Transcript
Speaker: The court didn't even have a copy of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The minute we talk about animal welfare, in most people's mind it ends up being vegetarianism. We are not asking you not to consume eggs, we are asking you to consume eggs but from cage-free. Does the world care enough to pay more for cage-free? Millions of egg-laying hens spend their lives in cages too small to spread their wings. Jaisimha N. founded Global Food Partners to change that, with credits that lent food companies back cage-free farms across Asia. On this episode of the Founder Thesis Podcast, Jaisimha joins Aksha to talk about making animal welfare a business priority and why doing the right thing can also make good business sense.
Speaker: Human interaction with animals is very different in India than in many other places. It works both pro as well as anti-animals. Why is it that India has so many straight outs as compared to any other country?
Speaker: Jaysema, you are a lawyer by training and and yet you got into the world of nonprofits. Was that choice or was that just the first job you found? um No, it was by choice. um Born and brought up in a Tambram family.
Speaker: um By the time I was born, I guess my parents had carved out their path to success. ah I'm kind of second generation out of poverty. My parents were the first generation out and they only knew one path out and it was to either be a doctor or an engineer.
Speaker: But born up in Bangalore, so it didn't matter what you were doing, you had to work for Infosys. ah That was the path. It didn't. As in, I remember my one of my cousins ended up getting job at IBM and then she went and told my grandmom saying that I got a job at IBM and she's like, oh, why not Infosys? so uh so in that sense ah um uh yeah i don't think it was like a it was a choice that i made very early on so right when i finished my 12th standard i decided that um animal welfare was the thing that i wanted to do and um i wasn't smart enough to get into a veterinary school and then finally it was like well i could just get into law school so that's how i got into law and then uh So being a lawyer kind of became a pathway to animal advocacy rather than like being lawyer first and then I'm like, okay, we just become an advocate.
Speaker: yeah Okay, interesting. So what like I'm assuming spent the like first about five years of your, maybe 10 years of your career at PETA.
Speaker: Yeah. ah This was like essentially, ah there is that PLI, public interest, PIL, what what is that? the public intertigations yeah Public Interest Public Interest Integations. Was that what you were doing?
Speaker: So, I wasn't. um So, my absolute first interaction with animals and the law came when I was right out of my second POC, 12th standard in Bangalore.
Speaker: I was volunteering at People for Animals. It's a local animal welfare organization that Srimati Menka Gandhi had started. And for people from that generation, in DD2, there was a ah TV show called Heads and Tails, where Mrs. Gandhi would come and show these ghori videos every week. And then she would say, if anybody who wants to be involved, you can write to her at A4 Maharani Pag. I still remember the address. And she said, then you can write to A4 Maharani Pag. So at that point of time, my parents had a stack of postcards at home because they were crazy about ah entering into Surabhi's answer and get like an award. Like, you know, you could write a question. So there was a TV channel. So I took one of those cards and then I wrote a letter to Mrs. Gandhi saying that I see all of this abuse. I want to be involved.
Speaker: To my surprise, she wrote back in a letter saying that here's the local People for Animals chapter that you can go and join. And I just finished my second PUC and then i had like a ton of time.
Speaker: Decided to go volunteer with them. And um the first response that they gave me was to um a Kalandar dancing bear in Bangalore. So they were like, there is a dancing bear. Why don't you go respond?
Speaker: I didn't know that it was illegal then, realized that it was illegal. There was a law that had come in that had outlawed Kalandas dancing bears in India. And I went to the local police station.
Speaker: The local police station called Banargata National Park. They came, they confiscated the animal, took the animal to Banargata National Park. The next day I was asked to go to court. I went to court, ah the criminal court in Mayo Hall, I think.
Speaker: And um there, for the first time, I saw the apathy of the criminal justice system towards animals. This was coming from a family where stepping a foot in police station in court was a taboo. Like in a sense, like you can never, ever step a foot in a... So I was like, okay, let me go and try. I think my parents were like not too happy about that.
Speaker: And at that point of time, the court was like, oh, an animal is a perishable goods. And what are you supposed to do for a perishable goods? They opened the criminal procedure code. I didn't know any of this. I learned much later.
Speaker: And they said that, well, if it's a perishable goods, then you need to auction and put the money in the treasury. i was like, well, you can't auction a bear. um And just to kind of start seeing as to the fact that the court didn't even have a copy of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. They wanted a copy of the notification that had banned kalandars or bear dancing.
Speaker: And we had to call Mrs. Gandhi, who was then the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, and they had to fax the notification out. um And finally, these bears ended up being in the rescue center run by Wildlife SOS in Bangalore.
Speaker: Just that the apathy that I saw and then over a period of time, we realized that, you know, animals would get confiscated, they would get auctioned off because that was what being done. Most of the time, the custody would be given back to the abusers themselves.
Speaker: um Got me more and more fixated on the idea that the law had to improve. And um then I took up law and started working at PETA for a long period of time as an undercover investigator on sughter slaughterhouses, transport routes, factory farms, labs, documenting a lot of cruelty.
Speaker: And much later is when I started in like the public policy work. So initial period of my time was just documenting cruelty. So that's my genesis story.
Speaker: India a funny country that way, where ah I found that at the grassroots, there is a lot of reverence for animals. ah You know, I grew up in Delhi, totally metro, ah but I moved to a much smaller place and there was a monkey menace there and Typically in Delhi, you would, like whatever, someone would come chase them away, etc. route or But the place where I was at, they refused violence against monkeys because of religious reasons, their Hanuman avatar, and would even leave food for them, and which I found pretty surprising. And I think that reverence for animals runs quite deep in India, even though...
Speaker: laws in India would probably be decades behind laws in the West for prevention of cruelty against animals. I mean, what's your take on that? So I think you're right. I think human interaction with animals is very different in India than in many other places. It works both pro as well as anti-animals. And I can give you some examples in and the sense like pro in the sense like obviously ah just the fact that animals are beings you don't need to explain because we have gods who are also half animals, half humans. So the concept that there is that that line between human and animals is very blurred already, right?
Speaker: um But then the issue then comes up is that there is an orders of magnitude larger focus on the quantity of life rather than quality of life.
Speaker: And from an animal welfare perspective, what you really are looking at is that the quality of life and rather than the quantity of life. What does that mean? Like for example, let's say you there are these cow slaughter ban laws that come in, right?
Speaker: um A lot of these cow slaughter or buffaloes who get slaughtered are spent cows and spent buffaloes of the milk industry. In the tabelas, it's not like the life of these animals are any good.
Speaker: now Growing up in Delhi, if you went to the dairy colony um and you just basically in Ghaziabad or anything, massive um landfill, right next to the landfill you have all the tabelas. These tabelas are in either ground floor, first floor of houses. These animals are tethered, they're never given outdoor space.
Speaker: And the focus is not on the fact that when the animal is alive, the quality of that life is so poor, so poor. But then the minute the splotter comes up, you're like, nahi nahi nahi
Speaker: but then when you're alive the concept of welfare is not there so a lot of times even well-meaning people who rescue these animals and bring them to gauchhaas these gaushalas end up being such, not all of them, but would say a vast majority of them, very poor veterinary care, there's no food, the food is dependent on some random donor coming in and throwing something, the animal who is sick will never get access to it. So in that sense, like you kind of start seeing, because you're looking at it all from that religious lens, the qualitative aspect saying that, okay, what's the quality of this animal's life? that kind of blurs out, which is a problem. um And when you really look at it, the prevention of cruelty to animals act was a giant leap and change in how we looked at animals because till that particular point of time, all we thought was like, don't slaughter.
Speaker: We never thought of like, if you are going to slaughter, make the life of the animals better. I feel like that's a little bit of a stick. So for example, a lot of time people are like, what's wrong with eggs? Then you're like, no, these animals are kept in small cages. They're not given enough space to stand up, turn around. They'll like, oh, but they're not killed.
Speaker: So that's the thing. Like in a sense, people who are like really obsessed about the fact that one should not eat beef, are completely okay with milk and they don't see the link that these two are the same coin of two different sides because one causes death and one does not cause death. So I guess like ah that's the positive as well as negative and I agree with you on the law, you know.
Speaker: My father used to always say
Speaker: So butra taal dikta du say daotobi barra ta chadikta so in the similar way, for someone who is watching um ah India from the outside, the concept of Ahimsa, our constitution having this fundamental duty to be compassionate to all animals, the Supreme Court writing out these massive Magna Carta for animals.
Speaker: So you'd be like, oh wow, this must be like an amazing place to be for an animal. Similarly, you get Doordarshan and you're like, this is it But the reality is vast. Our lived experience is different, absolutely. yeah yeah yeah yeah But, ah you know, ah something like, say, ah stray dogs, why is it that India has so many stray dogs as compared to any other country? And I feel like part of it is, again,
Speaker: Like there is compassion towards stray dogs. People leave food for them, stuff like that, right? i think there are multiple issues there. how One is just our city planning and urban management. So poor.
Speaker: Stray dogs, like rats, are boomerang breeders. uh you can't like their population is directly proportional to the holding capacity of a place. So you can keep removing as many stray dogs that you want as long as the food is available and they are constantly going to breed.
Speaker: And also the issue is that in India we also have free roaming pet dogs. So the people who feed them they are pet dogs but they're not necessarily kept indoors but they're not spayed and neuter. The municipality or Nagar Nibgam cannot pick up these dogs because they have somebody who is a owner.
Speaker: um So, but then you all you need is like one male dog who is not sterilized, who can then impregnate so many animals. So, i think there are multiple issues, but Why is there stray dog as an issue? I feel like these dog feeders are maybe a part of the problem, but the larger issue is that our urban local bodies have completely failed on taking this up. So again, I'll go back.
Speaker: um One of the early work that I did in Bangalore, till about 2000, because Bangalore was a cantonment and had like that history, dogs were regularly being killed in the city of Bangalore. Dogs were being picked up. I remember going to the first dog pond in Kormangla ever in my life. They had these dogs, puppies kept in cages. They would like electrocute them and kill them.
Speaker: Like this literally pour water, give electrocute and kill them. And this was happening for a long period of time. It isn't like the dog population in Bangalore was any low. primarily because of the boom-brang breeding, right? As in you remove from one place, the food is there, the dogs from the neighboring will come. And then there is a whole fight for territory, the bites increase. And we've seen in places, be it Bhutan, Pink City, Jaipur, many other places where you do animal birth control program and and know maintain garbage and stuff like that, you can decrease.
Speaker: But then that requires the Nagar Nigams to actually do the work that they need to do. And we all know what happens. If you're growing up in Delhi, Frendi Coast has something below defense colony. And that's not enough to control dog population of defense colony. You know what I mean? So there is that issue that is overall there. So, yeah.
Speaker: ah my so My guess is that we need to like remove the science and the rhetoric outside. um If we were to do a mathematical modeling saying that you know if we were to remove all dogs in Delhi, would there be no dogs? That's not true because it's not porous borders, right? As in they'll come from Haryana. Now, if you remove from Haryana, then they'll come from Uttar Pradesh. there is And even if you were to remove all of them, there are going to be these...
Speaker: breeders who have dogs that they can't sell, they'll put them back on the street. Somebody will buy a puppy, they'll put them back on the street. There'll be a pet dog ah who is a free roaming pet dog who's on the street. So all of that issues will always be there. So I think it needs a multiple approach. One is we need to regulate pet dogs. We need to regulate pet shops, breeders.
Speaker: ah food stalls, garbage, animal birth control and I guess feeding stations and people have to be responsible when they feed not just like you know a morning walk, I just like threw it everywhere because it makes me feel good.
Speaker: um There is that issue as well you know I'll buy Parleji and just like dump it across my morning walk because it makes me feel good. There's also that issue so I feel like it's a part of the problem but I wouldn't say it's the only problem.
Speaker: ah Very interesting, the the ecosystem approach which this needs. I hadn't thought of it in that sense. So, ah you know, ah I want to kind of understand your career arc from beta to global foods.
Speaker: Yeah, so my career arc was, so I worked with studying with PETA and while I was with PETA, I, again, I've always been a welfare reform person, Akshay. While um I worked, so PETA had launched a massive campaign against Indian leather.
Speaker: And at that particular point of time, the Council for Leather Exports had launched a pilot project to improve transport slaughter and a transport route in Tamil Nadu. So, they had identified Pullah Chi market.
Speaker: Coimbatore's slaughterhouse and the transport route between Polachi and Coimbatore. So that was my first project working at PETA, where we were building water troughs for the animals, ramps, so that the animals are taken care of. And um we rebuilt the slaughterhouse there with like stunning machines and stuff like that.
Speaker: um There, it was a very successful pilot project. Where it fell apart was the leather buyers were not willing to pay a premium for leather that was coming out of this particular starter house.
Speaker: Once the premium was not there, the farmers and the starter house workers had no motivation to continue to do this extra work. So that's where my fixation came in saying that if animal welfare is not economically viable, it's never going to be viable. It can't just sit on its own outside.
Speaker: um From there, for whatever reason, PETA then decided to move away from its welfare reform stance to abolitionist stance. And um who am I to comment on what an organization does, but it didn't fit right into me.
Speaker: I moved to another welfare reform organization called the Humane Society International, now called the Humane World for Animals. They are one of the world's largest animal welfare group. ah Again, we were focused on welfare v reform work on the layer industry.
Speaker: And there were some places where you could abolish, for example, animal testing of cosmetics in some places where you know science could come in. But mostly i realized that welfare reform was the way to go.
Speaker: ah And as in when I wanted to kind of optimize my life, I realized that ah than being involved in multi-species approach and trying to do everything, it is better to deep down. And when I started to dig deep down, it realized that egg-laying hens was that one issue and intensive confinement of egg-laying hen was that one issue that I needed to solve.
Speaker: And we needed the market approach to that because we had tried public policy ah But in Asia, India, public policy has its own limitation. I'm happy to dig deep into it. And then I was like, well, market solution might be the way to go. And we decided to co-found Global Food Partners along with my ah co-founder, Elissa Lane, who was also working at Humane World for Animals. So seven years ago, we found co-founded global four Global Food Partners. So yeah, that's about my 26 years of career really condensed.
Speaker: ah Tell me about how public policy happens. ah It's the act of influencing laws. That's right. That's right. So you could do it in three ways. One is you can change the legislation itself.
Speaker: So let's say bringing in amendments to prevention of cruelty to Animals Act 1960. um So let's say the penalty at this particular point of time for most abuses is 50 rupees.
Speaker: So, which is really low, right? As in it doesn't cause deterrence. And obviously, ah with law, you look for two things. One is not just the intensity of punishment, but it's the certainty of punishment.
Speaker: And in India, what ends up happening is that, like for example, let's take Nirbhaya. After the Nirbhaya situation that happened, people, the intensity increased, the severity of punishment increased with the Nirbhaya Act.
Speaker: But the problem still is that there is no certainty of punishment. And both needs to go hand in hand. For example, what makes Singapore so law abiding is that the it's intense punishment, but certain punishment.
Speaker: In fact, there is a case to show that even if the punishment intensity is lower, as long as it is certain people will learn. would have seen in India also, you have like one new commissioner who's enforcing helmet rule. Suddenly every footpath is selling helmet because they're like, we'll just do it. The minute this commissioner is gone, the helmet is gone as a rule. right So, it's there is that there's that issue that is there.
Speaker: So, you could you could influence the legislation, the primary legislation itself. The second that can happen is that the primary legislation exists, but then there is some leaveage within the primary legislation for the executive to bring in rules.
Speaker: So, for example, ah under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Section 11 says that no person shall confine an animal and the definition of the word animal includes birds as well.
Speaker: any animal in a cage or receptacle which does not measure adequately in length, breadth or height to provide reasonable opportunity of movement. Now what is reasonable opportunity of movement? You can have the government bring in a rule as a delegated legislation and they can say that we brought in an egg-laying hen rule and the reasonable opportunity of movement is that it has to have enough space to purge, lay egg in a nest box, they can define it.
Speaker: The third way is through public interest litigation because we are a common law country. um the Mostly the Supreme Court ah through delegated digistation a true not sorry i don't meanated through ah litigation can fill a gap that is there in the law The good example of that was Vishakh.
Speaker: So for the longest period of time, India did not have any sort of legislation to prevent sexual harassment of workplace at all. So you had the Vishakh, the state of Rajasthan ruling for a long period of time in companies, they would have like these Vishakh companies, kind committees that was taking care.
Speaker: Till the point the government of India brought in the POSH Act, the prevention of sexual harassment at workplace law, which replaced it. So there broadly three ways of doing public policy. And ah in Asia, specifically like Southeast Asia, India, you're saying public policy doesn't work because of enforcement issues.
Speaker: then i cat I wouldn't say it doesn't work. I would say it's a harder battle. And there are multiple issues. One is um in places like India, you can get the law, but then there is no state capacity to enforce. And the state capacity to enforce is dependent on the state's willingness and on the priority. It's not like state doesn't have capacity to enforce anything. Like, you know, if they want to enforce it, they possibly can. Do they want to really enforce it?
Speaker: um The second issue that comes up is that in a lot of other countries, lobbying itself is not an option. Like, you know, you can't, you don't have this thing of like, you can go petition the government, the governments are a little bit inward looking, or there isn't a local movement of animal advocates who are able to ask for that. And obviously, you don't want foreigners coming and asking for a legislation in that particular country because then that becomes weird.
Speaker: So, and then the third aspect that is kind of cuts across multiple nations is the concept of regulatory capture, where you have a regulator, but the industry that is supposed to be regulating captures the regulator.
Speaker: So, but then all the information is being fed from that particular industry, then the regulator will just nod head and say, okay, to whatever the industry says. And ah there ends up being some sort of civil society representation.
Speaker: But then even that particular civil society can be handpicked to choose who will maybe be more conformist. ah But for example, Bureau of Indian Standards. Now, the Bureau of Indian Standards, for the longest period of time,
Speaker: ah has a committee, they have this whole process to come up with the standard. The question they'll then arises that are they going to have a Sunita Narayan come in from down to earth to give the science or are they going to get someone else to come and give? Obviously based on that because they work on consensus the standard quality can go up and down. And that will depend on the committee who is formed. So I'm not saying that it always happens, but there are many cases where there is the regulatory capture. So there are it's a multifaceted issue as to why public policy is hard.
Speaker: And ah versus the market approach, what does that mean? What is the market approach? So the market approach, not a silver bullet, but at least seems that market has no emotions, right? um In the sense like you are able to, if there is a market for a particular product, it's going to pick up.
Speaker: And it's the true test of fire. And in that sense, what we believe is if there are companies who see animal welfare as a true reputation risk,
Speaker: and which they are. In fact, polls after polls for Gen Z consumers. So let's say consumers born in the year 2000 onwards who are starting to draw their first paychecks now.
Speaker: And there are multiple reasons as to why they are more able to spend on food because housing being so expensive, if I cannot buy a house and I could never buy a house because of whatever the interest rate being 7% plus and being so expensive, I have some income I need to spend. I'll either queue up for a labubu or I'll queue up to buy better food.
Speaker: And then we will to spend, like in the sense that's a matter of fact. and Like ah a lot of times my father will ask, why aren't the current generation buying houses? I'm like, well, they can't afford to buy a house. That's why they're not buying houses. Why are they queuing up for labubu? They're queuing up for labubu because that's the only thing that they can actually buy. Like in a sense, like, you know, that's the only reason. In the sense, like, it's not like people are like, oh, I'm not going to buy a house because I want to buy a labubu. Like, and that's not what's happening, right? So that means that there is expendable income.
Speaker: That expendable income, people are being more curious about where the food is coming from. um And animal welfare is an issue that is really on top of mind, especially with like social media driving out imagery and stuff like that.
Speaker: So, from a company's point of view, future proof proofing their supply chain seems like animal welfare is a good answer. It's easy to explain, um easier than like carbon neutral and stuff like that, right?
Speaker: From a farmer point of view, there is another issue that they are facing. The next generation of farmers rather sell their land and build a condominium, cities are expanding, than run a farm.
Speaker: And so how do you continue to keep that next generation of farmers engaged is if you kind of add in some sort of an animal welfare, other value chain where they kind of feel good about going to a farm and running to a farm that will attract. So, in that sense, we feel like from a producer point of view and the buyer point of view, animal welfare is a good selling point. And if we can create a market for something that's already good, then change will happen with lesser resistance than the institutional resistance that public policy brings.
Speaker: So, carrot is the rustic basically. You know, there was this movie, Apna Sapna Mani Mani. That's a poster that high and i't I actually used to have that poster put up because actually it's not Apna Sapna Mani Mani.
Speaker: Sapka Sapna Mani Mani. Whether we like it or not. Whatever people might say, and you know, when i subtiakdi aha I don't want anything. But finally, Sapka Sapna Mani Mani. So if that's the case,
Speaker: it's a power it's ah it's ah It's an amazing power to do good. And at some point of time, we have villainized carrot, which is basically the money. ah Say that we've somehow villainized this concept saying that money is bad. It's not. It's ah it's an amazing power to do good.
Speaker: And if we are able to say that, well, you can do good and get the carrot, why not? yeah yeah yeah uh you know the as you mentioned that the current generation uh does care about doing good and uh part of what i want to do in this conversation with you is to understand different ways of doing good uh we had previously spoken about effective altruism as one of the ways of doing good Another way could be to directly build your career in the nonprofit space. So I'll go into both of these threads with you. But let's start with the the effective altruism thread.
Speaker: um What exactly is effective altruism? There are a lot of famous ah effective altruists like Sam Altman, and Sam Bankman-Fried, who have made this into something buzzy. But what exactly is it?
Speaker: Fun. I know that you took two people's names who have made it famous and infamous. So I wouldn't necessarily say two times making it famous and infamous. I'm just just throwing it out there.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. I think the idea, and again, obviously, I'm not a spokesperson for Center for Effective Altruism, but I identify myself as an effective altruist. ah I know it kind of sounds braggish, but it's not. But anyway, um I think um it's basically the idea is like, let's work out the best way to help others.
Speaker: And the idea really is that it's not just enough to do good. We need to figure out what is the most good that we can do for a dollar spent or an hour spent in our lives. right And that's the concept behind effective altruism, which kind of is a bit more extension or even counterintuitive. right um so um
Speaker: the the most important thing that we are told is like, help thy neighbor, like you know, just help the person. But if you are like living in Antella, Helping thy neighbor might not, your neighbor might not be the most person who needs help. Maybe four blocks down the line, the people in Dharavi is where you want to go, who might not be helping thy neighbor.
Speaker: So in the sense, so ah that's the whole idea. In the sense, there are people, animals, suffering that happens beyond where our neighborhood is.
Speaker: And we need to be figuring out what most that we can do. And to answer your question, there are different pathways that one can do. One is obviously, if you have the earning potential, you can go ahead and earn the money and donate it to most effective charities ah so that they are able to do good work.
Speaker: The second could be change your own career path so that you are able to do good work and that could be setting up a non-profit or it could also be setting up up a for-profit enterprise. I don't think it has to be philanthropy. You could like set up a for-profit enterprise to do good. So the question really is that if we all have give or take 80,000 hours of working life,
Speaker: Are we able to do the best that we can to reduce suffering or increase well-being of the others in the most optimal way that we can? And I think that's the sum and substance of effective altruism.
Speaker: So, I was under the impression that effective altruism in short is like earn as much as you can so that you can give more money to charity, but it's not only that.
Speaker: It's not. really So, there are three things that you can do. So, either or broadly two things, either you can earn to give, or you can change your career paths. And that could be either in the for-profit or in the non-profit way.
Speaker: Okay. What are some examples of for-profits which have like that effective altruism philosophy behind them? o A lot of the plant-based companies and let's say cellular agriculture companies, and they being successful would be good.
Speaker: I know that there are a lot within the health space as well who are doing that, you know, ah you know reducing... delivery time of, let's say, vaccine. Increasing to healthcare. For example, ah all the companies who worked so closely during COVID to find the vaccine, roll it out.
Speaker: I think they ah they they were supported by philanthropy. Then you had the profit companies. So it could be a company which is trying to find solution for malaria. um So I think there are multiple things that one could do.
Speaker: um So, yeah, there are companies who could potentially make money and come up with a commercial product to help or a cage-free farm. That's a good way. So you can run a successful economically viable cage-free farm. So these are some of the examples of like setting up or even in the AI safety space, ah to but potentially people could create tools which can be deployed.
Speaker: Okay. ah Let's talk a bit about a career or a like building in the nonprofit space more specifically. ah ah Can you give me an understanding of how the nonprofit See, I mean, there's a plain, simple definition, non-profit is anybody which exists to ah not make a profit, but to achieve some altruistic goal. um But then there would be practical nuances. I'm imagining that, ah for example, ah how do you pay salaries of people? How do you... Really, how do you measure impact? How do you attract donors? ah Would nonprofits be more of a B2B or a B2C enterprise, ah you know, in terms of the donors? And especially India has that ah mandatory CSR spend. How does that influence the market in India for nonprofits? so Like, you know, how does that industry work?
Speaker: Yeah, a lot to unpack. So I think the first thing is um what cause area to pick. For a lot of time, we say
Speaker: whatever cause area is closest to your heart. and Now, while I do understand the emotion of cause alignment, I think that maybe a tad bit of detachment there is important.
Speaker: right And I think that's almost a detachment that we even tell for people on their career choices. If you say, do what you want, then we would all be wanting to be Indian idols. um that it's we So ah well but so that that pragmatism that comes in, ah so there's broadly a test, Akshay. One is, is the issue that you are going to work on have the scale?
Speaker: The second thing is, once you've identified an issue that has scale, is that issue neglected? Because the idea really is that if it's not neglected, what you are adding could then have just a marginal benefit.
Speaker: And the third issue is that is there a tractable solution to that particular issue that you want to solve? And I think is to find something that fits with all three.
Speaker: Now let's take Save the Tiger. Now, saying a tiger is important, but if your objective is to reduce the number of suffering, the total number of tigers in the world, like not even basis point of the total number of animals that are there,
Speaker: And it's not even a neglected issue, everybody wants to save a tiger. And there might be tractable solutions to save them. So, if anybody wants to do a career change, I would say save the tiger is probably the least effective way you can do anything at this point of time.
Speaker: Right? Whereas let's take factory farming of animals. The issue is large. There's a large scale of suffering that happens. And we know that there are some tractable way like cage-free commitments, alt-protein, in which you can improve. So I would say that, yes, you can work on that.
Speaker: So even in that, you could figure out as to what is the total number of hours of suffering that happens um versus, let's say, ah if somebody is working on a diet choice, ah getting somebody to stop eating red meat versus white meat, you're better off if people don't eat white meat because the total number of suffering that happens in a fish or a chicken versus, let's say, a red meat, which is a much larger animal, is higher, right? So there are those small nuances that you can kind of bring in. So in the sense of what is the issue, what is the ask, and how is that a measurable goal, right? As in that's the whole thing. Now,
Speaker: ah One of the big thing in ah public health has been with effective altruism has been bed net, giving medicated bed nets to prevent malaria.
Speaker: It's simple, it's cost effective, you can do something, preventable death, easy. Similarly, in terms of development finance, we see like direct cash transfers.
Speaker: ah The early on, the idea has been that if somebody is poor and they want at the receiving end of the money, there is this judgment that you go in saying that the person is poor because they just make poor life choices, which is not true in most cases.
Speaker: Right? As in a number of times, I'm sure it has happened to you. You'll see like, don't give them money, buy them an apple. Right? Like, like don't give them fish, teach them to fish.
Speaker: Fish, right? So, the, the idea really is that do don't Don't give them fish. Don't teach them to fish. Give them the money. Let them learn what they want to learn.
Speaker: Who are you to decide? In the sense that we, there is that sense, right, in the philanthropy where the person who is giving says that because I'm in the power to give, I somehow have this world vision as to what is better to you. So I will give you suing machines because I think that you should be suing.
Speaker: I'll give you a cow because you should be milking. No, just give money. But then the counter thing that comes up is like, areri you give money to poor people, they'll just drink and waste it all away. There is that sense that come in, right? Or like even when animal charity, a lot of people are like, I won't give you money, I'll give you rice.
Speaker: There was this one large company who during COVID gave a disinfectant to animal charities as a in-kind gift.
Speaker: We realized that that disinfectant was poisonous to animals. Yeah, obviously. le Okay. You can use it for humans. It's poisonous if you were to clean. They won't give the money. They're like, no, but we'll give you in kind donations.
Speaker: ah Whereas that that's probably not the best way because, you know, then you're like massive supply chain moving around, right? So so the idea really there is um what is the most effective way in which you can do? And yeah, one can donate money, direct cash transfer. So you pick the area that costs. So i think that's the first to unpack as to what you should be doing.
Speaker: The second thing that comes in is like, how do you access money? And broadly, I feel like money is not your biggest bottleneck. If we are able to document out as to what work that we are doing, and there's a good monitoring and evaluation in place, and we are able to say that by investing x amount of rupees, you're actually able to reduce the amount of suffering or whatever good that we want to do.
Speaker: And that's where the community of earning to givers or people have taken giving what you can pledge, the effective of altruism funds that exist as an animal welfare fund, infrastructure funds, where people can apply.
Speaker: There are many incubations that that's also there. So there are two elements, right? People who want to do good, people who are earning to do good. And that's where the synergy comes between those two.
Speaker: And we want to rewrite the thought about what a philanthropic worker is. Because in many sense, if you were to say somebody is working for philanthropy, the imagery that comes to your mind is that there's a jhola carrying worker, wearing a Hawaii chapel, has to be walking around.
Speaker: yeah Right? That's, if I were to say, he's social worker. hair So, what is the immediate thing that comes in? JNU graduate who got the least amount of marks, who got into somehow into social work because all other streams were done and now is wearing a kurta pyjama and is wearing a Hawaii chapel, carrying a jola and walking around the streets.
Speaker: the I have to say that this is an outdated view. Today's generation would see as an Instagram influencer. Correct. Or, don't know, I think that's that's one. Or, Soros-funded, Instagrammable, larger than our urban nuxials or whatever they're being called nowadays, right?
Speaker: There are two extreme worldviews that exist. I agree with you. So, there's like either the two extreme worldviews. One is like, JNU read Instagram friendly, somehow Soros funded people who are on the streets.
Speaker: The other is that there is a Jorah carrying. One of them, you broadly within those two characters. You don't have to be in either of that. And the idea is that one is able to earn a good living, do science. And I think the expectations that comes up The fail point acceptance in a VC for a for-profit is so much higher.
Speaker: You can have ah electric motorbike company going through an IPO. The people have invested never getting that particular money back because an hyped IPO.
Speaker: Or like just a simple payment gateway going for an IPO, people never getting. Then the fail point is like Business mei hota hai. Risk toh hota hai. Correct. Right?
Speaker: You can have large companies filing for bankruptcies all the time. You see, hota hai. Business mei hota hai. Risk toh hota hai. Whereas that same amount of risk-taking ability, we never afford to philanthropy.
Speaker: And say, paisa kha ke chale ga hai. like it that's the if If there is a charity that fails, you're saying that pea caquelega if there is a startup that fails, and learning is happening. And we want to rework on that. I think so those are, I think I don't know if that broadly answers your question on the ecosystem. I think that reworking saying that a philanthropic founder should have the same amount of risk taking ability and backing It's just that the KPI that you're tracking is different. Here it is like earning per share.
Speaker: Here is a reduction of suffering per dollar. But other than that, it's the same. ah You know, in startups, there's this concept of finding product market fit. What does that look like in the nonprofit world?
Speaker: right. It's the same. fri the the The impact, neglectedness, tractability framework actually gives you the market fit. The product fit that is there because if you're able to crack all three, you're able to do well.
Speaker: Now, there are certain things... But what are indicators that you have found product market fit? So... If you're able to find a cause that ticks to all three, that's your best product market fit.
Speaker: I mean, how do you know? that Is it that you start getting lot of inbound interest or... It's hits-based approach at this point of time actually. So I think you're right. How do you know? One cannot know till you actually run in ah randomized control trial, right? As in like, how do you know any intervention works? You need to run that RCT.
Speaker: Till you get to that RCT point, you're basically doing hits-based approach. So the way you work is that for cause areas where we know that there is a problem, we don't know whether the intervention works or not, you invest in a hits-based approach.
Speaker: And the same similar thing that we would do in any startup, but a sandbox is basically a hits-based approach. We don't know what's going to come out of it. We'll just like put money equally to everything. Stay up. There's some, there's one shining star that's going to come out of it.
Speaker: Similar approach, you do a hits based approach on from a sandbox basis. And then you realize that, okay, a particular intervention seems promising. And then you're able to run RCTs and do some particular modeling, whether to increase funding, decrease funding, what the geographical fit is. And i think like that's the only way one can find out whether it's working or not by doing it. You can do some amount of mathematical modeling, right? For example, ah one issue that I've grappled with is that, for example, there's a lot of suffering in nature and wildlife. So as much as we romanticize nature, you take a walk in the jungle.
Speaker: there's a lot of suffering there. So, in terms of like this immense amount of suffering out there, but we don't have a tractable solution. What are we to do? Like, you know, there's a, if I were to say insects feel pain and then you have a tree full of insects and they're suffering, there's nothing that we can do about it because we don't know. but so but One quick question, sorry. What's the, you know, I'm a little confused on the term tractable. Can you just...
Speaker: So, tractable is like something that can be, that has the traction, that you're able to do something and it kind of is like, it's tractable. It's like you have the traction and it's not something that will just work in one particular place and it will stop.
Speaker: So, for example, you could say that Singapore model of governance is not a tractable model because beyond Singapore, if I were to take this to any large countries,
Speaker: It's not going to work because you need to have something that you can't say that Singapore is going to work, we can do it in the same way in the same way. It's not a tractable way in which you can do it. It works for Singapore, it's not going work anywhere else. So in that sense, is there some tractable way? So there's a traction that you can replicate.
Speaker: Replicability, if is that's the word that I want to use there. So, is this like is there a replicable solution? I don't have a replicable solution for that particular thing. So, that means that for there, you're better off spending money on research to find out, okay, is there some solution that can be provided? So, in that sense, um yeah you ah the the market fit is going to come from the fact that ah we take a hits-based approach, invest, and have this constant guardrail of for every rupee that we spend, are we able to demonstrate reduction in suffering or increase in well-being?
Speaker: and compare one against the other. and And that's just principles of capitalism. Like, how do you know which company you want to invest as a value investor?
Speaker: You identify the matrix and then you say, okay, it seems like the P&E ratio is pretty good, the management is pretty good, they're getting the answers, maybe then I'll continue to invest in this.
Speaker: ah and And sometimes in a pure, let's say, pre-listing stage, you're taking a hits-based approach. and know I'm just going to invest. There might end up being one Uber, but there must be like a hundred that will fail. But it is what it is.
Speaker: What you're telling me is how to get to product market fit. What I want to know is ah for a startup, for example, you would say that if a startup has crossed $1 million ARR in year one, then it has got product market fit. There's a very clear measurable metric of your revenue run rate, which tells you if you have got product market fit. ah Maybe there is some also people talk of like ah customer acquisition costs versus how much you earn from a customer. If there is a 2x, 3x there, then you have found product market fit. um
Speaker: So how do you know that Global Food Partners has found product market fit? Is it some metric like how much funds you have been able to raise? Or, you know, what what are those metrics that tell you that what you're doing is making an impact in the world as the world sees it and not as you see it?
Speaker: I cannot actually say it at a very high confidence level that we have found it and I think I need to be very truthful on that. um Because at this particular point of time, we are in that hit space, where we are trying to see what comes out of it. We're gathering the data.
Speaker: I can tell you whether the trajectory seems that we have found a project matter of fact that we want to continue to invest it, but I don't think I can definitely say, yes, we have found it and we've cracked it. So let me tell you what the trajectory looks like.
Speaker: We look at okay um we we say we look like ah look at a country where we operate and we do some sort of counterfactual thinking.
Speaker: The counterfactual thinking basically being that okay if we were not there, what would the progress of cage-free look like in that particular country? Now, I can't say that no it would not happen at all, but you presume that you know if if we were not doing it, nobody else is doing it, what would be there? now There could be a situation that somebody else filled that gap, but some some assumption has to be done there. right And then you realize that, okay, our presence has been able to accelerate that particular growth to cage-free.
Speaker: So Indonesia, prior to our coming there, we didn't have a model farm. We didn't have certified humane cage-free facilities. um We didn't have a large amount of farmers who are adopting. Now we have over a hundred farms who are transitioning to cage-free, growing interest, companies buying cage-free. There's a cage-free producers association who has come in in the past five, six years of the work.
Speaker: So then um you start looking at the particular trajectory saying that, okay, it seems like we are going in the right direction. So we'll continue to invest.
Speaker: And what am I really looking at? I'm looking at is that for every dollar that I spend, what is the total number of birds I'm able to get out of cages? ah Because that's the only true matrix that matters to me in the sense because i my KPI is animal welfare.
Speaker: That is a bird's ability to stand up straight, spread wings, perch, lay egg in a nest box, dust spade, everything that's innate to her. where we know that the welfare is going to be higher and and there are multiple research, like for example, the welfare footprint projects will talk about or how much welfare is actually increased on that thing.
Speaker: or on the farm. And then you say, okay, how much money am I spending? ah Do I, have I increased it? Now, like most things at the initial stage, my burn rate is higher.
Speaker: But as scale picks up, the economies of scale should kind of say that, okay, what I'm investing kind of reduces or remains the same, but the impact is higher. So, that's what gives us, so in the sense like it's the traction that we are. Now, there are certain places where we don't see traction. So, where we would not work at all. For example, let's say working with super small holders, 500 birds, 2000 bird farms. where we feel like the cost of doing that is so much larger than the benefits. So we kind of say, no, we are not going to work there. So we are very specific saying we'll work with medium large scale farmers in the corporate supply chain in some of these high consumption countries to transition from cage to cage free because then that kind of helps fit within the bracket that we have to drive out the change.
Speaker: But how do you know that the world cares about making hands-case free? Wouldn't that be... Wouldn't something like that be a true measure of product market fit? Like, does does a non-profit in this space deserve to exist and scale?
Speaker: So, sadly... Whether the world cares about cage-free, there are two questions. Does the world care about cage-free? Does the world care enough to pay more for cage-free? And the answer is okay different in two of that.
Speaker: Correct. Okay. Okay. Because each one of us have citizen-consumer dichotomy that is built into us. So if we poll us as a citizen, we poll one way.
Speaker: If we were to follow us as a consumer, we consume the other There are probably very, very, very few people on earth where their poll and their consumption is the same on either way, good or bad. and It's a very, very few people on earth.
Speaker: So, and a lot of times the reason why I don't hedge super heavily on whether the consumers care the most is because in most cases, the consumer caring doesn't necessarily change into buying changes.
Speaker: Hence, my very little focus on consumer awareness. like Let's just bring in awareness amongst people and it'll happen. It'll never happen. Like, you know, let's look at all the money that the government of India has spent on beti bachao, beti badao.
Speaker: Consumer awareness. Not going to work. We got to look at some institutional way The reason is that giving out cycles so that girls can go to school. Ensuring there are clean toilets so that when once they hit puberty, they can continue to be comfortable. Ensuring that there are no rowdies and eve teasing that happens. that That's going to increase padau rather than every single...
Speaker: bus have like beti bachau, beti padau return on their thing. i don't than That's a fact. like That's a fact. So the sense like, and and you can look at it for everything like the swachhata andolan or the Gandhi stick in every single railway station with completely red painted with paan.
Speaker: Like you know, that's yes i Like in the sense, that you know there's nothing. like in a sense like the And then you ask the same people, paan thukna bura hai? Nobody will say, nahi ji, humain toh paan thukna hai hai, it's our adhikar hai. Nahi, nahi, nahi thukna hai. Right? hey so So in that sense, it kind of comes down to the fact that um whether consumer care is a good polling is a great talking point, but I don't think that it... that's because that a lot of times, a lot of the products that we buy, consumers that really didn't want it. They didn't know that they existed. who And then the the the market creates it, it sells it, and if it fits the consumer, they buy it.
Speaker: So for us, it's been that consumers are there, but then there is the companies and companies have the volume Companies have reputation risk.
Speaker: They are pulled by multiple directions, shareholders, investors. There is social media element that is there. And they also have the buying power and leverage to change.
Speaker: And a lot of time, once a policy is changed and implemented, as long as it makes sense, it continues to exist. And hence, we focus so much on the B2B side rather than the B2C side.
Speaker: Okay, so consumer caring is not what defines PMF. Sorry, I'm stuck on this, but I'm still not, like, I feel like I've still not got an answer. and Is institutional caring what determines? Because somebody has to, at the end of the day, foot the belt.
Speaker: Correct, correct. So the cost is this. There is oh cost to animal welfare, and let's say that is X. There is a cost to ignore animal welfare, and let's say Y.
Speaker: In a universe where the cost to animal welfare is more than cost to ignoring, there is no market fit that nobody really wants to do. As and that's the truth.
Speaker: What would be an example of cost to ignore and ah like the cost of welfare? Now, let's say there is a party X company and this company is only sourcing really bad caged eggs.
Speaker: they can transition to cage-free and there's like a, let's say, in their bottom line, there's a 20-30% increase in that particular line item of eggs. Now, the company has to find money 20-30%.
Speaker: Now, there is an undercover investigation that has happened on this particular company and somebody is going to release this undercover investigation to their investors, board of directors, shareholders, this, that, and the other.
Speaker: And this reputation risk that is going to happen, it has to be managed. And the cost of managing this reputation risk, let's say, is Y. Right. And there will be some fall of share price and there will be some loss of sales. If at all.
Speaker: So, if the as long as the company feels that johorai kamihora than me actually paying for this, they are not going to pay for it. But the minute that scale starts to tilt, and if I'm like, okay, I can just pay and get this over with. Now let's take a good, um food service companies are a great example.
Speaker: Food service companies, their primary target are schools, college canteens, Google, Microsoft, um they want to so ah sell have this particular account. Food service would be like, say, this... What's that company? Sodexo kinds. Sodexo Compass. For them, there is that element that, okay, my consumers are there.
Speaker: the Now there is an email chain that goes out to all Googlers saying that, you know, this is how cage-free eggs come and this is how cage-dex comes from, we should have cage-free eggs.
Speaker: Very easy, they all on Slack start pinging their facilities manager. The facilities manager has to take this out to somewhere, they're going to ping it up to CBRE or whoever. They have to take it up somewhere, they go to Sodexo.
Speaker: And Sodexo is like, okay, i'm now I now have to renegotiate this account with them. Let me just have cage free. Then it's one one thing lower and it's done with. So I'm not saying that that's the only motivation. Obviously, these companies want to do good. But without this other motivation that, you know, if this doesn't happen, it's going to be an issue and which is a true reputation risk, then companies will are not intrinsically motivated to do.
Speaker: And that's where Global Food Partners comes in, the the shameless plugin. What we do is that we work with farmers to reduce the cost of animal welfare by optimizing their farm solutions. So we provide training, support, and all of that. So you're able to meet animal welfare at a lower cost.
Speaker: And we work with companies that they are able to leverage out, tell the storytelling that they do about supporting animal welfare. So in that terms of like the cost of ignoring also becomes higher or lower or higher you would like to see. And once that balance kind of hits in, then animal welfare will proceed.
Speaker: So and this sounds a lot like a regular business where your customer is the company which wants to by insurance almost, if I can use that term, that they don't want that reputational risk of animal cruelty and you are the insurance provider.
Speaker: Now, the insurance provider, there's a small difference though, because the insurance provider will only pay out once the risk actually happens. got it Correct, correct. We are not an insurance provider, we are mitigators.
Speaker: In the sense that we come one step before the insurance provider. Right, right, right. You you reduce that, ah you kill that risk altogether by moving them off ah animal cruelty products.
Speaker: And I think the issue is that without humane washing. So, so what we what we say is that you know you can also do that. you know You can just humane wash and say… That's a new term for me. human made I've heard of green washing. Same as humane washing. like know vice second that's that See, that's one attitude like sabchangasi. All good.
Speaker: You can just say it. You can say it and then you guys wash off your hand. Right. But then then that will always come back to bite. So what we basically say is that why don't we kind of work with the companies and help communicate to different stakeholders? And that could be either investors, um NGO stakeholders, whoever it might be saying that we understand that there is an issue.
Speaker: Here is a pathway that you can implement. um so that animal welfare includes and it's like it's a complex topic, it's not very simple. so So we end up being partners and in fact if you look at our logo, ah the reason why we highlight partners is because we do believe that currently the conversation seems that it's adversarial.
Speaker: and know, this company, this animal welfare, and it's adversarial. It does not have to be. um And there is a true partnership that you can forge with the company, with the producer, with different stakeholders. And if there is a shared narrative and shared understanding on a pre-competitive basis, you are able to push that ah agenda narrative forward of having a marketplace which is ah compassion. So in the sense, like, we got to be creating that market for compassion and compassionate products.
Speaker: So essentially, you are almost selling a service. I'm curious that ah does all your income, and I don't know if income is the right term or not, come from this service that you provide to companies? Or is there also donation from, ah say, effective altruists, philanthropies, etc.?
Speaker: We are a mixed bag. ah We do get donations from farm animals. And would you call it income? what What would you call the money which comes in? I would just say revenue.
Speaker: It's a revenue. a wo However, revenue streams could be donations. It can be CSR funding. It can be companies providing for consulting. ah So we have multiple revenue streams.
Speaker: In the world of nonprofits, the ah donations from individuals, is that in any way significant or it's like meaningless? I think it's definitely significant. It depends on where the donation from individuals is going. How would you define an individual? where I'm thinking of like somebody who gives a couple of hundred thousand, like thousand rupees, two thousand rupees.
Speaker: Yeah, you and I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so for example, a lot of the, but like for example, there are individuals like the e-animal welfare fund, for example, is made up of individual ah people who have taken their pledge to give part of their earning. um For example, it could be 10% pre-tax, 5% pre-tax, different levels of giving that they can.
Speaker: You also have obviously the founders pledge where founders of mac companies have taken on. Then you also have like large foundations who have taken it, are giving up most of their money like Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So there's like ah the different varieties that are there.
Speaker: And um I feel like every donation has a value and each donation ah person, every donor can make a choice as to how they want that particular donation to be spent.
Speaker: And the tools that the Effective Altruism Forum as well as the funds, and they're able to choose and give where they want to give. And because the ah there is a very clear matrix as to what kind of donations are used for, like in sense like where it is given. um so if if people could visit the effectively and effective altruism fund websites and they list all different funds. So yeah, I guess like individual donations definitely have a massive power.
Speaker: Okay. But ah in a pie chart, I'm assuming that, say, large, wealthy individuals like, say, the Warren Buffet of the world, or, I mean, he's obviously an outlier, but those those would really contribute majority of donations, right, rather than individuals.
Speaker: I don't have that breakup with me um on what the breakup is, but one would say rightfully so because it's just like the wealth concentration that happens. I wouldn't be surprised if that is, but I really don't have the absolute breakup.
Speaker: I believe that India is not a very ah mature market today for you. ah Why is that the case? So, um India, primarily because in our whole narration, you'll realize that it's the B2B element of it. And Indian retail and food services still not come to that level of maturity um of like, remember, two issues. One is ah companies don't have egg volumes because...
Speaker: the vast majority are vegetarian choosing most of their life. India is not vegetarian, again another myth. But at least for most of whatever period people are vegetarian or what ends up happening is that you have a group of friends, one is vegetarian, then they're like, achalo, vegetarian khanachaltham. That's broadly ends up happening. So from a company's point of view they don't have the scale.
Speaker: So um when companies have scale, then it's easy to leverage out change right within the supply chain. So I guess that's one problem. ah The second issue has been that in terms of the global companies who have cage-free commitments, their footprint is not as much in India. And we are actively working with local Indian companies to start incorporating animal welfare commitments. And one of the challenge for us has been that the minute we talk about animal welfare, in most people's mind it ends up being vegetarianism. Then then they're like, arre nahi ho sakta hai, food choice hai, all of that. So, um in that sense, what we say is like, you know, and that kind of goes back to where we started off, that the concept of welfare reform saying that, you know,
Speaker: We are not asking you not to consume eggs, we are asking you to consume eggs but from cage free and this is the reason why you need to be doing it. It's a tad bit of a harder sell there. um So yeah, ah but looking at where how consumers are buying and where what the trajectory is looking like and the way we look at India again is not a monolith.
Speaker: um Each of the cities in the country are European Union country sizes anyways. So we want to be tackling India city by city rather than say, you know, we'll have an approach for the entire nation. So we are working with ah large food businesses who operate food service companies or retailers in these major metropolitan pockets for their adoption. And then we kind of feel like it will trickle down.
Speaker: I want to kind of understand what you spend your time doing as the founder of a nonprofit. How much time do you spend on, say, fundraising versus what, I mean, what are the things which really take up most of your time?
Speaker: Yeah, so and so my co-founder Lissy and I, we ah both complement each other. i She works mostly on the corporate side, so we have a really good corporate team.
Speaker: ah Don Neor leads that work on our corporate side along with Lissy. So that's like front facing with the companies. I'm mostly on the producer side. ah So ah my work has been like understanding what the producer's needs are, helping develop our impact incentive scheme, which is a credit off-skill scheme that we have. We also have a transition finance bit. So I focus on that particular element.
Speaker: um For both of, and on the fundraising side, we are all involved, but I wouldn't say that a vast majority of our time goes there. Why is that? um we We have good funders. We have good funders and we also are very cautious when it comes to expand. As you will see that we are a single issue organization. are hyper focused.
Speaker: And that hyper-focusedness also brings that we can we have resources that can be reused, repurposed in different places. So we are not like duplicating or just like spreading ourselves too thin.
Speaker: um So in that sense, we can be a lean organization and continue to grow. And yeah, we've also believed in a flatter structure without like headquarters knows best as in our China director Lisa, ah she knows what is really good for China. So obviously she leads the China work. Similarly, we have Yolanda who works in Indonesia or Jay who works in Philippines, JJ who works in Thailand. So we're a very good team who are there and we trust our teams. We don't come with headquarters knows best syndrome and that kind of has made us a really nice, lean, effective organization to work
Speaker: who ah you know like India has a certain amount of discomfort with the non-profits that come, which are funded by money from outside India. They're seen as interfering. Is that an India-only thing? Or like I'm wondering if in China also, is that there? Do you face that?
Speaker: Yeah, we we face that little because we are actually set up as a for-profit and though, as in a for-profit can also have multiple revenue streams, right? As in you can have like research grants and stuff like that.
Speaker: um So we face less amount of that. But there again, there is a dichotomy, right? In the sense like how welcoming people are towards FDI.
Speaker: they're like diagonally opposite of not welcoming when it comes to FCRA. i but Because I think the idea really is this, right? Saying that, you know, somehow ah if you're getting FCRA and then you're getting foreign money, then the idea is like, why is somebody giving money without an ulterior motive of making money?
Speaker: And that ulterior motive must be larger. You know, that's the whole thought that is there. That is a hidden motive. George Soros is giving money because he wants to talk to India. Why? In a sense, I don't understand the narrative.
Speaker: Why do we want do it? In a sense, like you know what I mean? like that That very simplistic understanding about how social work, but then we don't realize as to how well, like, how much of the for-profit world's progress happens because of the non-profit research and stuff like that that happens. like you know Imagine a universe...
Speaker: of India without the Indian Institute of Science, without the Tata Institutes, without the IITs, without the IIMs, which are all broadly non-profit um or the BABA atomic research centers, you know, what we would have or even in terms of like COVID, how there was like this public-private philanthropic partnership that came in that we were able to do delivery systems.
Speaker: um Our vaccine delivery system was amazing because the nonprofit sector had built that vaccine delivery system with like Rotary Club and others for polio. Like, you know, for polio, we had built it. We just over placed it. So in the sense, I feel like it's time that we rewrite.
Speaker: And I also feel like a lot of it is very rhetoric based. And there's a lot of rhetoric that's there. And if you're able to like disengage with the rhetoric, ah then people start to see the substance.
Speaker: Okay. Now I'm wondering, are you vegan? I'm vegan. You're vegan. Okay. Okay. So I was wondering how detached you were. Yeah, I'm vegan. But again, I don't think like that's a judgment choice. I think for everybody, that diet choices is difficult. because it's It was easier for me because I was vegetarian anyway. So it was just matter of living up. But for a lot of people, there's economic, cultural identity when it comes to food.
Speaker: And I feel like making diet choice as some sort of measure of like doing good is wrong. And there are many reasons, right, as to why a particular person chooses a diet.
Speaker: And hence, I'm such a true believer in welfare reform, saying, you know, if if people want to consume animals, their choice and who are we to tell anything or who's anybody to tell anything? um Why? But If we are using these animals for food, then there is definitely a moral, ethical, in some places, legal obligation that we ensure that we provide them a good life when they're alive.
Speaker: Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, Jaisi Ma. It was a real pleasure. No, thanks so much, Akshay. It was a really wide conversation and really thank you for having me here.
