The Impact Maker When Pratik Gauri founded his first non-profit 'India Needs You', he realized non-profit and social enterprise founders have access to millions of people but have a crunch for funding.
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Growing up, Pratik was always motivated by visionaries like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, not for the billions they made but for the positive impact they've been creating on people. "I felt I grew up privileged because I had access to quality education, clean water and sanitation, and good healthcare but a lot of kids around me did not have access to these basic facilities. So I was always motivated to work in the space of impact," shares Gauri. His first venture which he started when he was just 16 years old failed ; However, he learnt his crucial lessons.
When Pratik Gauri founded his first non-profit "India Needs You', he realized non-profit and social enterprise founders have access to millions of people but have a crunch for funding. "I had the privilege of heading Delhi trade sales for Tata Sky where I realised brands spend millions of dollars on marketing but are still not able to reach the masses," states Gauri.
His eureka moment was when he found a sustainable business model to mobilise marketing dollars from brands towards social enterprises by creating omniwins between social entrepreneurs, celebrities, fortune 500 brands, and family offices. That led to the inception of the Indian subsidiary of 5th Element Group - a global impact management consultancy to implement and scale omniwin solutions to positively impact millions of humans.
Talking about his concept, Gauri says, "We have been helping Fortune 500 companies go from for-profit to for-benefit. This is the 5th industrial revolution. We are trying to promote the belief that when one works at the intersection of profits and impact, then the person or that company generates more revenues and profits." Some of their clients include Reckitt Benckiser, Viasat, Some Good News, discover.film, among others.
Elaborating on the same, he shares, "We helped take Harpic Mission Paani stewarded by Amitabh Bacchhan to the World Economic Forum in Davos. We helped build John Krasinski's widely watched show Some Good News and helped mobilise millions of dollars from companies like Starbucks, Pepsico, etc towards social enterprises." His non-profit leadership movement "India Needs You' recently received funding from London-based One Young World, Gates Foundation, Justin Trudeau, Desmond Tutu, and Emma Watson to tackle COVID-19.
Talking about his mission in the new normal, he says, "I am very optimistic about our future and COVID will expedite our progress from 4IR to 5IR ; we'll continue to create capital which never existed before and help fortune 500 companies go from a for-profit model to a for-benefit model, help recruit more Leaders Who Care, help create many more impact millionaires, and create many more omniwins for a flourishing humanity."
The profitable venture has already mobilised millions of dollars from brands / family offices / Ultra High Net Worth folks / celebrities towards social enterprises and helped clients by recruiting Leaders Who Care for them. According to him, Social entrepreneurship has changed from a charity model to an essential business model that allows organisations to build a sustainable and better future.
Pratik Gauri made it to the list of Entrepreneur India's 35Under35 list of 2021
