LITS Global provides Indian Social Enterprises with pro-bono support from European Corporate Experts
One of the key challenges social enterprises face is lack of availability of talented people who are willing to work in the sector. Domain experts from various fields can add value to impact enterprises through their knowledge and experience. LITS Global aims to bridge social enterprises in India and other emerging countries with talented professionals in Europe.LIST Global provides teams of business experts from European corporations to carefully selected social businesses in emerging countries and covers all costs associated with their work and travel arrangements.
This August, the program will be launched in India. Zdenek Fred Fous, co-founder of LITS Global, is currently in India to decide which social businesses among the applicants will be selected. As there are a number of corporate experts waiting to be placed to a social business in the upcoming months, social businesses are still encouraged to apply.
“I’ve been travelling around emerging countries quite a lot and met a lot of people with amazing spirit and ideas for sustainably improving living standards of their communities and beyond. I felt that those people don’t always have the appropriate support they need while making their plans and dreams happen. I felt that I want to contribute to solving this problem and that is how the LITS program was born,” says Zdenek Fred.
But Fred knew that in order to achieve real impact, the concept needs to be scalable. It can’t be just him helping out. That’s why LITS program builds its impact on ongoing impact travel trips.
External point of view, extensive business experience, know-how and drive due to the limited time are the key factors that make our program successful in empowering social businesses and boosting their performance,” explains Zdenek Fred. The LITS team consists of highly motivated people seeking to deliver impact in emerging countries and is fully managed by representatives of the local social business team. Zdenek Fred continues: “We carefully mix LITS team members with different backgrounds to leverage their diversity while working on a project that has been defined by the local social business team.”
And why does the LITS team come over for just three weeks ? “On one hand, we want to make sure that anyone from the corporate world can participate without hindering their professional career. On the other hand, we believe that limited period increases work intensity and efficiency, and as a result, leads to greater outcomes,” says Zdenek Fred. “Furthermore, the three-week implementation period in person is actually preceded by a one month-long preparation period, where the local social business team and the LITS team discuss the project in detail over the internet and prepare everything for the implementation period”, he adds.
Currently, we are in the middle of finalizing the selection process. We are meeting with all social business applicants in order to decide which ones will be accepted to the program. We need to make sure that the expertise of the team matches the challenges the social business faces and to build mutual understanding. This is best done in person,” adds Zdenek Fred.
To find out more about the programme check out their website here or write to Fred at zdenek.fous AT litsglobal DOT org