Recently, snapdeal.com, the famous e-commerce startup from India, did something unusual. Touched by a hallway conversation about a village where people walk few kilometers everyday for clean water, Kunal Bahl, the CEO, decided to install 15 water pumps in that village. Out of their gratitude, the village decided to rename it self as “SnapDeal City”. Despite being a company still in startup mode with limited resources, Snapdeal felt it was necessary to give something back to the communities in which it operates. This is an example every startup should follow in instilling a sense of “giving back” culture from day one.
Till now, only big organizations such as Google, Microsoft and others with big cash in the bank used to have philanthropic causes but recently along with snapdeal.com, many other startups such as iteleportmobile.com working with khanacademy.org to provide free high quality education to everyone. These startups have made sure that they are helping towards a social cause other than just thinking about profits or solving the big technology problem.
I have been a huge fan of kiva.org - the micro-finance program for micro-entrepreneurs around the world where you can donate as less as 25$, to help people with small businesses to eradicate poverty in the world. Early in the days of building our company, we made a commitment to give loans to a traditional micro-entrepreneur on kiva.org every month. So far, we have helped 6 micro-entrepreneurs starting from colombia to mexico to cambodia. You should check out kiva.org and see how everything works and how people utilize these loans. Its really awesome!
We hope it won’t be too long before every startup company in the world adopts a cause to make the world a better place.
- Sunil Patro, Founder & CEO at Signeasy
