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SVKM’S NMIMS
School of Business Management
“We Care : Civic Engagement Internship”
February 01 – February 24, 2016
Full Time MBA 2015- 2017 Batch
NEHA NAGPAL
MBA BATCH 2015-2017
Roll No: F037

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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Ms. Mamta Tiwari, Compliance Officer at Smile foundation, Delhi for
providing me with an opportunity to work with her esteemed organization. Also, I am very
grateful to Ms. Sayani Bhattacharya for accepting the role of being my organization mentor and
for helping me to understand the different activities undertaken by the NGO. She helped me a lot
in successfully completing the task assigned to me. I would also like to extend a heartiest thanks
to my faculty mentor Prof. Seema Rawat without whose guidance and wisdom this journey
wouldn’t have been as enriching as it has been. Her kind words right before the start of the
internship helped me a lot in giving my best. Though I have successfully completed the duties
assigned to me at the NGO, however, it wouldn’t have been possible without the help and
support of all of the above mentioned. Thus I would like thank each one of them for their
support, belief and faith in me. The other team members at Smile have also been very amicable
and made the journey a worthwhile experience and I extend my deepest gratitude towards them. I
would also like to thank my fellow NMites Tarang, Vineet and Shilpi who were also interning
with me at Smile for they were always there to support and help me. Last but not the least, I
would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Meena Galliara, NMIMS for providing me with
this wonderful opportunity to work with an NGO and understand the various aspects of it.

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Table of Contents
About the Organisation 4
Programmes 7
The Project 10
Project Methodology 12
Deliverables 12
Challenges 15
Learnings and Future Agenda 16

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About the Organization:
1. Genesis
Inspired by Senge's philosophy, a group of young corporate professionals came together in 2002
to set up Smile Foundation to work with grassroots initiatives for effecting positive changes in
the lives of underprivileged children, their families and communities.
Its vision encompasses the following:
 Work as a catalyst in bringing sustainable change in the lives of underprivileged
children, youth and women, with a life-cycle approach of development.
 Enable the civil society across the world to engage proactively in the change process
through the philosophy of civic driven change.
 Adopt highest standards of governance to emerge as a leading knowledge and
technology driven, innovative and scalable international development organization.
Smile Foundation’s mission is to deploy best
possible methodology and technology for
achieving ideal SROI (social return on
investment), to practice and promote good
governance. To link business competitiveness of
the corporate with social development initiatives;
also to sensitize privileged children, youth and
citizens in general to promote Civic Driven
Change.
Smile Foundation believes that unless members of the civil society are involved proactively in
the process of development, sustainable change will not happen. Believing in this principle of
‘Civic Driven Change’, Smile Foundation sensitizes the civil society in order to make them
partners in its mission.
2. Lifecycle Approach: Children, their families and the community
Smile Foundation believes that education is both the means as well as the end to a better life: the
means because it empowers an individual to earn his/her livelihood and the end because it
increases one's awareness on a range of issues – from healthcare to appropriate social behaviour

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to understanding one's rights – and in the process
help him/her evolve as a better citizen. Education
is the most effective tool which helps children
build a strong foundation; enabling them to free
themselves from the vicious cycle of ignorance, poverty
and disease.
Smile Foundation realized that Education for Children
cannot be achieved without the family, particularly,
unless the mother is assured of health care and
empowered. Moreover, when an elder sibling is educated
and relevantly skilled to be employable and begins earning, the journey of empowerment
continues beyond the present generation.
Smile Foundation extended its thematic areas of intervention by supporting family health,
livelihood, and women empowerment. Children, their families and the community become the
target group for Smile Foundation’s activities as child education cannot be done in isolation and
nothing else but education for children can bring long lasting change in the society.
3. Working Model
Smile Foundation has evolved two working models namely, Social Venture Philanthropy (SVP)
and Outreach. Depending on the necessity and circumstances, either of the models is deployed.
SocialVenture
Philanthropy
Social Venture Philanthropy (SVP)
is an innovative model based on the
business concept of venture capital.
Under SVP, Smile Foundation not
only identifies & implements its
develpment projects through
credible CBO's (Community Based
Organisations) but also, handholds
and builds capacities of these
organisations, focusing on
achieving scalability and
sustainability, creating a culture of
leadership and excellence and
inculcating a deep sense of
accountability among them.
Outreach
While working in the remote rural
areas, Smile Foundation realized
that many a times capacities of
community based organisations
(CBOs) were not adequate to meet
the high expectations of large
corporate social investors. Under
Outreach model, Smile Foundation
implements the development
interventions directly as it requires
intensive and professional
engagement for a wider and
sustained outcome.
Smile Foundation gets a first-hand
experience in the nuances of
development at the grassroots
through its Outreach model and
then implements the learning in its
SVP Projects through its SVP
Partners.

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4. Good Governance:
Credibility and accountability have always been the bench mark for Smile Foundation and are
achieved through the promotion of principles of good governance in the processes and practices.
Smile Foundation has a four-tier audit and evaluation mechanism to ensure impact of investment
and complete transparency and accountability in utilisation of funds. This four-tier audit
mechanism reviews programmes and projects, internal operations, compliance of statutory norms
and conducts an external evaluation for the impact and outcome of various development
programmes.
The entire management processes and practices of Smile Foundation are in compliance with the
principles of good governance.
5. Major Brands associated with Smile:

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Programmes
For an emerging country like India, development of underprivileged children holds the key to the
progress of the nation itself, and their education is the cornerstone of this progress. But education
for children cannot be achieved without ensuring the welfare of the family – a child can go to
school regularly only when the family, particularly the mother is healthy and empowered; the
family has decent livelihood opportunities and a steady income, it’s a cycle of empowerment and
development.
Realizing this, Smile Foundation has adopted a lifecycle approach with intensive programmes
focused on family health, livelihood and women empowerment, which address the needs of
children, their families and the larger community.
The various initiative and programmes started by the organisation are given below:
 Swabhiman
Swabhiman, meaning self-respect in English, was initiated in 2005 to address the challenge for
women empowerment through a simple yet effective approach. The organisation has strategically
formulated the programme to save the girl child, empower poor and support women
empowerment. It is specifically aimed at realization of both individual and collective self-esteem
Mission
Education
Swabhiman
STeP
Smile On
Wheels
Action For
Children
Special
Intervention

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and inner strength for marginalised and socially excluded women and adolescent girls
through innovative community practices.
A tailor-made strategy called the ‘4 S Model’ has been developed under the initiative. The ‘4 S
Model’ is an acronym for four novel approaches, namely Seeking Healthcare as a Behaviour,
Support for Education, Supporters in Men through Male Involvement, and Sustaining the Change
in Communities.
The programme identifies adolescent girls and women from the community and develops them
into Change Agents, who in turn actively contribute to the community mobilization process.
 STeP
Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) is
an effort by smile foundation towards
generating a team of employable youth
belonging to underprivileged section by
enhancing their skill as per the market
requirements. The programme intends to
prepare the urban underprivileged youth
with skills in Basic Computer Education
and Soft Skills, English Proficiency, for increasing their prospects of employment in fast
growing industries like BPO and ITES, retail, hospitality. This programme also helps the
students in the placements afterwards.
 Mission Education
Mission Education is a national level programme of Smile Foundation, which is committed to
providing basic education and healthcare to underprivileged children.
The organisation’s educational initiatives include Pre-school [3-6 yrs], Non Formal Education
[6-14 yrs non-school going], Remedial Education [6-14 yrs school going] and Bridge Course
[14-18 yrs drop-outs]. It works for education for needy children who are under difficult
circumstances, such as child labour, children of poorest of the parents, children inflicted and
affected with HIV/AIDS, street and runaway children, children
with rare disabilities, disaster struck children and slum children.
Since its inception in 2002, more than 200,000 children have
directly benefitted from Education NGO programme. At present,
this flagship initiative of Smile Foundation is reaching out to
19,000 children directly through 90 projects in 21 states across
India.

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 Smile on Wheels
Smile on Wheels is a healthcare program that is operated by well-equipped medical van
and a medical team comprising of specialized doctors, medical staff, nurses, equipment and
medicines. It makes tours to the identified villages and slums in neighbourhood region where
there is lack of governmental health care facilities. Each unit covers the area up to 25 kms from
its centre and make visits to 2-3 villages daily. The mobile hospitals offer preventive and
curative medical expertise for the needy children and women who are residing in remote rural
areas and urban slums.
 Special Interventions
1. Health with Smile – reaching out to the needy children and women through standalone
curative and preventive health camps across India.
2. Individual Support Programme - Support the most deserving and needy children on the
grounds of critical healthcare, education and sustainability.
3. Disaster Management - Relief and rehabilitation for children and women during natural
calamities like Tsunami, Bihar floods, earthquakes etc.
4. Child For Child – One of the most impactful projects led by Smile, it brings together
children from both the
backgrounds – affluent and
deprived, in an attempt to foster a
sense of responsibility in the
privileged children towards their
less privileged counterparts, early
in life
5. Be The Change – A sensitization
programme involving catalysts
like college youth, privileged
citizens, mass media, netizens etc.
to motivates others to make a
difference their own ways

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The Project
There are two types of communications in any organization, internal and external.
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
I was assigned to manage the external communication and public relations of the NGO for the
period of the internship.
NGOs heavily depend on fund-raising activities to build their financial resources. Such fund-
raising campaigns need public relations communication support as fund-raising is seen to be a
major exercise for the NGOs. The need for PR in NGOs is basically four-fold:
 NGOs entirely depend for their finances on fund-raising campaigns
 They have to attract the attention of charitable trusts and donors for financial help
 It relates to the dissemination of information about its services, plans as to enable the
people to make use of them for their betterment
 It has to maintain good media relations so that the media carries their messages both to
the donors and to the beneficiaries besides building image of the organizations
PR is seen as an essential responsibility of NGOs in seeking donations on one hand and
projecting the organization as service oriented for the public on the other. PR practiced in the
NGO sector is not very different from how PR is practiced in the business or corporate sector
and happens to be the best way of promoting NGOs producing far more positive results in fund-
raising, media coverage and projection of the organization.

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Good external communication contributes to achieving an NGO´s mission and making
the organization sustainable by
 Raising the organization´s public profile
 Creating awareness about social, economic and environmental issues that an NGO´s
programs tackles
 Influencing cause-related legislation, policies and investment decisions of governmental
institutions
 Shaping public opinion about a specific cause that the NGO is focused on
 Increases the NGO´s credibility
 Opening opportunities to support beneficiaries that the organization did not have access
to so far
 Helping to attract financial support and retain donors
 Helping to attract volunteers
The mission for the external communication for SMILE foundation is three fold-
To collect
stories
showcasing
Smile
Foundation’s
work on the
ground
To create
effective
communication
tools from the
stories
To disseminate
the various
communication
tools through
different media
and platforms
EXTERNAL
COMMUNI
CATION
Beneficiaries
Existing
Donors
General
Public
Potential
Supporters
Governments
Partners

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Project Methodology
The project was undertaken encompassing various techniques which were as follows:
 Basic research forms the cornerstone of any project. A lot of research was done to
understand the working of Smile and for this very purpose it was necessary to understand
the mission, vision and objectives of the organization so that one can deliver what the
organization is looking for
 Data collection was done for the purpose of creation of Media list from online sources
and portals like Linkedin, Facebook, etc.
 Regular assistance, suggestions and feedback was taken from the organizational mentor
in order to deliver the expected results
 Review of work was done before sending it out to the mentor so that any small mistakes
and concerns which might have been overlooked while working could be rectified before
the work moves forward
Deliverables
1. Creating a data base of Media list
After getting introduced to the organisation and my mentor, the first deliverable given to me was
creating a database of the Media outlets that could be leveraged by the organisation.
A media database is a collection of media professionals such as editors, reporters, writers,
publishers, bloggers etc. with a particular focus on journalists. Media Database provides an
efficient way in which business Press Release could be distributed to a large number of media
professional.
I segregated the contact list of media professionals, based on the information that they had
provided, like:
General information:
• Name
• Contact
• Employer
The second is according to their professional attributes such as:
• Their work as a professional
• Their designation
• The areas that they cover

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Apart from this, journalists
were divided according to
the area which they work in,
the type of stories that they cover
within a genre.
All this segregation helps in better
organization as well as the author of
the PR to be more specific and
correct while sending out PR’s.
Keeping the information provided the
client can use them to apply filters, as
to what class or type of journalist
should the press release be sent out,
making the distribution of the press
release efficient.
2. Press release websites
After completing the first deliverable in one week’s time, the second task allotted to me was
related to press releases.
I was given a briefing about how the importance of press releases, where they get published and
the format which needs to be followed.
The benefits of press release distribution are numerous.
 Press release distribution is fairly inexpensive. The only expense comes with hiring
a press release distribution service to get the story in the hands of key media
members. But even this is inexpensive, and when compared with paid advertising,
press release distribution is almost always the more affordable option.
 You can boost your organisation’s visibility. By sticking to a long-term press release
distribution strategy, you let customers know who you are, what you do, and why
they need you. You also gain the attention of journalists, and over time, they start to
trust you more and give you more media coverage.
 Use your news to get more customers. With today’s online press releases, the media
is no longer the only audience you’re writing for. 80 million people get their news
online every day. Many of these people are your customers. So, you need to keep
your buyers in mind when writing your press releases.
 Investors and donors keep up with the news too. Press releases highlighting the
successes and advancements made by your company can be powerful tools for

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attracting investors. Make sure to set up an online news room on your
website for investors to browse through
After going through the basics of press releases, I was supposed create a database of all the top
paid and unpaid press release websites and register SMILE on them.
3. Editing articles for BREW Magazine
The organisation has a monthly magazine called BREW. I was supposed to edit and finalise the
articles for the coming months for the cover story of the magazine. Also, I analysed the articles
in the older issues like ‘A Smile Goes a Long Way’ of January 2016 issue and ‘Spreading
Smiles’ of December 2015 issue and found the gaps in the coverage, and also gave my
suggestions on how to improvise the existing content.
4. Calculation of ad rates
The fourth and final deliverable given to
me was the calculation of ad rates by
different dailies.
Most of the coverage in the newspapers is
classified and provided by the
organisations themselves and is a basic
and important tool for media relations.
There is a particular ad rate relating to
every part of the newspaper and there is a
special formula to calculate it, which is
related to the length and breadth of the

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article, the way the headline is written, the amount of colour in the coverage, pictures in
the article and the text size of the headline.
After going through various sources, I calculated ad rates of all these newspapers and
analysed how much money each article with cost, depending on different criteria.
Challenges
There was constant support and supervision by my mentor, Ms Sayani Bhattacharya throughout
the period of internship. Whenever I had any doubt or issue, she was there to give me guidance.
There were no major challenges faced during these 24 days, some small ones are
1. Collection of data. A lot of journalists’ contact information and beats were not updated in
their Linked-in profile and the phone numbers were not accessible. This led to a lot of
time wastage and some wrong information
2. Calculation of ad rates. This was an issue since taking out ad rates of various newspapers
from the internet was problematic because it wasn’t very easily available.
Other than these small challenges I was able to overcome, there were no major challenges as
such and I was able to produce all deliverables on time.

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Learnings and future agenda
The vision of the communication department is ‘To create communication that is evidencing,
effective and inspiring, to build credibility and visibility of the organization’
During the course of my internship, I realised that external communication is a major part of a
non-profit organisation. Whenever you think about an NGO, the only thing that comes into mind
is the selfless work they do for the society, but getting money for these tasks is a major
bottleneck and a good external communication network and PR strategy is the only thing which
can make it visible in people’s eyes and help in getting funds and donations. My learnings
included knowing the nooks and crannies of the communication department and learn how it
functions for SMILE Foundation.
The work I did helped the organisation in streamlining the entire process of contacting media
persons, publishing a press release and posting advertisements and coverage in the newspapers.
I have keen interest in continuing my association with the NGO from here as much as I can and
also have a future association and try to make a difference in any way possible.
•Create media
collaterals,
Press Release,
Pitch stories
•PR support to
workshops,
events
•Identifying
news angle
within the
organization
•Media
Relations
Builds
Credibility
Facilitate
Fundraising
Showcase
Real Work
Real Change
Thought
Leadership