Samaj Pragati Sahayog as Support Voluntary Organisation

At SPS there has been great restlessness regarding the need to find an effective way of taking our work to a much higher scale of impact. Having achieved success by directly working with communities on a small scale, we faced the challenge of making an impact on a larger canvas. About a decade ago we made a considered decision. We decided not to become a large bureaucracy ourselves. Our experience had taught us that the most difficult part of our work is the task of mobilising local communities, especially women, to grow to own the project and provide it leadership in the long-term. It is our conviction, fortified by our experience over the last decade, that the most powerful way in which we can upscale the impact of our work is to build partnerships with those grass-roots NGOs, PRIs, governments and other stakeholders. It is this vision that led to the formation of the Baba Amte Centre for People's Empowerment (the first institution to be named after Baba Amte anywhere in the world) at adivasi village Neemkheda in Bagli Tehsil of Dewas District, Madhya Pradesh.

An SVO builds partnerships, for it believes that the synergies provided by partnerships make each partner non-linearly stronger in the effectiveness of its own endeavour. As an SVO we have forged various kinds of partnerships:

1. Partnerships with grass-roots NGOs, who implement the program in their own areas by mobilising local communities and working with panchayat raj institutions (PRIs), the institutions of local self-government in India. The SVO builds capacities of these partner NGOs and develops them into a network. Over the last decade we have worked on 2 million acres of land with 122 such partners in 72 of India's most backward districts across 12 states. It is through their work at the grass-roots that SPS interventions attain scale

2. Partnerships with technical support agencies, including research institutions, university departments and independent consultants. This keeps the body of knowledge that informs the capacity-building effort of the SVO continuously refreshed and updated.