A brief note on Dr. Swapan Garain

A Social Entrepreneur for Organizational Excellence in NGOs

Dr Swapan Garain is a social entrepreneur, educator, trainer, social business mentor, and non-profit manager. He has been active in the social sector for more than twenty-five years. He has been engaged in helping set up and manage NGOs, guiding corporate for its social responsibility initiatives division, facilitating government policy making and appraising projects for funding, teaching University students, training change agents, action research, writing, field action, consultancy, networking among social sector stakeholders and promotion of social entrepreneurship.

His work has largely been in the area of structural and behavioral inputs in enhancing organization effectiveness of social sector organizations and the efficiency of delivery of services for the poor, deprived and disadvantaged.

1. Promotion of Social Entrepreneurship & Affiliations
Dr Garain has been a member of the Government of India’s Planning Commission Steering Committee on Voluntary Sector (www.nic.in) for the 10th (2002-2007) and 11th (2007-2012) Five year plans. Since 2006, he is a member of the Program Advisory Committee of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for channelizing funds for application of science and technology in development.

Dr Garain has been the Project Director of University of Technology Sydney Project on Asia Pacific Philanthropic Information Network for content development of Indian Third Sector (www.asianphilanthropy.org). He was a member of the National Advisory Committee of Comparative Nonprofit Project India Country Study of the Johns Hopkins University (www.jhu.edu), USA.

Dr Garain is a founder member of Society for Civic Initiatives, Delhi. He has also been a founder member of Zep Social Action and Research Trust, and of Mumbai Association of Trained Social Workers.

He was a member of the Advisory Committee for Project on Best Practices Resource Book prepared by Prayas, for the Government of India. He was also on the business Advisory Board of Welingkar SIFE Team (Students in Free Enterprise and Welingkar Institute of Management).

Dr Garain was a member of the Advisory Committee of "Grassroots Reachout & Networking in India on Trade & Economics" (GRANITE) Project of Consumer Unity and Trust Society. He was a member of the National Co-ordination Committee of the IV ISTR Asia-Pacific Regional Conference 2005.

Dr Garain has also been serving in various other corporate and NGO committees and boards. He has helped launch and manage a number of NGOs. He is the promoter of egroups for web based discussion among CSR professionals, NGO functionaries and trained Social Workers.

2. Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives
Dr Garain worked with S P Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) as Professor and Founder Chairperson of its Centre for Corporate Citizenship for two years during 2001-2003. At SPJIMR, he was engaged in promoting corporate involvement with a motto that it makes business sense to invest in social sector.

He has been actively involved with L&T for focusing its CSR policy and initiatives. On request from L&T CSR head, he is currently initiating an assessment of L&T-NGO partnership projects in the neighborhood of Powai and different parts of Mumbai.

Dr Garain has designed and developed rehabilitation action plan for project affected people for NTPC, Neyveli Lignite, etc.

Dr Garain also served as a member of the Social Infrastructure Committee (CSR) of Mumbai Chamber of Commerce and Industry during 1999-2003.

Dr. Garain has designed, organized and conducted training programs and delivered lectures in the area of corporate social responsibility, organizational development process, self development, motivation, team building, fundraising, Indian voluntary sector, etc. for Times Foundation, S P Jain Institute, SOSVA, CRS, RGVN and at TISS, among many others.

3. Work Experience
Dr Garain worked with S P Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) as Professor and Founder Chairperson of its Centre for Corporate Citizenship for two years during 2001-2003. SPJIMR is one of the top ten management institutes in the country. At SPJIMR, he was engaged in promoting corporate involvement with a motto that it makes business sense to invest in social sector. Dr Garain has been teaching and carrying out research at Tata Institute of Social Sciences since 1985. Prior to this, he worked with Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, University of Mumbai and Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, India Program.

During more than two decades of academic work, Dr Garain has been engaged in teaching postgraduate social work students, supervising internship of students, organizing rural camp, study tour and relief work, guiding M.Phil & Ph.D scholars, and undertaking independent and sponsored research and consultancy assignments. He has designed, introduced and taught the following subjects to post graduate students : Social Entrepreneurship, Management of Development organizations, Environmental Management and Project Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. He has also been teaching Organizational Behavior and Administration of Social Welfare organizations. In academic administration, he has been the Coordinator for Masters Research, Faculty Coordinator for Social Work Placement Cell, and Faculty Coordinator for Social Work Students’ Forum, besides serving on committees for purchase & store, computer resources, sexual abuse, academic affairs, employees credit society, etc.. He has also been the acting head of a teaching department running post graduate degree program in the area of management of NGOs during 2000-2001. He has been the examiners for masters and doctoral students at Visva-Bharati University, Assam Central University, Shivaji University and Bharati Vidyapeeth.

He has organized and conducted training programs and delivered lectures in the area of organizational development process, self development, motivation, team building, corporate social responsibility, fundraising, Indian voluntary sector, etc

3. Education
Dr Garain hold a Honours degree in Social Work from Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, Masters degree in Social Work with specialization in Social Welfare Administration from Tata Institute of Social Sciences at Mumbai, Doctorate in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies of University of Mumbai and a Diploma in Management from Indira Gandhi National Open University. He has done post doctoral work on internet fundraising and also been a Senior Fellow in Philanthropy at Johns Hopkins University (USA).

He has received fellowships and scholarships from Ford Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, Indian Council of Social Science Research, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

4. Research and Publications
He has conceived, designed and directed more than 10 sponsored research and consultancy projects in the area of preparation of corporate plan, developing rehabilitation action plan, baseline survey, in-country adoption, application of ICT, OD process, CSR, Management perspective plan, fundraising action plan, etc. Some of these projects were sponsored by Government of India, National Thermal Power Corporation, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Center for Innovation in Voluntary Action (UK), Tata Economic Consultancy Services, Cogentrix Energy Inc(US), Consumer Guidance Society of India, etc. He has authored a book titled “Organizational Effectiveness of Non-governmental Organizations” and published a dozen papers in various periodicals. He has presented papers in national and international conferences.

5. Travel
Dr Garain has traveled extensively in most part of rural and urban India. In relation to his academic work and professional involvement, he has also traveled to United States, Russia, Northern Ireland, Australia, Thailand, Japan, Turkey, China and South Africa.

6.Interest Area
His current areas of interests are : nonprofit research, social entrepreneurship, capacity building and management of social sector organizations, philanthropy, corporate citizenship, volunteering, ICT & Social Sector, NGO governance and accreditation, rehabilitation and resettlement of project affected.

7. Family and Upbringing
He was born and brought up in a small village called Benuria near Santiniketan in West Bengal. Ravindranath Tagore set up his co-operative health care experiment in this village. Currently, he lives with his wife and a 12 year old child at Mumbai. His wife is medical doctor with Government of India.

Dr. Swapan Garain, PhD
Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ikarma
Email: Garain.India@gmail.com
Cell: 91 0 9869031929
Dated January 20, 2010