Nat Sloane on Goonj – dignity and loyalty
Goonj distributes 60 tonnes of clothing every month to the poorest parts of rural India. The organisation collects discarded clothes, processes it through its value chain (which employs a community of hundreds for the sorting, cleaning and tailoring), and distributes it as clothing, sanitary pads or other useful items through a unique community self-development scheme.
The JFC group was struck not only by the immense impact Goonj creates, but also by the fact that one of the leading social initiatives in India is not chained to a concrete business model. Instead, its operations are flexible, fluid and constantly evolving, anchored by the core value of dignity. Nat Sloane of Impetus discusses his Goonj experience, at once confusing and enlightening.
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Placing dignity at the cornerstone
Life always holds interesting contrasts. After visiting Goonj, I started reading Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short,” which chronicles the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage market. When I read, “[He is] a man who valued loyalty above all other traits but had no tool to command it except money,” I was struck by the contrast from the afternoon’s visit to Goonj. Anshu must command a lot of loyalty given Goonj’s employee base and the story about the employees’ willingness to forego a month’s wages to be able to buy an electrical generator for the organisation. Clearly, the loyalty Anshu commands doesn’t just come from money, although I am sure that money plays a part for some people.
Anshu is a quietly charismatic man who quickly enthused and inspired me. Yet, quick enthusiasm and inspiration can be ephemeral while loyalty, by definition, cannot be. I do not want to deconstruct the whole organisation, nor can I do that after a two hour visit. Still, I was hugely moved by one particular perspective Anshu articulated. The notion of placing dignity as the cornerstone of all human interaction – especially those between ‘donors’ and ‘recipients’ – hit home for me.
I loved his notion that we never donate clothes; we discard them. By extension, the recipients are not passive, grateful beneficiaries; they are people who solve an urban problem by productively reusing clothing. Within such a simple construct is the essential basis for communicating what dignity is and hopefully for living and breathing it in what Goonj does. This dignity business is a big deal for me as it cuts to the heart of establishing open, honest and constructive relationships. That surely has to be a great cornerstone for building loyalty.
A constantly evolving business model
Goonj’s ‘business model’ inspired and intrigued me in equal measure. How can I not be inspired by the idea of turning clothing for disasters on its head by identifying winter as a disaster and driving clothing recycling as a more proactive process rather than a sporadic reactive event? How can I not be inspired by finding a simple solution to the taboo matter of monthly menstruation through the use of discarded and cut up cloth? How can I not be inspired by the ‘clothing for work’ concept that drives home the concept of dignity throughout the Goonj ‘value chain’? How can I not be inspired by the sight of women sitting in the Goonj equivalent of Dilbert’s cubicle sorting, fixing and packing up clothing? (BTW-the cubicles look a lot more inviting than Dilbert’s.)
What intrigued me was Anshu’s description of Goonj’s evolving model – it seemed organic and alive. Here is an organization that has evolved from its roots of collecting and distributing clothing (very tangible to my simple mind) to doing that as part of a ‘clothing for work’ pact for rural community improvement (also tangible) to serving as some sort of catalyst for development in which neither the clothing nor the pact are in evidence (now getting abstracted for my simple brain) to operating an organization with no obvious succession plans nor much angst about fundraising (way out of my mental terrain now).
Questions and answers
I do not need to make sense of this now but, of course, I want to. I suspect a lot of the loyalty Anshu and Goonj command reflects the values of dignity and a certain organic, Zen-like, ‘be more-in-the-moment’ flexibility to strategy and operations. I find it hard to see how Goonj thrives once Anshu moves on. But should that matter if Goonj is doing good right now? My reactions to my own question pose many more questions for me.
