Every year October 2-8 mark the DaanUtsav or the Joy of Giving week – a weeklong celebration of giving (philanthropy) in India. While more and more Indians are participating in this revolution, the numbers are still abysmally low. One report suggests that India's rich give away just 5 percent of a household income in a year. However, there are few leaders who are at the forefront of this revolution like Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar, to name a few.
The other such leaders include Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Partner, Rare Enterprises, Amit Chandra, MD, Bain Capital, and Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman and Founder of Narayana Health. All of them are involved in identifying important causes and efforts raising funds for them (both their own money and encouraging others to give).
Also Read: DaanUtsav: Zia Mody supports NGO serving mentally disabled
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala decided many years ago that he would give away 25 percent of his wealth over his lifetime. Some of the causes that he supports are Agastya, which is a cause that helps promote the interest of science amongst children, the Olympic gold quest, schools and orphanages.
In an exclusive chat to CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi, Jhunjhunwala said that he donates in the range of Rs 20-25 crore. To identify the causes, he said he looks at the "crusade and the crusader."
"I do not have any audits. If I think the cause is good and the person who is leading it is trustworthy, I give," he said.
Jhunjhunwala said his biggest contribution goes to Agastya as it teaches science to rural and poor children. He says it's not the subject but the purpose (arising curiosity in the young minds) behind it that is more important. He hopes to give Rs 5000 crore on July 5, 2020 to his foundation, in the form of cash (not shares).
Amit Chandra feels it's important to have an emotional connect both with the cause and people behind it. He said he likes to do things that are transformational in nature—where institutions will get created, which is stand for social excellence.
"We are very fortunate to partner with Dr Devi Shetty in building Asia's largest children's hospital in Mumbai," he said.
The tide of giving in this country has really become very big, said Dr Shetty, adding that the Indian mindset has undergone drastic changes. Indians are becoming lot more forthcoming and giving than they were before.
"I'm not looking for someone writing a cheque for billions of dollars. I just want everyone to think that bringing smile on somebody else's face on a daily basis is the best gift that you can give to this world," he said.
Below is the edited transcript of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's, Amit Chandra's and Dr Devi Shetty's interview with CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi.
Q: You decided many years ago that you would give away 25 percent of your wealth over your lifetime. Some of the causes that you support and I have come to know of are Agasthya which is a cause that helps promote the interest of science amongst children, the Olympic gold quest, which is already well known, the Shoshit Seva Kendra which is a school for children of Musahar community, an orphanage in Vashi. These are just some of the projects I am told that you support. What I would like to know is how do you identify the causes that you would like to support on a medium to long term basis?
Jhunjhunwala: If you have the desire to give, there are so many people who approach you that this is an organisation, it needs funds, it needs help, it needs backing. I don't have a very formal organisation. It is not that I am giving some hundreds of crores of rupees here. I give 25 percent of my dividend income every year. I give between Rs 20-25 crore and then I look at the crusade and the crusader. I don't have any audits, if I think the cause is good and the person who is leading the cause is good and trustworthy I give.
Q: Would you say that you have sort of identified causes based on areas that you want to put your work in. For instance education which I am told is the sector that receives the maximum amount of funds through Indian philanthropy. So is it education or in your case is it child care. Are there sectors that appeal to you more than others?
Jhunjhunwala: At the moment the biggest contribution that I give is to Agasthya and I give it to Agasthya because the purpose of Agasthya is to teach science to rural and poor children in India. The importance of teaching science is not so important as the purpose of arousing curiosity in children.
For me the source of all my knowledge was my curiosity. I was a very curious child and my father always encouraged that curiosity and I still have that curiosity. So, I feel it is a very noble cause and it is a very cost effective model. In five years we are going to interact with 9 million children. It is not going to cost more than Rs 125 per child and we are going to interact with each child four times. I hope to give Rs 5,000 crore on July 5th 2020 to my foundation not in the form of share but in the form of cash.
Then I will have a really formal organisation where I have shortlisted some of the causes which are close to my heart and then I will really make an effort to see that these long-term causes are well served. At the moment my giving is more of, I know this organisation, it is doing good work and I must support it. I support the Tata Cancer Hospital in Kolkata, then I support an organisation called Impact in Delhi which is working towards education of ladies. Education is very important from two points of view, it is a source of prosperity ultimately and that is what makes me feel that I have equated a poor child with a rich one. Equality of mankind is a dream, equality of opportunity is something we should make an effort of. So I am also drawn towards education.
Q: You have decided to give your money away and importantly what you have also said is overtime you want to devote at least 30 percent of your time to causes that work towards philanthropy or philanthropic causes. Talk me through how you approach causes what are some of the causes that you have decided to put your money and time into. I have a list which includes Jai Vakeel which is a school for special children that you and your wife support. Soshit Seva Kendra, again for Musahar children; Mr Rakesh is also involved in that, Akanksha which is already well known. Ashoka University which is very different kind of project altogether and then of course a project which is work in progress a super specialty children's hospital here in Mumbai for children across the country. How do you pick these projects?
Chandra: My wife and I who are partners in this journey try to do a few things and some of them are common to what Rakesh said as well. Often it is about the people connect. You have to feel for the cause and you have to feel for the people behind the cause. So in lots of these cases, for example we are supporters of Agasthya like Rakesh is and we love the passion of the founder and we love the cause of education. In case of Jai Vakeel my wife is involved in running the institution so there is a deep personal connect that we have.
In case of Ashoka my good friend Ashish Dhawan has played a leadership role in setting the institution up. So emotional connect both with the cause and with the people behind it is very important.
The second issue is really we like to do things which are transformational in nature and where institutions will get created which will really stand for social excellence. We are very fortunate for example to partner with Dr Shetty in building Asia's largest children's hospital right in our backyard in Mumbai and that is a good example. We know once one will be set up and will stand for excellence, the next ten will actually follow.
Ashoka similarly is a very ambitious dream to create one of the world's best universities in India and it is off to a great start. We know that once one such institution breaks into the top 100 or 200 there will be many more which follow.
So the second pillar for us is really to do things where excellence will become evident and people will feel that if they can do it why can't we do it and we need that spirit of confidence to be infused amongst everyone, not just philanthropist but the common man as well that they can actually contribute to improving the country.
Q: How much money are you giving away if I may ask you that? If not the actual amount, can you give me a proportion of your income?
Chandra: My wife and I endeavour to give away 75 percent of our income every year. There are years where we have managed to fortunately give away close to 100 percent. It is a little lumpy, some years we manage to hit that, some years we are closer to the 75 percent range but for us we try to make sure that we are solving for at least giving that as a target. Often our engagements are multi year commitments, lot of our commitments run forward for two-three years. So as long as we make the money we give it away.
Q: You, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala are wealthy people so when people are watching this show they are going to say Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has a lot of money he can afford to give it away or Amit Chandra is giving away 75 percent of his wealth but that is because he has built considerable wealth over time. Is it as much the amount of money in your experience, is it actually the fact that you combine it with time as I am sure does Rakesh as well because he has to oversee the money that he has given away. How do you explain to people that they can do it too?
Chandra: Everybody can be philanthropic and philanthropic means basically just making sure that you are alleviating social misery around you and doing something for society around you. It doesn't matter whether you are doing it with Rs 100 if that is all you have to give or you are doing it with hundreds of crores which is what some of our billionaires have to give.
In fact the programme that enthuses me the most is the payroll giving programme that Give India runs in which nearly 35,000-40,000 professionals in India at the entry level and these are people who are earning Rs 10,000-15,000 a month, give away as little as Rs 150 per month on a monthly basis to causes that they select.
To me that contribution is as valuable if not more valuable than what people like us who are more fortunate, blessed with a little bit of wealth are away to give away.
I just came back from Patna to see the school that Rakesh and I are involved in -- Shoshit Seva Sangh -- which is really not just a school for teaching education at a very high level to the Musahar (rat-eaters) kids, it is about transforming the entire community.
What struck me there was contributions to the school have been made by Musahar kids themselves including one child who won Rs 25 lakhs on Kaun Banega Crorepati and when Amitabh Bachchan asked him what will you do with this money? He said my family really needs the money but I am actually going to give it back to the cause and that is a family which has nothing and he is giving away everything.
So it is a journey, we should not be judgemental about who gives how much. It is important to start the journey and give whatever you can at any point of time. But like anything else question yourself are you giving it the right way and then are you giving the right amount and things will move on from there.
Q: Dr Devi Shetty has devoted his entire life to this cause both through the money that he puts to it but more importantly the work that he has done with Narayana Health: 26 hospitals across 16 cities in India with over close to 7000 beds. You are a living example of philanthropy. I want you to talk to us about what your experience has been over the years of how much more philanthropic Indians are getting if at all and how that can be channelized into projects like yours?
Shetty: I have seen a major change happening in our country in this aspect of giving away. I have been begging people for the last 25 years since I started my journey in Kolkata just to sponsor some poor child's operation. You are aware that India produces about 600-800 children a day with a heart disease. So it is a very large number and parents cannot afford to get their children operated if they require.
It started off as a few telephone calls to my friends and about eight years ago a small group of people in Bangalore who run small time commercial operations in commercial street of Bangalore, they came together and they started an entity called Have a Heart Foundation. They started sponsoring children's heart operations. In no time it became very big and today they sponsor over 100 heart surgeries on children every month. They sponsor children in Bangalore, in Kolkata, Jaipur wherever we have hospitals.
Now they want more and more children to come. They would have operated on more than 5000-6000 children and they are not millionaires, they are regular business people but the tide of giving in this country has really become very big.
If there are people like Amit who can bring people together, they can really change this country, I am very optimistic. Indians are no more the same old people I used to deal with 20 years ago. People are lot more forthcoming, lot more giving then they were before.
Q: There are two things about your model that I want to understand better because they go to the issue of scale and scale is so important in this whole process of giving, if we want to transform philanthropy in India as opposed to incremental change. One is that your Narayana Health is a for-profit business is what I understand but you use the ability of some patients to pay for their healthcare and offset the cost of those who cannot pay for their healthcare, that is one point. The second point is how has scale enabled you to approach your donors in a more effective fashion? If you could share your experiences on both of these counts and explain to us what role scale plays in philanthropy?
Shetty: Scale is extremely important, writing off one or two children's heart operations is no big deal. 12 percent of the heart surgeries done in India are done by us, so for us, sponsoring a few operations is no big deal.
But I will just give you an example of scale. Around six-seven years ago we decided that children from poor families should become doctors and they are not joining medical colleges today mainly because medical education is thought to be very expensive. So we launched a program in West Bengal. We wanted 2000 children from villages of West Bengal to join the medical colleges every year: that was the target.
We started with about 200 students, these are the brightest kids from rural West Bengal who are extremely good in studies, are passionate about becoming doctors. So when they are 13 years old, all they needed to do was to commit to us that they will become doctors. With that commitment we give them a scholarship of about Rs 500 per month.
It is not the Rs 500 that matters, they are chosen by us and we mentor them and these kids really work hard and good number of them join medical colleges.
Now we want to scale up this programme in Karnataka and Bihar and UP, we are overwhelmed with the response. Everyone wants to contribute, Rs 500 a month is no big deal. So essentially we would like children from poor families to become doctors because outstanding doctors across the world generally come from deprived background because these are the kids who have the fire in the belly, who can work for 24 hours and change the rules of the game.
But these kids have no opportunity for anyone to mentor them. So this is the role that we have adopted. So if we can scale it up across the country, then we can be the producer of doctors for the whole world and it can happen within five-ten years time, this is the beauty of these small time programmes, conceived well by organisations with some repute without big investment.
Q: How would you tackle the issue of scale? There are two projects that you are currently working on which are collaborative projects where you have brought several donors together. So there is scale in giving and then of course the way the projects approach a cause there would be scale in that as well. There is the children's hospital that you are building along with Dr Shetty and what some ten, fifteen, twenty corporate founders sponsors in Mumbai.
Chandra: Yes twelve corporate families and couple of companies as well as a part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget. This is the other change, Dr Shetty talked about he seeing changes in India. The one most remarkable change that I am seeing is collaborative philanthropy. What we are increasingly seeing is that what each one of us individually cannot do we are able to do by coming together as a group. The children's hospital in Mumbai will be a great example of that where twelve families will come together to put up a world class hospital.
Many of those families individually could probably donate and set up a ward in normal circumstances but could not do a hospital. It required in that case visionary leadership of Dr. Shetty and Mr. Ramadorai who have put the project together and the role we have played is in committing capital as well as helping get the other families on board. That's a good example of collaborative philanthropy.
I know Rakesh does a lot of collaborative philanthropy, every place where he is engaged with he provides a lot of credibility by being engaged and people draw comfort from that. Lots of people are engaged then with him to make things happen there. Ashoka University is a great example of again a leader like Ashish Dhawan coming together with few other corporate leaders and saying that we can build a world class university in India.
None of the fifty donors so far to that project individually are capable of setting up a college, leave alone a university. But coming together, that project has actually happened.
Q: How did you make it happen this coming together?
Chandra: There is of course a little bit of being at the right place at the right time. As Dr Shetty said things are changing today but there are two things which are important in my view one is the dream must have excellence in it. Excellence attracts a lot of interest. When Rakesh talks about Agastya, I know part of what attracts Rakesh to Agastya is Ramji Raghavan the founder of Agastya deeply believes in science and curiosity at a very high level.
Similarly with both the projects I talked about if it wasn't for the fact that you had you know people like Mr Ramadorai, Dr Shetty, Ashish Dhawan involved with these projects who really are people who stand for excellence in what they do, it would be very difficult for people to come together behind them.
That's a critical aspect that is attracting people and of course being at the right place at the right time is helping which is today people are thinking differently. There are lots of people who say that we would like to make sure that a large part of whatever we are blessed with goes back in to society during our life times as oppose to gets either consumed or gets simply given away as inheritance.
Q: Rakesh I am sure it's been your experience that when people find out that you support certain causes they want to be involved in those causes as well because those causes comes with the credibility of a Rakesh Jhunjhunwala attach them. Of course those causes themselves are important but you want to know that you are going to give money in safe hands and if Rakesh Jhunjhunwala trusts them, you would trust them as well.
Jhunjhunwala: It's not that we are supporting causes because some individual is associated. Always groups of individuals are associated and their sheer work if you look at Shoshit Seva Sangh in Bihar, that gentleman is a retired employee of Government of India. He is giving his life to see that musahar children the community, which eats rats, get education. I don't know how anybody can doubt what he is doing?
Q: Joy of giving is one thing but many people who give their money also want to try and measure the impact of that in some fashion or the other. I don't mean to make this sound commercial. But you want to know whether giving that money has been successful or not. So how do you measure that? I am trying to understand form your experiences how do you measure that?
Jhunjhunwala: First I supported Agastya in 2001, we are now in 2014, it was the idea, the concept, the crusader which I liked very much. Now the results are not going to come in two years and three years. It has taken us 12 years but now we get far more funds than we can use. It is now becoming so popular.
So it takes time and you have to have belief in the cause and the person whose doing that cause just like any business, organization or an activity. When you progress there are going to be difficulties, there are going to be challenges you got to have belief.
I don't measure things by audits may be because I don't have a very formal organisation. But these results are to see before your eyes. What is most important is the human character which is involved in carrying out this activity. If I feel the cause is good and the person is selfless, I mean I support Impact in Delhi. It is set up by the IIM class of 1984, all of them today are leading companies. Two, three of them are full time associates with it. I mean they are going to come with a cause so IIM graduates of 1984 I have no reason to doubt that they are doing it for any other purpose rather than selfless services.
Q: I am just trying to understand because these are questions that do come up in the process of giving, am I giving to the right people, how do I measure what the outcome of my giving is, is it really making a difference at all? How do you tackle these questions, I am sure you get asked these questions everyday?
Jhunjhunwala: It is like this, I give a certain amount of money to the Tata Cancer Hospital in Kolkata every year to treat children for cancer, children who cannot afford cancer treatment. I don't go and examine anything there. The house of Tata are at the forefront of charity in India, I am giving money to them to spend on children who have cancer, do you think I need to audit that? Do you think I need to understand are they spending that money correctly? You choose the cause, choose the organisation, choose the crusader.
Chandra: Rakesh is making a very important point. If you are backing the right people then it becomes much easier to open up your heart and do whatever you can to your best potential. Impact however is now becoming a more and more central issue especially because of the CSR funding which has happened and companies are used to measuring everything, its EPS and ROE and everything. So increasingly organisations are having to put in place metrics which help make it clear to the donor that people are getting bang for the buck.
In most causes you can actually do it, Rakesh is completely right, the difference between the corporate world and the not-for-profit world is that the results often take much longer in the not-for-profit world and so you need to have patience. You are little bit more of a venture capitalist than a stock market investor in that space and so you therefore make the initial bet based on credibility of people. But eventually what you want to see is you want to see the results, it has to be visible to you.
But for some causes like education you can measure things, you can say what is my pass rate. The Akanksha Foundation which is helping running municipal schools in Mumbai and Pune has now for two years in a row had a 100 percent success rate in SSC with two-thirds of the kids getting first class, 25 percent getting distinction, these are all kids from really poor background.
I think in some areas it is very important to put in place very simple matrices which give you comfort like in education you can simply measure, you can have EI which is a goal standard in educational assessment, audit your kids in third standard, fifth standard, eighth standard.
Q: How does somebody who doesn't have the time to get involved in all of this, sort of figure this out? You are fully involved in all of this so you figure it all out?
A: There are two approaches that you can choose, one is that you choose one thing and really get much more involved with it. Just like you have other interests in life, you take interest in something around you and there is often no substitute if you do that.
The second approach is actually to piggyback where if you do not have the time you basically follow others who you know have the time and are putting in the effort. So in lots of areas even Rakesh talked a little bit about this as well sometimes he is affiliated with things where he knows other people are involved that provides lot of comfort.
Let's not forget the world's largest donation ever made was the donation that Warren Buffet has made to Bill Gates Foundation and he is not at all involved in auditing the outcomes. He knows he has a sense and feel of the work that is happening and so often just making sure that you are working with people who are credible and who have the ability and desire to get engaged, is good enough.
Q: I want to then get to that point that Rakesh has so importantly raised which is that one part of philanthropy is the individual philanthropy that we have already spoken of. The other part which is potentially only going to grow from hereon exponentially maybe is corporate social responsibility prompted by the changes to the new Companies Act and the provisions requiring in companies to spend the certain minimum amount to its CSR. Rakesh you made the very important point that in the past few years when we have seen corporates get involved they bring a sense of organisation to philanthropy, they bring a sense of structure to philanthropy therefore outcomes are also easier sometimes to measure and therefore trust levels get enhances. Do you think CSR if companies deal with it correctly from here onwards can be a big game changer in the area of philanthropy?
A: Before I answer this question I want to say one thing when you say about measurement, there is a joy why do I give because there is a joy and it is my responsibility. The giver of this wealth is God and he has cast upon me a responsibility that I must use some part of this wealth for good social purpose. Now I give, suppose it does not produce good result that does not take away my joy I will try better next time.
About corporate social responsibility first of all I don't agree with the government I don't agree with this legislation. But as the citizen of this country I have to follow the law which is made by Parliament because it is a tax, government according to me is incorrect to impose a charity tax on anybody. But anyway we are citizens of this country we have to follow it. Having said that I feel it will bring much more organization and structure in giving.
2 percent of corporate India's profitability is huge, it is about Rs 20,000-25,000 crore in a year, more and for that money to be given on a recurring basis will have a very good effect and also it will raise awareness among people, among corporates may be even people lower down the run that giving is important and I hope that corporates involve their employees in giving.
Q: How do you see these additional Rs 25-30000 crore that potentially could come to many different social ventures or many needy areas, how do you see that changing the game? Do we have the capacity to absorb that money, will corporates bring better organisation and accountability to the process?
Jhunjhunwala: 2 percent of corporate tax collections will be much higher, it would be nearly about Rs 50000 crore a year.
Q: Yes but that is on the assumption that all corporates will jump into this immediately right now. It is a comply-or-explain thing.
Jhunjhunwala: No they have to do it in law.
Q: Do we have the ability to absorb this, what will corporates bring to the game?
Shetty: I think the first two-three years there will be chaos because majority of the NGOs who are into social welfare activities, they are too small and very unprofessional. If you give them more than Rs 2-3 crore they wont know what to do with that. So there will be chaos. But we are a country of extremely smart people but we will learn and this will be a gamechanger because in the area of healthcare, in the area of education, you cannot really have return on investment the way you can get in a business investment. We need a philanthropic funding for establishing all the modern healthcare or various educational avenues for children from poor families.
For instance, cancer treatment: poor people are as vulnerable for cancer as rich people. And if a child or an adult has cancer and requires radio therapy, establishing radio therapy infrastructure in any hospital will cost them minimum Rs 12-15 crore. If you spend that kind of money on radio therapy equipment there is no way majority of poor can afford it. But beauty of radio therapy is if the money comes as a CSR money, then you can virtually do radio therapy free of cost because there is hardly any recurrent investment.
So this is the way the CSR money can make a big difference. Right now if big money comes to this field of CSR, there wont be that many organisations which have infrastructure and capability to manage. So there will be lot of chaos but within two years India will set an example for rest of the world to follow. I agree with Rakesh that we don't need a law but unfortunately without law good number of companies also are not very forthcoming to donate. So this will be one of the ways to make everyone donate irrespective of their philosophy and I believe that this will be a game changer especially in the area of healthcare and education.
Q: You sit on both sides of the fences. You give away a lot of your money and your time. You are also on the boards of some companies that are now figuring out how to device a CSR policy that is truly effective, that is worth all this anguish over the law, so to speak. What is it that you're working through? How are advising these companies based on your own experience?
Chandra: The good news is that at least the leading companies already have at least some point of view on what they want to do. They have been doing it for generations. However, the smaller one's and some of them who have not been philanthropic are very quickly finding their feet and figuring out how to deploy money and there is a big challenge because as Dr Shetty put it and Rakesh articulated, numbers are actually mind boggling. There are at least 100 companies which will give away more than Rs 5-10 crore a year, in some cases it will run in to Rs 100 crore. So, the scale up that you will have to see will be really astonishing.
Q: What are the opportunities and challenges you see in that?
Chandra: Couple of things are happening. One is new projects are emerging and new opportunities are emerging where like Ashoka is a great example. No one before Ashish and the founding team put together the project had thought of raising Rs 500 crore from 100 donors to build a world class university. Today, the fact that this law exist means it is pulling in a group of people and opportunity is getting created partially because the funding is available. The children's hospital that Dr. Shetty is leading is another great example. It is partially enabled by CSR funding. The fact that higher level of funding is available is bringing in new projects, scaled project which were not feasible earlier; point number one.
Point number two is the non-governmental organization (NGOs) as well, particularly the progressive ones are beginning to prepare themselves from scale. I have sat in many meetings with social entrepreneurs where they are challenging themselves to think about how do we grow hundred X in next three or four years. One program for example, I know one organisation that I am a big fan of is Dasra and Dasra has been preparing for this for the years. They have been running training programs in partnership with Harvard Business School where they are working with 30-40 entrepreneurs at a point of time to help them understand these kinds of issues which are really issues we only know of in the corporate world. We are beginning to see that happen.
This year Dasra sent seven social entrepreneurs to Harvard Business School for training to work with the world's best social entrepreneurs and helping things through these kinds of issues. The other side is also getting prepared for this and of course the expectation that they will have to deliver great results against it.
Q: How are companies approaching this in terms of do they want to do the actual venture themselves? Are they saying if we are going to sort of put money towards let say primary education in the country, we want to build the schools, we want to run them, we want to equip them, we want to monitor their success and Shiv Nadar's foundation is doing that or are they saying no we know of this great organisation that's already doing some of this work lets put money and time and resource into scaling up this organisation itself. What are they preferring to do?
Chandra: Both things are happening. We are often seeing the same company do both. For example, Mittal Foundation is a great example; all the Bharti Schools that they have built in North India is a great example where they are actually working through their foundation. However, we are seeing a lot of other companies say that we will get together we other people and we will sponsor may be a school or try to contribute towards building a hospital. So, both things are happening.
The thing that I would love to see happen is what has happened in the west where Warren Buffett got up and said I am going to give my money to Bill Gates because he really knows how to do a great job. Maybe the next phase of this is some companies will say they might be my competitors but I think they have done a great job at building a school or running a hospital or feeding children mid-day meals and I am actually going to give to their foundation. So, that is probably the next step of it. However right now we are seeing a mix of both.
Q: We have covered a lot of that space that we already wanted to do. There are two further questions I want to put to all three of you. One is how do we get more people to join this revolution and the second is what are some of your experiences good, bad and ugly that you can leave us with in this whole process and journey of giving. So can you share with us what your experiences have been over the last four to five years?
Jhunjhunwala: My experience has been good but the only the bitter part has been that I can't run anything. I can identify the cause, I can give the money but I am incapable of myself in administrating or running any organization; that has been the running and I accept that. When I am going to give Rs 5,000 crore, I am not going to be involved in running my trust; I am going to have people whom I trust completely in doing that. The only thing I want to say is give what your conscience allows you and what your pocket permits you whether it is Rs 1 or Rs 1,000 crore.
Q: When you do setup that foundation you said you won't run it, explain to me why because a lot of the learning's that we are talking about in this conversation are experiences that you are going to have to translate into reality when you setup that foundation and try to give away on scale, right?
Jhunjhunwala: I hope to do Rs 500 crore of charity every year in my organisation, actually disburse Rs 500 crore. I run an organisation of 10 employees; I have no administrative ability. The good thing in life is not to over estimate yourself and understand your own inabilities. So I can identify the cause that I want to support and I identify the people who can do it, who can build the organisation to support those causes. I cannot do it, I am not an organisation builder, I am not an administrator.
Q: Talk us through the experiences you have had, maybe great ones with donors, some nasty ones with donors. How to meet their expectations, what have the last five years brought?
Shetty: I have no bad experiences at all and no failures because I don't expect anything in return. All I expect is just smile on the face of these kids I operate; that's all I need. My advice or suggestion for everyone is that everyday if we can do something which is going to bring some smile on the face of people who are not related to us, who are not working for us or who are not know to us and we may spend just five minutes or ten minutes of our day just to bring smile on somebody else's faces that makes a big difference to me.
I am not looking at some one writing a cheque for billions of dollars. I just want everyone to think that bringing smile on somebody else's face on a daily basis is the best gift you can give it to this world. This world will be a fantastic place to live.
Q: Last word to you, experiences, failures and successes. You started this four-five years ago and Joy of Giving week started in 2009 and you were instrumental along with Venkat Krishnan of GiveIndia of putting this on to a platform. You have been giving away your money for the last five-six years. Experiences?
Chandra: Success and failure are inevitable in everything you do. If I had failures in my business and I have been cheated in business as well and if I took my failures and the times when I have been cheated and said I will not do business any more that would be worst thing for me. Just in the same way when you are doing social things as well success and failure is inevitable. Everything is not going to work.
You do things with the best intentions and as both Dr Shetty and Rakesh said you enjoy the joy of it. It's great to see sometimes these institutions come up. I can't tell you there is nothing else in my life other than my daughter which gives me the joy of seeing something grow up; it is unmatched.
When you see children in a school, you see patients coming out of hospitals, you see kids getting fed; its unmatched, there is no consumption that you can do which can give you that kind of joy for a enduring period of time. So you have to experience that joy and be always prepared that you will have some success and some failures as you do in any other walk of life.
