LOOP @ Digital Green: Journey of a Nonprofit

The case discusses the challenges faced by Rikin Gandhi, the chief executive officer (CEO) of a nonprofit organisation, Digital Green (DG), as he experimented with ideas that had vast commercial potential. DG produced videos of best farming practices and shared them with small and marginal farmers to help them increase their crop yield. As the organisation grew, it started a pilot project named LOOP. LOOP used technology to provide end-to-end shared logistic services to farmers. It aggregated farmer produce from a village, delivered that produce to the market, received payment from sales and transferred the payment to farmers. This entire chain of transactions could be tracked using a smartphone application at the farmer’s end. As the LOOP project became successful and the various stakeholders came to terms with its tremendous financial potential, Rikin needed to decide on an organisational model to tap into the potential of LOOP and, at the same time, to not disrupt the work at DG. The case focuses on the organisational model options available to DG, as a nonprofit, to pursue and scale a project with commercial potential. Nonprofit organisations in India have various limitations regarding their engagement in commercial, revenue-generating activities. The main questions the case tries to focus on are as follows: What are the various options available to the CEO of DG to pursue a project with commercial potential such as LOOP? What are the limitations and challenges of each of these options that the leader needs to know while making their decision?