The Daan Utsav Fellowship gave me more than I could ask for
How a 6-month fellowship changed me forever.
I felt out of place everyday. Every morning as I headed to my 9–5 corporate job, I reminded myself that this was only temporary, that slowly I will move on to what my real goal is — giving back. I’ve always wanted to be a part of the social sector, but I had to support my family too. The #DaanUtsav Fellowship at Impact Guru was a chance encounter, an accident of fate that over six months, moulded, twisted and shaped me into a new and more confident person.
I don’t distinctly remember applying to Daan Utsav (I regularly looked out for opportunities and must have come across their website) however, I distinctly remember receiving an email from Venkat sir with the fellowship details. I hardly knew what Daan Utsav was back then (now, I sometimes find myself murmuring about it in my sleep). India’s week-long festival of giving, which celebrated its 9th year in October this year, is still unknown. Though each year, fellows chosen across the country try to promote and raise awareness about the festival, involving people with various acts of giving, it’s going to take sometime to reach the 1.3 billion population of the country.
After completing three tasks and clearing the interview, I got a call informing me that I was selected, incidentally on my birthday!
I was chosen as the Daan Utsav Crowdfunding Fellow to be hosted by Impact Guru in Mumbai and mentored by its founder, Piyush Jain. This is where I became apprehensive. For the longest time, I described myself as an introvert. I was nervous while talking to strangers and didn’t interact with colleagues all that much. The fellowship demanded the exact opposite. The 4-day induction program, to break the ice between fellows and mentors and also train them on Daan Utsav activities, entailed meeting new people across sectors and interacting with them constantly. Moreover, I slowly discovered that a huge part of my job would be to talk to NGOs and individuals about Daan Utsav — I would essentially be talking to multiple strangers each day!
When I told Piyush, my mentor, about my worries (and a fleeting thought on backing out of the program), he laughed. “It’s all in your head Surbhi,” he suggested. I mulled over that for the next 4 days, as I met some of the best people (kind would perhaps, be a more fitting adjective) most of whom had dedicated their entire lives to building frameworks and organisations to helps a number of social causes and had actively engaged with communities to promote social good. We were trained by the best, Shaheen Mistri, CEO of Teach for India, Venkat Krishnan N, Priyanka from the CSR wing of J P Morgan etc.
The training also included tasks and personality tests to help mentors and fellows understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and work better. (Piyush and I had a good laugh when the test revealed that we had completely opposite personality traits, something that we later realized helped us learn from each other.)
However, the reality of what I was going to be doing hadn’t struck me yet. I was happy that I was finally working towards my goal, but on most days my inhibitions got the better of me. Until one day when I headed with Amit, a volunteer from Tarang Foundation to a slum to distribute food.
Seva Sandwich is one of the most popular activities, where volunteers make sandwiches and distribute them amongst underprivileged children. As we drove inside a deserted slum, I wondered who we’d distribute the food to, there were no children to be seen. But as soon as Amit stepped out, children poured out like a colony of ants to gather around our car. “Why didn’t you come last sunday? They’ve been waiting,” a middle aged woman in a torn sari and a toddler in her hand called out. Amit greeted them with a smile and we started distributing the sandwiches.
Watching the children await and then relish the humble food we brought them, made me value the importance of a festival like this, a festival where the celebration is not about getting oneself new clothes or gifts, but rather about these small joys of giving to make another person happy.I started my fellowship with a renewed spirit.
I met the team at Impact Guru who helped me understand crowdfunding (another new idea that I had to digest on the way), the processes and the due diligence required to onboard NGOs and help them raise funds. A lot of organisations and even corporates run activities during Daan Utsav. Impact Guru, runs a month long crowdfunding contest for NGOs. As I began interacting with NGOs, calling them almost daily and visiting their offices to train them on how to raise funds online, I found myself slowly walking out of the shadow of being an introvert. I started having more conversations with my colleagues at Impact Guru (they now sometimes complain about how much I talk), became friends with people at the various NGOs I interacted with and attended a number of workshops and events around the country!
I also took, what was the first airplane journey of my life, while travelling to Hyderabad for an event!
With no background in the social sector, there were days I felt inadequate.The NGO team at Impact Guru, pulled me up each time I doubted myself. From making calls to finishing due diligence to handling complaints, my team worked with me and guided me through all the roadblocks I would face. On the other hand, Piyush was more of a DIY mentor. (Something I came to appreciate only at the end of the fellowship.) He let me make my own mistakes and stepped in when needed.
We on-boarded close to 70 NGOs, out of which around 60 were able to raise a considerable amount for their projects and activities. The one-month of fundraising was in most ways extremely crazy, with NGOs calling me (even over weekends), with me helping them promote the fundraisers, coordinating with the GlobalGiving team to facilitate US/UK tax benefits to donors, helping donors with transaction issues and finally handling disbursement of funds and calling out the winners.
On 15th October as the contest ended, I sat reminiscing about the last six months. And, I realised that my dream of giving back hadn’t worked out in the same way that I’d thought. I received much more than I could give from Daan Utsav.
Someone articulated it correctly, giving is indeed rewarding.
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