A young man with a disability once told Ranu Kulshrestha that the mobility support he received, helped him feel the rain for the first time. A young woman spoke about the freedom to choose the colours of the clothes she wore. A woman driver proudly shared how financial independence allowed her to contribute to building her family home.
For Ranu Kulshrestha, these stories represent something that numbers alone cannot capture. With more than 25 years of experience across grassroots work, NGOs, research and academia, government and policy institutions, international organisations, UN bodies and corporate CSR, she has built her approach around a simple question: “Zaroorat Kiski?” or “Whose need are we addressing?”
Today, at Bridgestone India, her work spans road safety, livelihoods, education, health, inclusion, water, biodiversity and environmental sustainability. For her, social impact is ultimately about expanding people’s choices and creating opportunities to live with dignity.
A Journey Shaped by What She Witnessed
Ranu Kulshrestha says she never consciously decided to build a career in the social sector. Her journey began with what she witnessed while growing up.
She remembers seeing the sons of a house help drop out of school after being brutally beaten by teachers in their village. As an adolescent, she witnessed domestic violence and discrimination between sons and daughters in an educated family in her neighbourhood.
Later, she became aware of deeper social issues religion & caste-based discrimination, families hiding children because of fear and stigma around having autistic daughters, and people who had little choice about their lives or the ability to question their circumstances.
Her master’s in social work helped give expression to this sense of discomfort and helplessness. Her experiences afterwards exposed her to realities including forced marriage, incest, calamities, food insecurity and abuse.
These experiences shaped her understanding of development.
“Now for me, development or social impact is fundamentally about expanding people’s choices and access, the choice to learn, earn, aspire, move, participate, express themselves, make decisions and ultimately live with dignity.”
Her career subsequently took her through different parts of the development ecosystem, giving her perspectives on communities, systems, policy, partnerships, implementation and corporate accountability.
When Numbers Cannot Tell the Whole Story
Ranu describes herself as execution oriented, but says execution has never been the ultimate goal.
“Execution has never been the end goal for me. Impact has always been the end goal.”
For her, impact requires a clear strategy, defined outcomes, appropriate partners, aligned systems and teams, results tracking and stakeholder engagement. Where relevant, it also requires convergence with government and the ability to align internal stakeholders.
The phrase “Zaroorat Kiski?” has remained central to this approach. In conversation with The Logical Indian, Ranu explains that the question came from a close friend many years ago and eventually became a test she applied to her own work.
Projects such as SAFAL for agricultural improvement, now Unnati, Sarthi, Parwaaz, Sarthi Support Centres and Bridgeshala reinforced the importance of looking beyond whether an intervention was completed.
Is it addressing the underlying issue? Does the partnership bring the right capabilities? Can convergence create sustainability or scale? Are the measures of success meaningful?
Her answer has been to remain close to implementation, question assumptions, stay rigorous about results and never lose sight of the person behind the numbers.
“Inclusion of vulnerable groups has always been a cross-cutting theme.”
The Changing Face Of CSR
Over three decades, Ranu has seen CSR move from largely philanthropic giving and cheque-writing towards a more structured, professional and accountable function. The statutory CSR framework also brought greater discipline and governance.
But she believes professionalisation has created another challenge: becoming overly comfortable with measurement.
“Somewhere along the way, we have become extremely good at counting, how many people were reached, trainings conducted, money spent and activities completed. All of this is important, but numbers can also give us a false sense of achievement.”
She recalls seeing rampant toilet construction in schools in Noida where there was inadequate water and no provision for maintenance. She also saw computer labs established in rural schools without anyone to teach children how to use them, leaving computers unused.
The activity could be marked complete, target spent achieved but the problem remained.
“An intervention can be complete on paper and still have no impact, and fail the community.”
For Ranu, the next stage of CSR maturity therefore requires better diagnosis, meaningful partnerships, accountability and a sharper focus on actual impact.
Mobility As a Path to Possibility
At Bridgestone India, mobility is central to CSR thinking because it is at the heart of the business. But Ranu sees mobility as more than movement from one place to another.
Mobility can mean livelihood, access to healthcare or education, independence for a woman, dignity for a driver, or participation and opportunity for a person with a disability.
The work therefore spans road safety, livelihoods, education, health, inclusion, water, biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
“The common thread is creating greater choices and possibilities for people while addressing issues that matter to the communities we work with.”
She recalls a young man with a disability who said mobility support enabled him to feel the rain for the first time. She remembers a woman driver who spoke about becoming financially independent and contributing to her family’s home. A veteran driver told her that Sarthi Support Centres were beginning to address the health, wellbeing and everyday needs of drivers.
She has also seen water and environmental initiatives create change across a village and witnessed education open new possibilities for children in conflict with the law.
“These are not isolated anecdotes for me. Together, they show that our legacy is not defined only by what we produce, but by the possibilities we create.”
From Awareness to Ownership
Through SATARK and wider road-safety education work, more than 46,000 people have been engaged. Last year, SATARK engaged 1,902 students across 35 academic institutions.
Among trained students, consistent road-safety behaviour improved by around 18%, communication confidence by 41%, and tyre and road-safety awareness by 37%.
But Ranu looks beyond classroom figures. Students became road-safety ambassadors, conducted road audits, influenced peers and families, and designed and led campaigns.
Engineering students conducted road-safety hotspot audits, with suggested modifications and redesigns subsequently accepted and implemented by authorities. More than 3,800 commercial vehicle drivers and logistics personnel were also involved and engaged ..
“We have to move from awareness to action, and eventually to ownership.”
Building Partnerships Around Outcomes
Project Sarthi has trained close to 3,000 young people, with 82% coming from marginalised communities and poverty-stricken districts. Around 96% passed the NSQF-certified assessment and 73% were placed with OEMs or in the transportation industry.
An independent impact assessment after three years found that 99.5% remained accident-free after training, while 92.24% continued HMV driving as a profession and 88% reported improved decision-making and presence of mind while driving.
The programme learnings have expanded services to the trucking community through Four Sarthi Support Centres walk in centres providing healthcare, physiotherapy stress management, social security entitlements, financial literacy and other.together these centres have recorded 80,000 footfalls.
For Ranu, this evolution demonstrates why programmes must respond to changing needs.
“A programme should not remain frozen in its original design simply because that is what was approved. If the needs are broader, the programme has to respond to them.”
The same thinking applies to partnerships. Ranu believes scale alone does not guarantee impact. Smaller, locally rooted NGOs can bring deep contextual understanding and a willingness to co-create.
“The question I insist on asking is not simply whether a partner can deliver the activity. It is whether together we can deliver the change.”
She believes corporates, NGOs, government and communities each bring different strengths. Meaningful partnerships require trust, honest conversations, accountability and a shared focus on outcomes.
“For me, meaningful partnership is about complementary strengths, shared accountability and a common focus on the outcome rather than who owns the project.”
Designing With People, Not Just for Them
Looking ahead, Ranu does not have a fixed five-year plan. She wants to continue working where social development, environmental sustainability and human possibility meet, particularly across biodiversity, water, soil health, livelihoods and gender.
She is also increasingly interested in young people’s agency.
“We need to move further from designing programmes for young people to designing them with young people.”
After decades in the field, she believes CSR needs professionals who can balance thinking, feeling, connecting and co-creating change.
Ultimately, her philosophy returns to the same question that has guided her for decades: “Zaroorat Kiski?”
For Ranu Kulshrestha, meaningful CSR begins by understanding whose need is being addressed, and whether the work genuinely expands people’s choices and possibilities.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
CSR has become increasingly structured, measurable and accountable, but Ranu Kulshrestha’s journey raises an important question about what those measurements ultimately represent.
A programme can reach thousands of people, spend its allocated funds and complete every planned activity, yet still fall short if it does not address the underlying need. Her emphasis on asking “Zaroorat Kiski?” places the community at the centre of that conversation.
Her experience also highlights the importance of listening to people before designing interventions, choosing partners for their understanding rather than scale alone, and allowing programmes to evolve when community needs change.
Most importantly, her approach reminds us that social impact is not only about what an organisation delivers. It is also about whether people gain greater choices, dignity, participation and possibilities in their lives.
What do you think makes a CSR initiative genuinely impactful: the number of people reached, or the change it creates in their lives?
If you’d like us to feature your story, please write to us at csr@5w1h.media.
Also Read: People of Purpose: Aarshiya Das’s Panaah Reaches 2,100 Children, Aims To Make Pune Dropout-Free
