Basix Social Enterprise Group: Inclusive Development

This chapter describes the journey of a social entrepreneur, Vijay Mahajan, from his early formative influences to his retirement from the enterprise; it intertwines with the history of the Basix Social Enterprise Group, one of the pioneering social enterprises in the world, which helped promote the livelihoods of millions of poor people, initially using microcredit. The narrative is written as a series of “encounters with the truth” and describes how each encounter led to introspection for the entrepreneur and strategic changes for the enterprise. The first encounter led the entrepreneur to dedicate his life to livelihood promotion work and set up an NGO called PRADAN; the second led to a search for a sustainable financing model for livelihood promotion and to the establishment of Basix as a microfinance institution. The third was based on the impact assessment of the first five years and led to moving beyond microcredit to a “triad” of services for livelihood promotion. The fourth was based on discovering the dark side of microcredit and led to building a new regulatory framework for the sector. The fifth led to a reaffirmation of the livelihoods mission of Basix, this time through a group of social enterprises well beyond microcredit.