Driving The Magic Bus

On April 15th, BMW Foundation Young Leaders met with the founder and CEO of Magic Bus, Matthew Spacie, in Munich to discuss the options for providing support, from Germany, to the highly effective and innovative organization, which aims to serve one million marginalized children in India and beyond within the next two years. Magic Bus was visited by many Young Leaders during the 2nd World Young Leaders Forum in Mumbai and left a deep impression on all participants.
Magic Bus is a Mumbai-based social enterprise that takes an innovative approach to solving social problems. It was founded in 1999 by Matthew Spacie who originally had played rugby with the street children in Mumbai. Today, Magic Bus uses mostly football to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds and to promote learning processes in a playful way. Making great efforts to encourage the participation of girls in its football programs, Magic Bus was able to increase the percentage of female participants from five to forty percent within the past two years. Through its sports and outdoors programs, the organization helps the children to develop their potential and encourages them to develop their own goals in life.
During the workshop, the Young Leaders came up with two major results:
First of all, they decided to help establish a fundraising and partnership infrastructure for Magic Bus in Germany. It was agreed to first conduct a feasibility study on fundraising possibilities for the project in Germany. The study will be carried out by the Munich-based Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship and will be funded by the BMW Foundation.

Besides classic fundraising instruments, the idea was discussed to develop a business model for Magic Bus to enable it to sell its competence and educational know-how to investors in developed countries.

All participants confirmed their long-term support for the project.

Video produced by Matthias B. Krause, www.matthiasbkrause.de

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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