Catering To The Increasing Demand For Professional Talent In Social Sector; ISDM Calls For Change Leaders

Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), World’s first of its kind institute established to develop the discipline of Development Management across the globe is inviting applications from aspirants who want to change the world through a meaningful career and make a good living doing so.

Social sector in the country is professionally evolving. The desire for a job with a meaningful purpose is attracting budding talents from engineering, science, business management and other backgrounds. With a great number of jobs, diversity of roles, rising demand from a vast variety of organisations and decent pay structures, a large number of passionate minds are launching their career in the development space.

In its endeavour to facilitate the creation of a cadre of professional leaders and managers for the development sector, ISDM has now opened admissions for the Post Graduate Programme in Development Leadership for the 2019-2020 batch. The institute is offering a minimum scholarship of Rs. 1, 00,000/- for all applicants who would apply before December 23, 2018. To inspire, nurture and equip the young minds who don’t have sufficient financial resources, ISDM is also offering 100% scholarship and a 50% discount on the living expenses. 

Mr. Ravi Sreedharan, Founder & Director, ISDM, said “ISDM has grown exceptionally in the last two years and has witnessed greater interest from a variety of Social Purpose Organisations to hire students who can bring a significant difference to the impact, scale and sustainability of these organisations. We certainly hope that the year at ISDM would be a fruitful experience for the students- full of unlearning, learning and collaborating with each other”.

A successful commencement of student batches shows the growing demand of millennial and social sector aspirants to join institute like ISDM to become change leader for greater impact and efficiency. The ISDM batch is a diverse group of students who are passionate for change. It has a healthy representation from all parts of the country and different academic backgrounds. ISDM’s first batch saw enormous placement interest from over 100 organisations that floated about 250 roles for a batch of 57 students.

The sector no longer requires you to ‘sacrifice’ your life. It now pays enough and more to lead highly meaningful, financially sustainable lives. As per Mettl’s Salary and Employment Report (2018), an average engineering graduate earns Rs 4.7 lakh per annum (with mechanical and civil earning much less compared to computer science and electronics) which is not very different from what we would expect a fresh graduate from a good college preparing students to work in the social development sector.  A fresher from the Post Graduate Program in Development Leadership at ISDM last year got a salary in the range of Rs 4 lakh to 6 lakh per annum depending on role and organisation. The average salary across all students was in the range of Rs 7 lakh per annum with the maximum ranging around Rs 12 lakh to 13 lakh per annum.

Going beyond NGO’s, today organisations ranging from implementation agencies, funders, funding conduits, consulting agencies, investment banking, research, for-profit social enterprises, corporate foundations, not-for-profit social enterprises, trusts, Section 8 companies are desperately looking out for people who understand the sector and are able to contribute in constituting world class, impactful, sustainable social organisations.

The sector has career opportunities for a varied range of professionals as job profiles include Strategy building, Communications & Engagement, Fund raising, being part of the CEOs  office (strategy, data based decision making, planning), Managing M&E, Programme leadership, CSR, Partnerships & Alliances, Social Entrepreneurship, Operational Leadership  etc. 

ISDM's curriculum attempts to develop an in-depth understanding of the development sector and development sector organisation specific management practices, all rooted in value-based transformational leadership. The programme is co-developed by large social purpose organisations and is designed and driven by practitioners and eminent leaders from the sector.