From relief and rehabilitation, livelihood support, micro-credit loan programs to advocacy of legal and political issues, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh have found a niche for themselves in bridging the gap between society and state.
Traditionally, a key dilemma faced by the entire CSO community is in their pursuit of social impact creation whether to adopt a pure philanthropic approach or a market based business model approach. This underlying tension and dilemma to switch to an inclusive business approach while maintaining the organizational core mission of supporting the underserved communities has always been a line of debate and deliberations for CSOs in Bangladesh who are viewed as the ultimate catalyst of the country’s social development scene.
In this backdrop, on May 6th-8th, 2015 Re-emerging World conducted a business/sustainability planning training workshop, organized by ICCO Bangladesh for six of its CSO partners: Nijera Kori, CCDB, CODEC, Dalit, SEHD and GBK. The intense training sessions and engaging group exercises were hallmarks of the workshop and triggered active discussions and debates by the CSO participants on how their respective organizations can evolve a business-like approach for creating maximum social impact.
Re-emerging World shared its expertise on the 10 steps of Business Planning with the CSO participants with an underlying objective of inspiring and equipping them with tools, frameworks and strategic approaches for creating market based social innovations for their beneficiary networks.
Here is the story of the 3-day training workshop in pictures.
