Sustaining a Social Venture: Transformation of Annapurna Mahila Mandal into Annapurna Pariwar

Author: Basargekar, Prema
Source: Richard Ivey School of Business; Indian School of Business
Year: 2012
Company Name: Annapurna Mahila Mandal
Number of pages: 16

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Abstract:

Annapurna Mahila Mandal (AMM), Mumbai, is a trust that provides micro credit and allied services to poor working women. It was established by a veteran freedom fighter and social entrepreneur and her late husband, a union leader, in 1975 in the wake of a decade-long millworkers' strike in Mumbai. Though AMM was a pioneer in the field of urban microfinance, by the year 1982, it slowly started losing its focus on microfinance and diverted to other social activities, which were difficult to scale up and thus started becoming unviable. In 1993, when AAM's chairperson started looking after the operations, she realized that the external environment was evolving quickly with changes in regulations, rising competition, rising aspirations of the microfinance clients, etc. If not tackled on time, these might become threats that could jeopardize the survival of the organization. AMM needed to develop a very clear vision as to which direction it should grow in order to become sustainable without losing its focus on the core objective of empowerment of poor women. The chairperson took on the challenge of turning around the organization.