World Cup and Rangde

If Cricket is religion then Sachin Tendulkar is God. The biggest festival of the religion called Cricket in 1 day format is World cup (though only former British colonies participate, US being a notable exception). This year the cricket world cup was held in Indian subcontinent and the three colonial cousins India, Pakistan and Srilanka were in the top 3 teams, with India beating the Pakistanis in Semi Final and then sending the Lankans back home without the cup.( A popular SMS circulated was: The Vanar Sena Defeated The Ravan Sena In The Land Of Shiv Sena)  So India was crowned the champions after 28 years, most of the players in Indian team ( Virat Kohli, Ashish Nehra, etc ) were not even born the last time we picked up the cup. While the current captain Mahindra Singh Dhoni was one year old at that time. Now you must be wondering why I am boring you with a 15 day old story. Well I will come to the point in a second.  Cricket is one religion that unites the people of India, from billionaire Mr. Ambani watching  the match from his private box in the stadium to the chotu at the chai shop listening to the commentary on his broken transistor.

Each one of us celebrated the festival in our own unique ways some of us painted our faces in tricolor, some of us were wearing T shirts to support men in blue and some of us like the legendary Lata MAngeshkar were fasting to pray for Sachin Tendulkar and team India.

The crowd funded microfinance organization Rangde decided to do something during the world cup and use the world cup fever to raise funds for entrepreneurs in the dust bowls of India. The concept was very simple yet powerful. Supporters or Indian Cricket team were encouraged to pledge support for randge and commit investment with events associated with the success of Indian Cricket team. Mind you there were no gimmicks and the common supporters of Rande and Indian Cricket team were encouraged to participate in the same.

Here is the conept e.g. You pledge that you will invest 1000 Rupees per wicket taken by Zahir Khan, or you will invest 100 Rs per run scored by Sachin Tendulkar or 10000/- if Sachin Tendulkar makes a century in a particular match.

All the participants had to do was put their pledges on the website and they were encouraged to share the same on social media like facebook with their friends so that they also participate in the same. It started on a slow pace but picked up momentum as the game reached the last 3 matches namely semifinals and finals. Now since India was playing in the Semifinals and eventually beat arch rivals Pakistan and then  made pulp out of Srilankans in the finals; the response has been good. A total of more than 9 lakh rupees was collected to fund the small investors for ventures like a Tea stall to vegetable selling, to buying raw material for weavers etc.

Some well known people like Nachiket Mor, Nagesh Kukunoor,  and of course Smita and Ram the cofounders of Rangde also pledged and invested with every boundary or scalp our men in blue scored.

Rangde today has evolved from a social and financial experiment that founders Smita and Ram started to a very robust scalable and transparent model to fund the small entrepreneurs in India. 

Remember money given to Rangde is not charity, but social investment.The money is given as a loan to the borrower with help of  a local field partner. The difference between Rangde and other Microfinance companies is the source of funding. Since Rangde uses crowd funding and raises money from people like you and me whoa re not being driven by profit motive but a deep desire to see social change and a better India the loans given by Rangde are at a highly affordable flat 8% compared to almost 25% by most microfinance companies. Due to this the repayment rate of Rangde loans is a healthy 97.97% and not a single borrower has been ever harassed in case of a default. Rather the approach in those rare cases is of counseling and peer pressure through the group of borrowers from same ecosystem.

Some unique points about Rangde:

1.  Your money is not donation but  an investment in a small enterprenuer. So you act like a VC.
2.  Rangde does not ask for any cash and  you can make investments using checks, internet banking or credit/debit card
3. You get a confirmation instantly of the investment made.
4. You have option to receive various reports about your investments.
5. If you want you can reinvest the money or take it out as per your convenience.
6. You are investing in the future of India. Just imagine if one of the person you invests grows to become next DBA? Yes I truly believe that it is possible.

To see the list of investors who invested in the Rangde Cricket fever please go to this Link.

To become an investor with Rangde please click on this link.

Would love to hear from you or better still like to see you investing through Rangde.org.