing from someone who benefited from their own action, our theory of change is that do-gooders will feel motivated to keep returning to serve communities in the ways the communities define. To us, this positive reinforcement defines a newer, richer, and more ethical dopamine rush than from simply receiving a “like.”

The Only Way Out Is Through

From a global pandemic that has made forms of privilege more palpable, to a deep reckoning with racial discrepancies nationwide, the call for action in our society is particularly high. Our customer research showed us, even before this tumultuous season, that people seldom know how to productively engage with social causes online (giving rise, for example, to concerns of slacktivism). Now, physical distancing measures amidst a social good arena with already heightened stakes has resulted in amplified concerns with how to truly contribute to positive change. Through Selfless, we are committed to providing tangible ways for people to channel their empathy for social causes into meaningful grassroots action—even when a particular cause is no longer trending.

The changemaking and doing good sphere can be unpredictable and messy to navigate. I’ve been there personally and understand first hand frustrations that can arise—as a visual storyteller, an academic researcher, and as a social entrepreneur. However, it has been so clear to me that the only way out is through. The Krupa project’s pivot and expansion to Selfless is a testament to this.

I believe a similar growth mindset is now reflected in Selfless’s approach. We just launched our platform this week, and the demonstrated interest and submissions from both people looking to serve their communities has been compelling. Our pipeline and process is improving everyday and we’re enthusiastically pushing ahead to provide true value to our communities—a process that I’m sure is going to improve and enhance over time.

Now, when it comes to your own social good journey, how will you push through? We each have a place in doing social good, and no act or set of skills is too small. Are you interested in being an ally for social good? Get started at www.getselfless.com and we will match you to a customized opportunity. Do you know an organization, institution, or initiative doing amazing community work that could use some help? Please write to us with more information at hello@getselfless.com and we’d love to connect with them.