L&T Financial Services Group CSR organized ‘Convergence 2019’ - an annual event from 24th to 26th July 2019. Implementing partners of LTFS’ Digital Financial Inclusion and Integrated Water Resource Management CSR programmes were invited for this event at the Eastin Aishwarya Hotel, Pune. The fundamental idea of organising this event was to explore opportunities for NGO’s and also to create a collaborative platform for to maximise the social impact of LTFS’ CSR programmes.
Sarvam, SAS is one of the implementing partner of L&T FS and one representative from the Digital Financial Literacy project (G Earnest Paul, Program Manager), participated in this year’s Convergence meet on behalf of Sarvam.
The below mentioned topics were discussed during the three day meet.
1. Legal Clauses
2. Branding & Communications
3. Internal audit
4. Fund raising
5. Social Media.
6. Communication & Story telling
7. LTFS Socio-tech
After the official welcoming of participants by Richa Pant (Head-CSR) the first session on the importance of Legal Clauses mentioned in the MOU was explained by Kavita Shetty. All the important clauses that needs to be understood by the implementing partners were explained by her.
The second session focussed on the manner in which the L&T FS Logo has to be used for communications was explained by Mr. Rohan. Usage of L&T Logo in Banners, Leaflets, Videos and many other means of communications were explained in detail for the implementing partners.
The third session focussed on Internal Audit. Members of the internal audit team presented what the implementing partners should do during the audit. They also listed the doucments that are to be submitted during the audit. The session was useful for the implementing partners as they got idea about auditing.
The next session focussed on fund raising. This training was provided by trainers from Samhita, one of the knowledge partners of LTFS. This session helped the NGO’s to know how to raise funds for their projects. The manner in which the NGO’s should prepare proposals and approach eligible donors for funds was explained in detail by the trainer Alpana Tandon. The session was also interactive and some of the participants were asked to present the methods they used to raise funds for their projects.
The second day started with the recollection of the 1st day discussions and also some of the presentations of fund raising methodology.
The next session aimed at introducing the importance of social media in developing the NGO’s at various levels. The trainers said that NGO’s are doing a lot of work, but when that is nor shared to the public, there works gets stagnated and many people do not know the quality work that is being done by the NGO’s. The trainer said that usage of Social Media sites such as Instagram and Linkedin is much essential for NGO’s to widen their network through these sites.
The trainer then focussed her shift to the art of storytelling. She said that story telling is an art and if it is said properly, many people can be easily approached for help. The trainer asked some of the implementing partners to share the change stories in their project works and said that of these stories when reach the donors through the social media sites; they will be able to donate funds for many other projects. The trainer, Sheena Seth, also said that each NGO’s must learn this art for better improvements.
The last session of the Convergence 2019 was on LTFS Socio-tech. Technical experts from LTFS provided this training on how to use the Socio Tech app for the project. Practical training was provided for all the participants and it was much useful for the NGO’s to learn using the application.
The Convergence 2019 came to an end by distributing participation certificates and also kits. This meet was very much useful for all the participants.