Scaling an organisation’s impact doesn’t necessarily mean growing its infrastructure, staff, or geographical reach. Instead, for us it meant scaling or rather replicating the idea—ensuring flexibility, adaptability, and sustainability while fostering a community-driven path to growth. We see replication as expanding impact through community ownership. What does this look like for us?
A Community-Led Model
Our approach is rooted in the principle of community ownership. We realised that women trust and learn best from their peers. This insight led to the creation of the Gelathi model, where trained women deliver Self-Shakti training programs to others in their villages. This peer-led, trust-based approach ensures that knowledge reaches the remaining 90% of women in a community.
By nurturing local women to become trainers and mentors, we not only expand our reach but also strengthen the fabric of the community. These Gelathis become role models, demonstrating what’s possible when women are given the tools for change. As they deliver training programs, they create a ripple effect, ensuring that the impact of our work extends far beyond the initial participants
Communities full of opportunities
Our long term goal is that every community is full of opportunities for women and girls. This is why we structurally embed women’s education, leadership and entrepreneurship in communities. The combination of educating a critical mass of women in a community, training & coaching the democratically chosen local women leaders, fostering large scale female entrepreneurship and enabling women to take climate action transforms the ‘social soil’ in each community. In this way it becomes the ‘new normal’ in the community (for women, men and children) to see women as leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers in their communities.
Beyond Karnataka: Buzz Academy Fellowship
While our roots are in Karnataka, the demand for our model has grown across India and beyond. The Buzz Academy Fellowship was developed to train grassroots leaders from other states, enabling them to replicate Buzz Women’s model in their local contexts. The Fellowship emphasizes adaptation, allowing each leader to tailor the program to the unique needs and cultural nuances of their community.
The Buzz approach to facilitate sustainable communities has proven highly effective in other countries through our franchise models. By decentralizing leadership and fostering local ownership, we’ve created a scalable model that maintains its core principles while being adaptable to diverse settings. We want to build on this through the Fellowship to ensure that our vision is not confined by geographical boundaries but becomes a movement that transcends them.
Sustainability for the Movement: The Shakti Fund
A significant challenge for many social initiatives is financial sustainability. To address this, we’ve embraced a peer-led model supported by the Shakti Fund. This fund, fueled by contributions from communities, reduces reliance on external resources. It embodies the spirit of ownership and accountability, with women investing in their own journeys and that of their peers.
This financial model not only sustains our scaling efforts but also reinforces the core message of a self-sustaining movement. Women are active contributors to a larger mission and not just recipients.
What we Envision
Buzz Women’s mission is about more than individuals; it’s about creating a movement, enabling transnational solidarity. Our journey has shown us that scaling impact doesn’t require building a larger organization. It requires building stronger communities. Creating an ecosystem where every woman has the opportunity to thrive should be the practice.
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