Episode 3: Interview with Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Childline India, Aflatoun and Child & Youth Finance International (CYFI)
Jun 5, 2020
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Interview with Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Childline India and Aflatoun, discussing the successful closure of Child & Youth Finance International (CYFI) after achieving its mission of promoting systemic financial education changes globally. Topics include creating coalitions, leadership principles, and tactics for building successful networks for systems change.
Successful systems change requires collaborative efforts and prioritizing collective mission over personal recognition.
Donors must shift towards long-term, patient funding models aligned with system-wide impact criteria for effective systemic transformation.
Deep dives
Achieving Systems Change and Collaborative Approaches
The CYFI podcast discusses how the organization is shutting down after achieving its mission of promoting social and financial education for children. The podcast emphasizes the importance of collaborative systems change, highlighting CYFI's success with a small budget. Key insights include the need for social entrepreneurs to aim for impact and not self-preservation, encouraging them to scale down operations once goals are met.
Changing the Funding Paradigm for Systems Change
Regarding funding for systems change, the podcast points out the crucial need for donors to rethink their approach. Funding organizations must shift towards long-term, patient funding models to support systemic transformation effectively. Donors should align impact criteria with system-wide changes rather than focusing solely on numerical outcomes, introducing a more comprehensive and collaborative funding framework.
Ego Management in Systems Entrepreneurship
System entrepreneurs are advised to prioritize the collective mission over personal recognition. The podcast emphasizes the importance of managing ego in collaborative efforts, highlighting the potential barriers personal egos can pose in achieving greater impact. It underscores the value of humility and self-awareness in fostering successful systems change initiatives, urging entrepreneurs to prioritize collaboration over personal agendas.
Lessons Learned and Future Endeavors
Reflecting on CYFI's journey, the podcast underscores the significance of setting clear goals in social ventures and working towards completing systemic objectives. The concept of flushing ego to streamline collaborative efforts serves as a key takeaway. As CYFI shuts down after accomplishing its mission, social entrepreneurs are encouraged to boldly transition or conclude ventures once systemic goals are achieved to maximize impact.
Jeroo Billimoria is the founder of many successful social ventures, including Childline India, a network of over 1000 organizations that provide support to millions of children each year, especially in crisis situations, as well as Aflatoun, an network of 275 partners that offers social and financial education to millions of children and young people worldwide. In this episode, we mostly talk about Child & Youth Finance International (CYFI), a network that promoted systemic changes in the education and banking systems in dozens of countries to improve children's financial education. "Promoted", because CYFI announced that it had achieved its mission and shut down on 31 December 2019. An almost unheard-of accomplishment. In the interview, Jeroo walks us through five tactics and five leadership principles that she used to build the network that was ultimately so successful on a systems level. Key questions that we address include: How do you create coalitions for systems change? What leadership principles should we adopt -- and which ones do we have to unlearn?
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