A Project on an NGO

“GOONJ”
Course: Socially Relevant Project
Course Code: 20MBA1SRSI
Prepared under the Guidance of

Prof. Mr. Anand Ghaniger

SUBMITTED BY
Team Happy Monks

NAME USN
PRAMATH RAMESH HEGDE 1BM21BA066
SANTOSH KUMAR MURAGOD 1BM21BA090
SHILPA SHEKAR. C 1BM21BA090
SPOORTHY DURGAM V 1BM21BA098
VINUTHA H V 1BM21BA113
VISHNU K 1BM21BA115

In partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the award of the degree of
MASTER OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION

Department of Management Studies & Research Centre

B M S COLLEGE OF
ENGINEERING
(An Autonomous Institute, Affiliated to VTU,
Belgaum)Bull Temple Road; Basavanagudi,
Bangalore-560109
Introduction

About GOONJ

Goonj is a NGO which has its headquarters in New Delhi, India, it works on
issues like disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development in 23 states pan
India. Goonj basically focuses on clothing being a basic necessary need that isn’t given
proper consideration.
Goonj was established in 1999 by Mr Anshu Gupta. Mr Anshu Gupta was
awarded with Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015 for his work which he did with
Goonj. In 2012, Mr Anshu Gupta was named “Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2012”,
by Schwab Foundation, which is a sister organization of “World Economic Forum”.

History
“Goonj, was founded in 1999 by Mr Anshu Gupta, starting with 67 clothes and now
Goonj deals with over 3500 tonnes of material every year. It is registered under Societies
Act and registered for exemption under Section 80 G, 12 A and for foreign contributions -
under FCRA. A couple of real life incidents prompted Mr Anshu Gupta to realise that
clothing was overlooked as a basic human right. Once while he was travelling
in Delhi, India's capital, he met a man called Habib on a rickshaw, who had written on the
side of his rickshaw, “Laawaris Lash Uthanewala" ( lit. “person who picks up unclaimed
dead bodies”). Upon discussion, he found that for every dead body Habib carried to the
crematorium, he was given a nominal charge of twenty rupees and two metres of cloth,
and he shared that workload in winter was more than in summer. Habib's little daughter
Bano told Anshu, “When I feel cold, I hug a dead body to sleep. It does not turn around, it
doesn’t trouble me," and these words gave him a deeper insight into the overseen issue of
many underprivileged people not having enough clothes. This issue ignited in him the
need to highlight the sufferings of millions due to the shortage of sufficient clothing and a
need to start an organization, which would eventually be named "Goonj," with the help of
his wife and other friends.
The 2004 tsunami gave way to Goonj's campaign "Not Just a Piece of Cloth"
(NJPC) to emerge. The Chennai center was flooded with old but usable clothes during the
relief phase. These clothes were then disinfected, washed, recycled into pads and placed
in cotton bags to form Goonj's Dignity Kit. By 2014, 4 million pads had been distributed
at a nominal cost of ₹2 (2.5¢ US) to the poor who could not afford commercial sanitary
pads. The campaign subsequently won the World Bank's Global Development
Marketplace Award (2009) and Changemaker's Innovation Award (2009), and
was LAUNCH Innovation Challenge in 2012, in "Beyond Waste" theme, which is
sponsored by NASA, Nike and US Agency for International Development.
In 2009, it joined the Joy of Giving Week, later renamed Daan Utsav (Donation
Festival), an annual week-long donation drive, starting Gandhi Jayanti October 2–8.
During the week Goonj runs a nationwide campaign, where people from
across India contribute under-utilized goods and clothes from their homes, offices and
schools in urban areas to be distributed to rural and poor areas.
In year 2015, Goonj shipped over 70,000 kilograms of reusable material a month
and also recycled 1,000 tonnes of used clothes, household goods and other urban discards
into usable resources for the poor and underprivileged. The organisation has also
partnered with Oriflame India, a subsidiary of the Swedish cosmetics major, for the
collection of materials such as woollen clothes, toys, books and so on which are delivered
to people in living in remote areas of country.
Goonj has been considerably successful as mass movement for the recycling and
reuse of lots of additional clothing and other household consumables from India's rich to
its poorest communities which would otherwise been discarded as waste. The
organisation has collaborated with several individuals and organisations at urban and
rural levels who help in mobilising, motivating, empowering and guiding communities so
that they can identify local issues and resolve them through the participation of local
people.
Up until March 2021, the organisation has reached out in 25 states
across India and supports people affected during natural disasters, providing humanitarian
aid and working through community based development. Furthermore, it transports over
6 million kilograms of different materials and circulates unusable cloth pieces into
different types of products for urban and rural India under its "Green By Goonj" scheme. ”

About the Founder

“ Mr Anshu Gupta did his study in Mass communication and did his masters in
Economics. Starting as a freelance journalist, he left a corporate job in 1998 and founded
GOONJ. His mission was to make clothing a matter of concern and to bring it among the
list of development issues,to address the most basic but ignored need of clothing and the
multifaceted role it plays in the lives of people, especially in rural India.

Anshu sees his work as a way to address a core challenge of our times; the
growing gap and inequality between the urban prosperity & rural poverty.Taking the
menacing growth of urban waste Anshu used it effectively and efficiently as a tool to
trigger large scale development work on diverse issues in some of the most backward
areas and remote communities of India. In the process he has created a model of a parallel
economy which is not cash based but trash based. With Goonj, Anshu has brought
attention to a nonmarket, nonmonetary approach — one grounded in empathy and
dignity. He has turned the mostly passive urban and rural masses into prime stakeholders
and actors addressing their own needs by solving their own problems. He has done this by
weaving together a beautiful pipeline system from the cities to the villages for
channelizing resources to create empowerment and development in rural India. Anshu
considers one of Goonj’s central works to be changing mindsets about the immense
humanitarian potential of people facing poverty by reusing urban surplus and
demonstrating a model that delivers as promised.

Rewriting many rules of the development sector Anshu made the masses his prime
focus – not only as givers and receivers of material but also as the prime source of money,
skills and services. He also structured imaginative solutions with urban surplus, to some
basic but neglected needs outside the radar of the development sector and the civil
society.
Over the years as Goonj garnered major awards, including World Bank’s Development
Marketplace award and NASA’s Launch award, Anshu also won recognition as an
Ashoka and Schwab Fellow while he was also listed as one of India’s top social
entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine and Fast Company.

Now Anshu is focused on global replication of his model to bridge the massive
gap of social and economic inequities between urban prosperity and rural poverty. He
speaks extensively on national and international forums to instigate urban and rural
masses to engage more deeply with the issues faced by the society.

His vision for Goonj, “Goonj doesn’t want to grow only as an organization; it
wants to grow as an idea… where organizations and individuals across the world take up
the work, learning from our experience and help reach the basics of life to people who
need it urgently. Mindful of their dignity and their needs, not as charity.” Anshu is a
foodie who loves photography, travel and writing. He lives in Delhi NCR with his wife
Meenakshi also the Co-founder of Goonj and their daughter, Urvi. ”
Procurement of clothes:
Goonj has two main sources with respect to obtaining cloth donations.
- Factory Reject
- Regular drop off at the collection centres

Goonj has two main sources with respect to obtaining cloth donations.
- Factory Reject
- Regular drop off at the collection centres

One of the three fundamental needs along with food and shelter is clothing. In addition to
representing a person’s dignity, it also provides weather protection. While more than 100
concerns, ranging from domestic violence to global warming, are discussed in the
development sector, this fundamental need is seldom mentioned. Goonj encourages
people to think about clothing as a serious issue. They also encourage individuals to
contribute additional household things like kitchenware, stationery, and toys.
People in India's remote villages lead very different lives from those of us. They do
accept used items, but we must give them to them with dignity and respect and in
accordance with their needs. We always contribute what we have, as Goonj’s founder and
director Anshu Gupta frequently states.
Goonj is an NGO that collects underused or reusable materials from urban homes and
materials from factory which gets rejected, and redistributes it to those who lack basic
necessities. Goonj accepts materials such as clothes, bed sheets, dry rations, school
materials, toys and footwear.

Goonj has two main sources with respect to obtain cloth donations, they get materials on
regular drop off at the collection centre and as well as materials directly sent from factory
like “Madhura Garment”, the materials are completely new brand clothes but those
clothes get rejected from garments due to minor problems and when Goonj receives those
materials, they will sort out the minor problem with the help of volunteers. The drop off
clothes are mostly used and old clothes, all these clothes will be sorted and they balance
both new and old clothes together later they distribute it after sorting.
Factory rejects

Regular drop off at the collection centres

Sorting of clothes:
The clothes are sorted into 5 lots
 Wash
 Repair
 Cotton
 Worn-out/ Gudri
 Dispatchable
The unique concept of Goonj:
Goonj wants to meet the basic need of the improverished by giving them clothing, but
they do not see this as charity. They provide it to the locals as payment for bettering their
own living conditions. There are no free meals; those who are less fortunate must work as
well to receive the benefits. Projects like clearing ponds, constructing bridges, creating
roads, and enhancing school facilities are straightforward yet desperately needed.
Initiatives that will guarantee their access to necessities like clean water or education.

How does Goonj make it work?

The process starts from collection of material to sorting these by size, gender, age and
occasion while checking for quality. The clothes are sorted into 5 lots – wash, repair,
cotton, gudri and dispatchable, as soon as they get materials the volunteers checks out all
clothes quality. If the material is in good condition without any holes, bubbles on the
cloth then it will be given to wash. Materials with minor problems like stitches issues will
be given for repair, volunteers will repair these clothes with the help of sewing machine
later it will be given for wash and after wash finally those clothes will be given for
distribution. The materials which is not in the condition to be reused, those materials will
go for gudari. Gudari means clothes which cannot used or not in the condition to wear the
cloth. Volunteers will pick up cotton clothes in gudari like dupatta, bed sheet, cotton tops
and so on, they divide these clothes separately and they will make family kit, school bags,
hand bags, wallets and so on. After sorting of clothes these are then placed inside gunny
sacks before being delivered to far-off places on container trucks.
Here these are images of sorting of clothes:
Processing of clothes

Ater the clothes are sorted, they are converted into usable kits for people of all ages.
Goonj specifically gives a lot of importance to the processing of clothes because they
want people who are receiving those clothes to feel that they are getting something that is
at least to being new.

Here are few of the innovative kits that Goonj successfully puts together every time
before dispatching clothes to a village or an underprivileged area.

● School Kits - Schools kits consist of a bag, a few stationary items and a cushion
mat. The school bag is made out of half torn clothes and jeans pants which cannot
be worn by anyone. The cushion mat is made from the worn out/Gudari items
which gain cannot be used by anyone. Often in villages, people’s body type is
more on the leaner side, so jeans pants of larger waist size are not used, so those
pants are used in making bags. The worn-out clothes are cut into small pieces and
are used for cushioning of the mats. The idea behind a school kit is to provide
basic necessities for a school going child.

Bags made out of Gudari/worn-out clothes

● Specially curated kits for Men and Women - Just like school kits, Goonj
makes specially curated kits for men and women. Kits for women consists of
sarees, cloth made (cotton) menstrual pads, and other clothes that can be worn by
women on a day to day basis. One of the problems that Goonj faces is that they
don’t have enough sarees to donate, reason being, most urban women who donate
their clothes, do not onate sarees. Goonj buys sarees from wholesale vendors to
specifically make these kits. Kits for men consist of men’s clothing.

● Marriage Kits - Marriage kits are given to newly married couples. They contain
blankets, pillow covers, bedsheets, and fancy garments that can be worn on special
occasions. The idea behind these kits is that a newly married couple would be
given some of the basic necessities to start a family.

● Cots, Sanitary pads and mats - The worn-out clothes/Gudari are processed
and converted into cots, sanitary pads and mats. They are cut into smaller pieces
and used for cushioning in cots and mats. The sanitary pads are specifically made
from cotton cloth pieces because other synthetic materials can lead to skin
irritation.
Creating Awareness on Menstrual Hygiene

Goonj has been working diligently in spreading awareness about menstrual hygiene
among rural women. Even today rural women barely have any information around issues.
They use cloth as a substitute for sanitary napkins, but the hygiene aspect is usually
overlooked.

Goonj, under its ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ initiative ‘decided to build a proper changing
room, specifically for the women. With no prior knowledge of how to build a bathroom-
like structure, the room that the women had built earlier was revamped to provide them
safety as well as comfort and was rebuilt using bamboo and soil.’

The organization has also taken the responsibility of educating women on menstrual
hygiene stressing more on sterilization of used cotton pads and the consequences of using
unhygienic sanitary products.

‘Innumerable women still resort to unhygienic ways of menstrual protection. To make it

worse, there is inadequate access to toilet facilities and clean water. Menstruation is such
a taboo that women are even ashamed to seek medical advice or freely discuss it with
their own daughters. This further impacts their health and well-being. Thus, making the
women here aware of the issue was just a little step, but a major leap towards better
menstrual hygiene.’
Innovative recycling:
The organization, Goonj located in Begur Bangalore is mainly focused on providing
clothing and basic requirements to the people in the rural and flood occurred areas.
The basic idea behind Goonj is 3R’s, ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”, which can reduce
waste collection and recycle the waste to a best product.
They collect the clothes from people as in form of donation recycle them if damaged,
segregate them into various parts as clean, to be washed, and Gudri which means to be
recycled.
The clothes are also divided into kids clothing, women clothing, men clothing, woolen,
cotton, jeans etc. if the jeans or any clothes are semi-damaged but can be used in some
other way, they innovate the jeans material into a bag for school kids, wallets, purses,
laptop bags which are available to be purchased by both rural and urban people, which
look attractive and trendy ,which makes a person think about a waste cloth could also be
converted into an innovative product. Goonj also collects old, semi-used notebooks and
textbooks including stationary for the school kids in rural areas which can provide the
kids all required study materials and stationary.
Even some clean but damaged clothes are recycled to be made as purses and are also used
to make sanitary pads as mentioned before. They are sold to everyone but in particular to
rural people and if been purchased by urban people, the money collected through selling
the innovative cloth products are used for rural development activities and charity and not
for profit.
Goonj finds innovation not only recycling old clothes but also in providing tasks to the
unemployed workers such as cobblers, barbers etc.
Goonj also focuses on providing work to the rural people, the innovation can also be seen
here where they provide the basic requirements such as tools, equipments for the workers
under the scheme of “TOOL FOR CHANGE” which is urban material reaches rural
communities, for an example a barber is given the required tools and a cobbler is
provided his required tools with which they work and earn for living and also encourage
others who are suffering the same as they were suffering. They provide the tools given by
Goonj and help them also.
Goonj never encourages the rural people to accept any donation or charity instead provide
the cloth kits to them only after they are given a task such as cleaning of the lake in their
village, road repairs, small construction works which are beneficial for their village.
Goonj has successfully completed its tasks by providing the needs of people in the rural
areas by not giving them as a charity, but with empathy towards them and understanding
peoples’ self respect.
 Here are some images which depict the innovative recycling in Goonj:

In the above images the products made by Goonj can be seen. The first image is a jean
pant turned into a stylish laptop bag, school bag. The second image is of a polyster cloth
which was of no use which is now made to a purse and the last image is an old shirt cloth
turned into a storage bag for carrying money or anything. All these products come under
“GREEN by Goonj” which is ultimate waste turned into a range of beautiful products by
reuse and up-cycling.
Also there is another scheme called as Gullak which means a piggy bank to save money
for a cause. Rahat is a immediate need based relief material systematically and working
long term on rehabilitation in disaster hit areas.
Finance and Funding:

Finance and Funding:

Through revenue from three main sources, GOONJ controls its financial resources. They
are

 Self-generated income: Goonj makes money through a variety of fundraising

initiatives, such as the sale of used newspapers, products made from reprocessed
items, or sponsorships.
 Personal contributions: People saw the need for money in addition to their
material donations to manage the logistics of transporting goods from metropolis to
rural.
 Businesses/Institutions/Retailers: Normally, these entities contribute to the
general funds of Goonj or collaborate with them on particular projects.
 Funding from funding agencies: On occasion, Goonj receives funding that is
only available for a certain project or a specific amount of time.

Ways to make monetary contribution to GOONJ:

 Direct/online contribution
 Through check or draft in the name of GOONJ

About Tax Exemption and Utilization of monetary contribution:

Donor will get a 50% tax rebate for donation which is given in the form of money and
there is no exemptions for donations in kind such as groceries, cloths etc.

All the donations they receive will be converted into a large source of funds that they
need to continue their activities. As a result, it is difficult for them to determine the exact
use of each individual’s donation. However, one can obtain all the details about their
work, where they all work, what activities are going on, what is the effect etc. A simple
way to find out is to consult their newsletter. These quarterly newsletters can be received
by anyone by sending them to mail@goonj.org and can also consult their annual reports.
Problems faced by Goonj:

 Cutting Shipping Costs:

Transportation cost from one city to another is one of the biggest problems faced by
Goonj. Most of the times they need to adjust funds, as they normally get Donations in
kind.
 Identification of Village level partner group:
It is the critical part of entire process of Goonj. It uses many ways to findout the
organizations such as reports published in media, reference given by locals, Ashoka
fellows networks across India, their current contact of partner groups, personal visit
etc. They need to evaluate these partner groups continuously.
 Tracking basic information at the time of disasters:
At the time of disaster, they need to find how many people are affected, among them
how many are males and how many are females, age group to which they belong etc.
 Minimization of operating and management expenses:
They need to spend on storage, employee sorting, packing, office costs, salaries for
team etc.
How we as team Happy Monks did our bit to help the
underprivileged people

The team arrived there and they were shocked to see the surroundings of the plant Goonj.
It is located in such an area where one cannot guess an NGO like Goonj would exist. The
team went there and the supervisor explained about how they started, what exactly they
do and everything. By the time team was there, a carrier vehicle was being loaded with
the mattress which were the one of final reused products produced by non-reusable
clothes.
The female volunteers were busy with sorting the clothes into different categories. One
thing which is noticeable is, they are not only working for society but also promoting
women empowerment by providing employment opportunities as well. They are paid
enough salary and evenly treated. They are very happy to work for the society.
The urban discards are accepted in the plant itself. As they have many collection points,
they will be kept into a saree making it a big carrier which would be carrying over 100
clothes in it. Such bags are distributed among different centres where they sort those
clothes into categories.
The team started their bit by helping them sort over 300 clothes starting from toddlers’
clothes till marriage suit. While doing so, the female crew assisted the team and
meanwhile they were so cooperative in sharing their experience.
After sorting the clothes, they served the team with Tea as in indicating the team as a part
of their family. Then met the manager and got to know more about the organization.
So, the thing is people are ready to give the discard clothes. But that is not the only help
Goonj needs. They need a greater number of volunteers who can make themselves
available when Goonj needs. Since Goonj is not only concerned with uplifting the rural
class of people, but also work with the aid for people who are the victims of flood in
different areas.
Though financial assistance is provided by IT companies, they are not enough. There are
many companies who do CSR activities majorly in urban areas. They donate food,
education etc to the needed within the range of urban area. Not so many companies are
contributing towards the development of rural communities. This is one of the ways
Goonj is distinct from any other NGOs.