Village Social Transformation Foundation (VSTF) is a Section 8 company formed as as a Public-Private Partnership platform (PPP) between the Government of Maharashtra and India’s leading corporates and philanthropic organizations, to plug development gaps across rural Maharashtra through partnership & collective action by converging the efforts of both, Government and corporates which have been taking place in silos so far. 

VSTF was set-up under the aegis of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of Maharashtra with Shri Aseem Gupta (IAS), Principal Secretary Rural development and Panchayati Raj Department (Ex-officio Director), as an esteemed member of the VSTF Board of Directors. Leading corporate leaders of India like Shri. Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group, Shri Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Trusts, etc. had envisioned the form and scope of VSTF along with the Government of Maharashtra. The reason for this approach of the platform was to avoid duplication of efforts by creating a parallel structure to the government, identify gaps and complement the existing structure of development and welfare. 

The aim is to transform 1000 low HDI villages in Maharashtra by the convergence of existing government schemes and programs in coordination with our Chief Minister's Rural Development Fellow posted at the GP level and the respective line departments at GP, district & state level. 

VSTF is currently working in 25 districts, 488 GPs and 905 villages in Maharashtra to develop model villages through 16 broad thematic areas like Health, Education, Rural Housing, Water & Sanitation, Agriculture and Soil Conservation, Farm-based livelihoods, Energy, Community Infrastructure, MGNREGA, Skilling & Livelihoods, etc.

VSTF currently has 450 Chief Ministers Rural Development Fellows placed at the Gram Panchayat level with the aim to bring about wide-scale behavioural change to empower villages towards self-sustainable development. VSTF has infused INR 52 Crores through CSR to plug development gaps in the selected villages and leveraged INR 523 Crores as on November 2019 through government schemes resulting to an impact of 13X against CSR funds.

Vision

To bring about sustainable change and impact in Rural India through an inclusive development model for socio-economic wellbeing aligning with sustainable development goals.

Mission

VSTF aims to enhance the development indicators of rural communities through a collaborative platform that leverages best practices of robust governance and corporate leadership.

Foundation Structure:

The Honourable Chief Minister of Maharashtra chairs the Governing Council and Board of Directors, which include the heads of contributing partners as well as eminent social workers & domain experts. The Governing Council provide strategic input to the Foundation. They also monitor overall progress of the Foundation.

The Executive Council (EC) comprises CSR heads of funding partners appointed as Directors on rational basis along with the Secretary of the Rural Development Department. EC is responsible for daily operations of the Foundation, and report to the Governing Council.

• Creating co-impact by pooling resources and expertise between the government, not for profit, private sector and philanthropic organisations in order to avoid duplication of efforts and operating in silos.
• PPP mode not just in the mode of programmatic implementation, but also in the governance of the organization. The Governing Council and board of VSTF have representatives of all stakeholders. 
• The convergence of all the different sources of funds of a Gram Panchayat by developing one comprehensive village development plan through extensive community participation, thereby increasing a sense of accountability and transparency at village level development planning and execution. 
• The shift from transactional and project-based partnerships to longer-term initiatives and holistic impact-oriented collaborations.
• Chief Minister’s Rural Development Fellows - High calibre trained professionals placed at village level for a period of 11-33 months to ensure last-mile delivery of services and implementation of development activities in coordination with the Government Departments.
• One of the first organisations working towards localizing SDGs on all goals at village level in both planning and execution level through partnerships between both private sector entities as well as the Government at such a large scale. 

Village Social Transformation Foundation is the first such collaborative platform initiated by a state government and leading corporate partners as a partnership platform in the first place between corporates and the Government to create a lasting impact at a larger scale. Apart from this, the successful convergence of Government and other fund support in the village level for every investment made by the corporate partner is also a major USP of the functioning and strategy of VSTF.  The total utilisation of VSTF support through CSR to the Gram Panchayats so far in the last two years (FY17-Nov’19) has been 52 Cr. against which VSTF has been able to converge 703 Cr. of development activities implemented in the GPs during the same period, owing to a multiplying effect of 13x. VSTF as a collaborative platform works for holistic village development through executing Government programs by leveraging corporate partner support as well as execute corporate programs by leveraging Government support.  

VSTF was conceptualised to create a unique platform for collaboration between corporates, philanthropies, not for profit organisations, domain experts and the Government, as it is believed that each type of organisation brings in their unique expertise and strength both in terms of skill and resources that are complementary in creating a holistic and sustainable impact. Hence, VSTF passionately promotes partnerships towards collaborative and coordinated efforts to achieve maximised impact. VSTF’s work has also received recognition through several prestigious awards, including, “Most Innovative Public-Private Partnership Platform at the ZeeBusiness CSR Leadership Awards in September 2019, Mahatma Award for ‘Rural Transformation’ in October 2019 and the Pune CSR Award for the ‘Most Integrative Rural Transformation Model’ in October 2019. 

Types of Partnership Possibilites

I. Lead Development Partner: Consistent with the motive towards collaborating development work that is currently taking place in silos, VSTF intends to partner with organisations that already have been working or are interested to work in the existing VSTF geographies and themes in order to leverage the strengths between the organisations for maximised impact.  

A Lead Development Partner (LDP) is primarily a contributing partner which has a presence in the districts they are interested to work in. An LDP based on their resources and expertise could adopt selected villages and support the holistic development of these villages through participation in planning as well as implementation. The program support includes the costs towards the fellows of the selected villages as well as the gap funding to the Gram Panchayats to implement planned development activities at the village level. Above and beyond these initial costs, an LDP is free to implement and support other activities required in the selected villages that may or may not be covered in the Village Development Plan.

II. Technical/ Knowledge Resource: The holistic approach towards development adopted by VSTF emphasises on partnering with organisations having niche expertise and knowledge in specific domains and themes of implementation. Any such organisation could partner with VSTF by contributing their resource and technical expertise to build capacities, support program design, implementation or evaluation. 

Any technical/ knowledge support provided would be intended to have the maximum outreach and impact across VSTF villages. The major areas where we require technical support are:

• Documentation of case stories, identifying the stories of social change and categorising them thematically. 
• Data visualization and representation curated for all types of audiences. 
• Capacity-building activities and awareness generation workshops with the fellows as well as the village community on various issues ranging from specific skills for implementation as well as knowledge support for specific domain-related awareness and sensitization. 
• Access and support towards building and participating in collaboration platforms and information dissemination of VSTF’s work. 

III. Thematic Activities:  VSTF aims to transform villages through a multi-thematic approach to address the intersectionality in these indicators of development. However, while we are striving towards enhancing the conditions and opportunities under Health, Education, Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Agriculture, Clean Energy, Livelihoods & market access, soil and water conservation, infrastructure development, etc., partnerships with organizations specializing in any of these themes would provide an immense amount of support in designing and implementation of thematic interventions as well as strengthening capacities for a more qualitative and impactful outcome of thematic interventions.

IV. Working Group – Advisory & Program Design Committee: In the inception of VSTF, it was envisioned that each key interventions will have a Working Group comprising of domain experts in the field. The Working Group was to develop an operational strategy for the concern initiative and be responsible for creating precise Standard Operating Procedures that will serve as the basis for all development activities in the villages. They would also strategize and design thematic interventions under each of the 16 key thematic areas and provide recommendations for implementation. 

V. Employee Engagement Opportunities: VSTF’s operations have a large scale both geographically as well as programmatically. On a daily basis, the number of activities taking place at the village level requires a lot of manual support and would be a valuable opportunity to collaborate on the strength of employee engagement activities. Some of the major areas for such activities with VSTF are: 

• Shramdan - donating physical labour to undertake activities at the village level, for example, water conservation and accumulation activities to tackle drought. 
• VSTF celebrates cause-specific campaigns like Menstrual Hygiene Management, WASH specific campaigns, No Tobacco Day, Tree Plantation drives, Earth Day, International Women’s day, etc. These activities and campaigns have an immense scope to create lasting impressions in the minds of the people through active and innovative employee engagement activities.
• Part-time or full-time fellowship/ internship nominees from an organisation that is open to incorporating this programme as a value-added experience for their employees.

VI.  Funding Partner: Larger support towards the mission in developing and demonstrating model villages that is replicable and scalable across Maharashtra or any other state in the country in partnership with VSTF under the leadership of the honourable Chief Minister of Maharashtra.