Abstract 

Akshaya Patra was founded by ISKCON (religious foundation) in 2000. It started by serving Mid-Day Meals to about 1,500 students in 5 government schools.  By 2017, it was serving ~1.7 million children in 33 locations across 11 states in India. Akshaya Patra had built state-of-the-art “mega-kitchens” along with a well-developed food supply chain. The meals were prepared in a hygienic environment but, to ensure safety and taste, a quality check was also carried out for every batch, before dispatching the same for consumption. However, the exponential growth was a cause of concern. The cost of meal preparation after reimbursement by the government kept increasing, but the donations that had helped bridge this gap in the past were not keeping pace. In addition, the organization had set an ambitious “Mission 2020” to reach 5 million children daily by 2020.  It was this challenge of scaling up that forced Akshaya Patra to look at various options and led to the setting up of Akshaya Nidhi, a for-profit organization in support of Akshaya Patra.  Over a period of 3 years, Akshaya Nidhi had grown steadily and entered various businesses.  In such a scenario Vinay, CEO, Akshaya Nidhi, was wondering about the appropriate path forward, that is, which opportunities to pursue, and the related organization structure that was needed to support the same.

Learning Objective (Maximum of 500 Characters):  Briefly describes teaching goals of case.

The case deals with how a non-for profit social organization can structure with additional businesses to sustain itself economically.  The case looks at how to run both a not-for-profit and a for-profit business under the same roof with a common top management.  It identifies the challenges for-profit organizations face when the constraints that they work under are driven by values and beliefs that are non-negotiable.  In addition, students going through this case will appreciate the importance of getting the organization structure right to support a growing organization.  The case identifies the struggles faced by not-for-profit organizations in sustaining themselves, and also looks at how to share resources between businesses which have distinct goals that they pursue.