When we speak about impact, we often speak in numbers – lives touched, enterprises supported, funds deployed, geographies covered. Numbers matter. But after 10 years with School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) India, I have come to believe that impact, like a well-designed building, is less about what is visible and more about what lies beneath the surface.

Impact does not happen by accident. It is designed, tested, stressed, repaired and sometimes rebuilt. Over the past decade, SSE India has been less an Organisation to me and more a living architecture – one that taught me, often the hard way, what it takes to create change that lasts.

This is not a story of success, it is a story of assumptions questioned, structures redesigned, and lessons learned about how impact endures.

The Early Years: When Intent Felt Enough

When we began SSE India, we were driven by a powerful belief: that passionate individuals, equipped with the right skills and exposure, could help solve some of India’s most pressing social problems. We then believed, that if you found committed social entrepreneurs and trained them well, impact would naturally follow. But that is not true. It was not naïve but an incomplete understanding of the fragile ecosystem in which social entrepreneurs operate. I learnt most social entrepreneurs don’t fail because of lack of intent or intelligence. They fail because they are operating inside fragile ecosystems – ecosystems that do not provide the structural support required for sustained action.

Intent, I learned, is the spark that begins the work – but without the structure and stewardship, even the strongest intent cannot sustain it.

From Programs to Systems: A Fundamental Shift

One of the most important lessons of the last decade has been difference between running programs and building systems.

Programs are tangible. They have timelines, outputs and reports. Systems are slower, harder to define, and resistant to quick wins. Yet systems determine whether programs succeed or fade.

Very early in SSE India’s journey we realized that entrepreneurs who struggled were not necessarily weaker or less capable. Infact, they were navigating fragmented funding landscapes, broken markets, misaligned policy environments, and immense personal and emotional pressure. And that is why, SSE India never offered just a training program but as a comprehensive learning journey grounded in action learning, peer exchange, mentoring and long-term support. The intention was never to deliver content in isolation, but to accompany entrepreneurs as they worked through real-world complexity.

Impact, I have come to see, is architectural. Learning programmes are essential spaces within the structure – but it is the systems around them that carry the weight. Foundations, beams, and load bearing walls determine whether even the most thoughtfully designed spaces can endure.

People are not Beneficiaries. They are Infrastructure.

Perhaps the most humbling lesson of ten years has been this: people are not inputs to impact – they are the infrastructure of impact.

At SSE India we often speak of fellows, mentors, experts, partners. But overtime I have stopped seeing them as participants in a model and began seeing them as co-architects.

Social entrepreneurs are not merely problem-solvers. They are institution builders, culture carriers, and risk bearers. Their work demands not only technical competence, but also a good measure of emotional resilience, ethical clarity, patience in uncertainty, and the courage to persist without validation.

Capacity building, therefore, is not just about skills. It is about strengthening the human infrastructure on which impact rests. It is about cultivating shared leadership, ethical judgement, and the ability to hold responsibility over time – especially in contexts where formal systems are weak or uneven. For example, some of the mentors continue to support our fellows beyond the stipulated time of the fellowship and continue to evolve as life-long friendships of trust and care.

Some of the most enduring impact I have witnessed did not emerge from the most polished ideas, but from people who stayed – who continued to build, adapt and hold the work steady. In the end, impact lasts not because it shines brightly, but because it is built well.

Capital as Bedrock: Why the Right Capital Sustains Impact

In much of the development discourse, capital is treated either as a silver bullet or as a necessary evil. With SSE India, a decade of working with CSR leaders, philanthropies, governments and international agencies had led me to a more grounded understanding.

Capital matters deeply. But not all capital is equal.

At SSE India we have seen that capital with compassion and empathy is what makes it foundational, and feeds transformation. When capital is aligned with purpose, governed with integrity, and deployed with an understanding of social realities, it becomes the bedrock on which enterprises are built.

What undermines impact is not capital itself, but capital that is hurried, extractive or misaligned with the nature of social change. 

Short funding cycles can push organisations to scale before they are ready. Narrow outcome metrics can distort mission. Capital that arrives without accountability – or departs without continuity – can weaken the most promising efforts.

The difference lies in design.

I often think of capital as a core structural material. When chosen and well placed thoughtfully, it strengthens the entire architecture. When misapplied, it creates stress fractures that only appear over time.

Designing for impact therefore requires deliberate attention to the quality of capital – how patient it is, how compassionate it is, and how well it aligns with the people and institutions it seeks to support. When money flows in service of learning, leadership and long-term value creation, it does not merely fuel impact – it helps hold it in place.

Institutions Must Outgrow Their Founders

One of the most difficult lessons of this decade has been understanding the tension between founding leadership and institutional maturity.

Charismatic founders can ignite movements. Often, in early years, they must. In environments where systems are weak and trust is scarce, leadership tends to concentrate – not by design but by necessity.

Yet over time, I have also seen how this concentration creates fragility. When too much coherence, momentum, or legitimacy is carried by a single individual, the institution itself remains under construction. Even when the intent is stewardship, not control, the cost is real – for the organization, and for the founder.

At SSE India, this has been a source of both reflection and discomfort.

This has sharpened an important lesson: enduring impact requires institutions that can carry purpose without leaning on personalities. It requires governance that outlives individuals, cultures that transmit values without supervision, systems that enable leadership succession, and practices that preserve learning beyond memory.

The question, then, is not ‘who will lead this?’ but ‘what structures will hold this when leadership changes?’.

Impact that depends on heroism is fragile. Impact that is entrusted to institutions – even imperfect ones – has a chance to endure. Recognising this is not a conclusion; it is an ongoing responsibility, and we continue to take it seriously.

Failure, Time and Patience: The Invisible Materials

No architecture is built without failed designs, abandoned plans, or unexpected delays. Impact is no different.

Over the last decade, some initiatives did not scale. Some partnerships stalled. Some timelines stretched far beyond what funders – or even we – were comfortable with.

What this taught us is something the social sector struggles to admit: impact matures at a different pace than ambition.

Social change unfolds within human lives, cultural norms, and institutional inertia. These do not move on quarterly timelines. The tension between urgency and patience is real – and unresolved.

Yet the most enduring outcomes we have seen were those given time to breathe.

Patience, I have learned, is not a lack of ambition. It is respect for complexity.

India Demands Its Own Impact Architecture

Working across regions and engaging with global partners has reinforced one crucial insight: impact architectures cannot be imported wholesale.

India’s social reality is shaped by scale, informality, diversity and deeply embedded inequalities. Models that work elsewhere often fracture here unless they are carefully adapted. SSE India is one fine example, an idea from UK adapted for India, tested in different states, taken to different areas in the region and continues to serve the purpose.

Caste, gender, governance capacity, local markets, donor behaviour, and community participation all influence outcomes. Impact design in India must therefore be context aware, locally grounded and structurally flexible.

India does not need borrowed blueprints. It needs architectures rooted in its own realities.

This understanding has shaped how SSE India thinks about entrepreneurship – not as a universal formula, but as a contextual practice.

What SSE India Came to Stand for

Looking back, SSE India’s journey has clarified what I now believe to be true about impact.

That enduring impact requires long term accompaniment not episodic intervention, ecosystems not silos, values-led leadership and not growth at any cost, and alignment between individuals, institutions, and intent.

We learned that supporting social entrepreneurs is not about creating stars – it is about strengthening the field they operate in.

Impact is not an event. It is a structure under continuous construction.

Looking Ahead: An Invitation to Co-Build

As SSE India completes a decade, I can find myself less interested in predictions and more committed to questions.

How do we design institutions that can hold complexity?

How do we align capital with conscience?

How do we prepare leaders not just to start, but to sustain?

The next decade of impact will demand deeper collaboration between government, philanthropy, enterprise, and civil society. No single actor can design this architecture alone.

If the last ten years taught me anything, it is this: impact is strongest when it is co-built.

The work ahead is not about scaling faster, but about building wiser. And that, perhaps, is the most important lesson architecture has to offer.

This blog is inspired by the experience of working with SSE India in the last 10 years. However, this is not an anniversary note or an organizational report or a personal memoir. It started with just one question – If impact were a building, what has 10 years of SSE India taught me about how it must be designed to last?