Anshu Gupta At BIMTECH's 6th Indian Marketing Summit

Online, August 16, 2012 (Newswire.com) - BIMTECH's 6th Indian Marketing Summit (IMS) speaker Anshu Gupta was listed by Forbes as one of India's most powerful entrepreneurs. His words move people into taking action for Gupta speaks from the heart and means what he says. Gupta shared his experiences with the gathering.

Anshu Gupta's organization, Goonj has seen the awards pour in, for this man believes that "There are two ways of doing things. One is you talk about the work and the second is that the work talks about you. In our case, after being on this journey for 13 years, the work is talking about us."

According to him, in this era of tom-tomming your every move on social networking sites, the biggest 'social media' is word of mouth. "Yes, Goonj does have its Facebook page, website, etc, but they are tools. When people see, people believe."

Goonj, that focuses largely on women in rural areas, forced organizations and people to come to their premises. Many thought the Goonj guys were arrogant. But Gupta stood firm. "Only when you come to our premises will you see what we do and believe in us." They came, they saw and the association began.

One of the biggest problems in rural areas is women's health hygiene. "One of the hidden thing that we found when we spoke to rural women, is that in many villages even a basic bath does not happen because the women have no clothes to change into," he says. Today's villages don't have the 'traditional' privacy that the old hamlets had because water bodies have dried up. The water supply comes through hand pumps located in convenient public places.

Goonj recycles and distributes old clothes to these women, complete with providing them with clean cloth to use as sanitary napkins. Even great ideas and greater work face stumbling blocks, and Gupta is no exception. "Our biggest challenge is funds. We do not even have a fund raising department, which is the basic defect in the DNA of the organization. We've never spoken about money so it becomes really tough to start talking about it now. It is the need right now," he says.

Gupta, however is very clear about the role of Corporates and NGOs. "Unfortunately, Corporates think they are god ( God?) and NGOs also think they are just that because they have a bit of money. We want to change the language. We don't think Corporates are donors and NGOs are beneficiaries. NGOs are specialized expert agencies full of committed people who want to do something good." What people do not understand is that Corporates too need to do something good for society and they require reliable agencies to work with in a mutual relationship.

Another challenge Goonj faces is with donations. Even when they distribute 10,000 leaflets in a community, only 40 or 50 contributions come in. "So far we haven't found a solution. We do not bug people with sms messages or emails. Right from the beginning we had decided to send only four to five emails in a year," Gupta reveals. His database of nearly two lakh people looks forward to emails from Goonj, with very few 'unsubscribe' clicks.

Knowing him and his resilience, the challenges Goonj faces are problems which present the solutions. ( Not too sure people will understand this)