Akshaya Patra: Battling Hunger and Malnutrition in India

The work of charitable organizations and philanthropists can benefit from streamlining their processes that help them build agility and professionalism in them. While it partners with nonprofits and social enterprises, the Sandbox makes crucial interventions to ensure that it instills a spirit of entrepreneurship and professionalism among the companies.

One globally renowned example of Sandbox partnerships is Akshaya Patra, a nonprofit that had started operations in Bangalore, Karnataka, serving lunches at five schools in the city, and feeding 1,500 students. In 2004, the Sandbox worked with Akshaya Patra to take steps to scale its operations, and set a higher target of one million government school children. To help it scale, the Sandbox team worked with Akshaya Patra to help it streamline the processes, outsourcing technology and audit processes to globally renowned specialist firms, and enabling Akshaya Patra to open a kitchen in Hubli-Dharwad.

The kitchen, notably, was also a  collaboration between the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Deshpande Foundation, the Government of India and industrialist Ravindra Chamaria.  

The Sandbox team encouraged Akshaya Patra to work with Infosys, one of the largest Indian IT outsourcing companies, to evaluate its information systems and controls, and brought in leading information analysts Nielsen to audit their impact in the field, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit their financials.

The Sandbox offered a crucial pilot space for Akshaya Patra to test new technologies  and processes. With the foundation’s support, Akshaya Patra’s kitchens, which were built to operate on a centralized model, were able to invest in new technologies, refine their processes and tighten their supply chain to rapidly build capacity.

In the first year of implementing the changes, Akshaya Patra doubled the number of children it served from the Hubballi kitchen from 100,000 to 200,000 with a mere  20% increase in kitchen capacity.

With the Sandbox’s  support, Akshaya Patra sought new sustainable sources of support to fund its increasing scale. The Foundation funded Akshaya Patra USA, helped to manage the fundraising operation in Boston, and assisted in the first year of operations, recruiting a local director and providing office space in Boston.