Finding direction
Started as an afterschool center, The Akanksha Foundation now supports 14,000 students through formal education and 5,100 graduates, all from low-income backgrounds. To reach their goal of running 500 schools and 80,000 students before 2030, Akanksha wanted to boost their efficiency. They turned to Ability to Execute (A2E) for Nonprofits for support.
The Akanksha Foundation in India runs 26 schools for children in Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur. Their aim is to create a high-performing and innovative network of schools that gives children the knowledge, skills, and values to be their best and help them break out of the cycle of poverty.
But while they were an organization “steeped in empathy,” as Megha Agarwal, Senior Director of Human Resources put it, Akanksha wanted to improve accountability and align their ways of working to become more efficient.
Embrace the chaos
Day-to-day working life at Akanksha was hectic. Learning objectives and lesson plans were changing all the time, depending on the geographic area or children’s behaviors, which fed into a sense of uncertainty. And post-COVID, schools had to change how they operated. “The Ability to Execute (A2E) for Nonprofits program came to us at a time of need,” says Smita Baji, Assistant School Leader.
One module that really resonated with the 80 participants across the organization was ‘Embrace the chaos’. It teaches how to better manage confusion and disorder with an ‘awareness, pause, and reframe’ process. Instead of entering situations in a full-on panic, for example, employees learned how and when to take a moment to stop and think, ask themselves ‘How can we approach this?’, and take stock of their own energy levels.
The A2E for Nonprofits program also brought the organization closer together. “I used to believe that I was the only one facing challenges, but I learned that everybody was in some ways, too,” says Khushali Katharani, Assistant School Leader.
Doney Biju, Senior Manager Government Relations and Operations, agrees: “That was a realization for me, that I am not alone. We are all together and helping out each other.”
Working together for change
A big change to Akansha’s ways of working came from learning how to think through solutions tactically. If there was a collaborative decision to be made, they would ask themselves, ‘Why are we doing this?’ and ‘What is the need to do it?’.
And those who took part in A2E for Nonprofits shared their knowledge with the rest of their teams. “We have to learn together, grow together, and become better together,” says Gagandeep Kaur, Senior Director, Organization Effectiveness. “If your managers are equipped with these skills and mindsets, all of it does eventually drill down to everyone else.”
“I was completely blown away by the framework of ‘lead self, lead others, and lead the mission’,” says Saurabh Taneja, CEO. “Investing in [our employees’] capability development is an opportunity for them to reflect on their own leadership. So they can bring that to life for our teachers and children.”
For many who took part in the program, the power of education will go beyond the classroom, too. “A2E for Nonprofits is going to be a part of my life forever. It’s given me time to pause, made me reflect, and given me strategies to act,” says Smita.