By Linklaters India Community Investment Team communityinvestment_india@linklaters.com

When our team at Linklaters, the international law firm, was first looking to make a donation from our community investment budget, there was no shortage of deserving projects to choose from.  We were looking to partner with an organization focused on primary education, and while we shortlisted several potential projects, the decision to partner with ISF was a unanimous one. In particular, there were three things that stood out about ISF:  (i) the long-term strategy it had set out for itself and its holistic approach to education in a rural setting (incl. curriculum design, vocational training, health and nutritional planning, community involvement); (ii) ISF’s track-record in successfully implementing its strategy in Rajugela; and (iii) the commitment of its founders and volunteers to making the project a success. We were indeed pleasantly surprised with the transparency and openness with which ISF was willing to share information with us, and its willingness to be held accountable.

In December 2009, two of our team members, Pooja Sinha and Shilpi Bhattacharya, spent a day at the school. They both came away very impressed and appreciative of what ISF has achieved. Pooja commented that “the ISF team is doing a fantastic job. It cannot be easy to set up and operate a school in such a remote part, 450 kms away from Delhi”. Pooja and Shilpi saw that the children were very engaged in the learning process: “it was particularly heart-warming to be surrounded by a bunch of cheerful, smiling children who were so eager to show off all the reading and writing skills they had recently acquired at our school.” As a follow-on, we launched a small collection drive at Linklaters, and collected clothes, laptops, and stationery from employees across the network, from New York to Singapore. Employees are very excited and some are already asking us how they could help ISF beyond the donations of clothes and laptops.

Next steps?  From the start, we have always wanted our partnership with ISF to extend beyond the donation of money (important as that is!) to other areas we think we can add value. Now that the school is up and operational, it is time to turn our attention to brainstorming the skills and experience that the Linklaters team can bring to ISF. One suggestion is for us to review the various constitutional documents in the US and in India and to recommend a structure that is most efficient for ISF’s long-term strategy in India. Whatever the path we decide to take, congratulations to ISF on a job well done. We are very much looking forward to working more closely with you in the coming months.