Challenges at Jatan Sansthan: can design thinking help the NPO?

Research methodology This case is based on primary data. The insights and thoughts shared by the founder, also the protagonist in the case, with the authors have helped build a case study for educational purposes. The primary data is based on actual happenings, observations, experiences and insights. Discussions were held with the senior management, middle management and field staff. The quotes from various employees across levels have been used to generate the transcript for each level of employees. The authors, with the help of artificial intelligence (ChatGPT 4), reworded and paraphrased based on the interactions (some of which were in the vernacular language) to suit the actual situation. The secondary data source for information on projects is Jatan Sansthan’s website [1]. Case overview/synopsis Dr Brijwasi, founder and executive director of Jatan Sansthan (Jatan) [2], grappled with a pressing concern in January 2023. He and his colleagues had established Jatan, a not-for-profit organization (NPO) in the city of Udaipur, in the state of Rajasthan [3] in India, with a mission to work at the grassroots level with rural and resource-poor communities across the State. They were firm believers in the power of community participation and the potential of the youth and women to be catalysts for change. Their goal was to empower these communities, particularly the youth and women, to engage in policy formulation and advocacy. Jatan had built a committed team that was passionate about the cause. The environment in the organization was family-like, and employees across the three levels (senior management, middle management and field staff) were encouraged to interact openly, with supportive and transparent communication. However, something was critically amiss. Dr Brijwasi was perturbed by the attrition of employees, which was hampering capacity building. He found that the capability building of locally hired change agents, through training, was not working. Implementing the many projects would certainly soon become difficult. How would Jatan achieve its goal of building a motivated and committed team that shared the top leadership’s vision? Complexity academic level This case is designed for graduate and postgraduate students in the social/development sector and social entrepreneurship programs. It could also be part of design thinking (DT) and social innovation courses in programs beyond the social sector, such as Master of Business Administration programs, to sensitize students to the unstructured nature of working in the social sector and the adaptable nature of the DT process. Challenges addressed in this case study can be extended to organizations beyond NPOs, as many organizations face issues related to employee engagement. This case has been class-tested with post-graduate students in a social sector management program. This case study can be taught both in person and online.