The Project

The Center for Community Initiative has gone above and beyond to bring its vision to life by including various community engagement and betterment programs. They not only support persons with disabilities across the region but also advocate for sustainability, Community-Based Rehabilitation, and Community Empowerment & Advocacy. 

CCI believes that everyone has the ability to work regardless of their shortcomings. The children with disabilities, under the supervision of their parents and guides, set out to pick Gooseberries from the forest to make Gooseberry candy that has no preservatives. They needed to promote these locally sourced products and realized that promoting their products online can yield good business. Hence, they posted a need for a digital marketing strategist. Mr. Pauzagin Tonsing oversaw the project.

The Journey

The Volunteer Akhilesh Goyal is a PGDM student at the Birla Institute of Management Technology. He has the ambition to make it in the field of marketing and has been relentless in the pursuit of his goal. This digital marketing project was ideal for him as it was his area of expertise and he was looking for a chance to expand his work horizons.

Once the match was secured, the NGO scheduled a call with Akhilesh. They then sent all their website links to him to get started. The NGO wanted to get his perspective on where they stood in terms of their online presence and how they could improve their presence to increase their purchase rates and create a sustainable form of livelihood for some of the local vendors.

‍

A minor hurdle that arose was the volunteer and NGO’s schedules. Since The NGO worked from 10 am - 4 pm, and Akhilesh was studying at those times, they had to converse at night or after work hours for updates on the project. 

‍

The project panned out smoothly thanks to the responsiveness and knowledge of both the parties involved. Appreciating Akihilesh’s work, Mr. Tonsing said, “He has an overall knowledge of his tasks and responsibilities towards the organization and has a deep understanding about the organization in the community presence. He also has a cooperative nature and takes initiative and is willing to help in areas beyond his role in the project. Although our timings didn't quite match, he never failed to complete the tasks assigned to him.”

‍

Result

Akhilesh designed for CCI a detailed digital marketing strategy that the NGO could now use to promote their freshly sourced products. Mr. Tonsing mentioned that they had a great opportunity to learn about their e-commerce sites and how they could introduce their new products to an established market. They have also witnessed an increase in sales courtesy of their new strategy.