About us
Vision
Our vision is to bring together talent, expertise, and innovative processes to solve some of the most crucial organisational challenges and strengthen the social impact ecosystem.
Mission
Our mission is to empower change-making organisations with the understanding and skills to advance their organisation’s capacities and improve the social impact outcomes for the communities they serve
Our Story
Social Lens’ mission was borne from the philosophy of enhancing the impact of social purpose organisations and their programs to communities they served. Our belief was that handprint of social impact could be optimised through our offerings in capacity building, impact design, and a lasting legacy of institutional learning.
Social Lens was incorporated in 2016 and built on a rich legacy of aiding social impact organisations in capacity building. We began our journey with the client portfolio that entrusted us with the responsibilities to optimise impact in the sector as the trusted partners this year was about broadening our horizons and undertaking special projects aligned with other key services. We launched the learning cohorts which championed and worked towards institutionalised learning for social impact organisations in India, enabling them to move towards self sufficiency.
This year was about broadening our horizons and undertaking special projects aligned with our key services. We launched the learning cohorts which championed and worked towards institutionalised learnings for SIOs in India enabling them to move towards self-sufficiency.
In 2018, we explored leveraging the support that technology could offer with the development of our Open Access measurement platform and organisation evaluation tool. This allowed us to consolidate our practice as knowledge partners, to our clients in discerning and designing customised solutions.
In 2019, we improvised with newer methodologies, incorporating systems design, and a human centric approach in our solutions designed for clients. We established a network of partners and increased our umbrella of support that extended to multiple domains of data management and technology, people’s function, communication and branding and impact design.
Global disruption was at the centre of 2020, as we reevaluated our goals and priorities to reimagine our value proposition for the new world. As an organisation, we are looking towards a future where we continue to bring in innovative, sustainable, adaptable and agile solutions driven by both external influences and internal requirements of our clients.
For us, 2021 was a time to reset our expectations, strategic goals, and the way we were looking at our services. The virtual environment brought about by the pandemic made us reset our mindsets and led us to witness many new beginnings this year, from launching the founder stable and virtual learning labs to successfully conducting impact assessments virtually. This year certainly brought us the opportunity to be more productive than ever.
For us, 2022 has been on connecting with communities and driving impact. It has been a year of great work, learning and adapting to the new normal. It was the year of more. As an organisation, we took into account what was significant to us and our stakeholders. To determine how far we were willing to push ourselves, we took a look within. We thought carefully about the trade-off and whether, at the end of the year, we had truly impacted the clients and stakeholders in our community as we had planned. Using humour as an ally, we beat deadlines. In order to maintain our determination during the challenging times, we made sure to acknowledge each victory.
In the years since our inception, everything has changed and yet nothing has. Our key motivation to work towards building self-sufficiency and drive sustainability in the development sector is what still drives our team of driven, passionate young professionals.
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Meet our team
We are a team of highly motivated individuals and bring in years of experience and know-how to empower communities. Our interdisciplinary skills help build the fundamental blocks of impact.
Vidya Shah
Advisor
Vidya Shah is the Executive Chairperson at EdelGive Foundation, the philanthropic initiative of Edelweiss Group.
Justin Bharucha
Advisor
Justin Bharucha is a Managing Partner at Bharucha & Partners and his practice spans M & A, finance and infrastructure.
Sandeep Naik
Advisor
Sandeep Naik is a Managing Director and Head of General Atlantic’s business in India & Southeast Asia.
Aparajita Agarwal
Advisor
Aparajita Agarwal works with Value For Women, a global advisory firm, as Director - Strategy & Development.
Janani Ravichandran
Advisor
Janani is the co-founder of Avagama, a multi-disciplinary design & communication studio partnering with NPOs & social enterprises.
Bhavya Raj Gandhi
Data science & Analytics
Bhavya is a data science professional with analytical expertise in providing management solutions across domains.
Vijaya Balaji
CEO & Founding Partner
Vijaya Balaji is the CEO & Founding Partner at Social Lens, and the CEO and Managing Director at toolbox INDIA Foundation.
Manjula Ramakrishnan
Director - Programs
As a Program Director at Social Lens, Manjula Ramakrishnan is an individual contributor and leads client engagement teams for strategic impact consulting projects.