Mon Ami Foundation - Blogs #traditional knowledgeMon Ami Foundation - Blogs #traditional knowledgehttps://www.monamifoundation.com/blogs/tag/traditional-knowledgeThu, 30 Jul 2026 21:28:56 +0530http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[Virtual Volunteering: The Future of Employee Engagement]]>https://www.monamifoundation.com/blogs/post/virtual-volunteering-the-future-of-employee-engagementVirtual volunteering transforms employee engagement—scaling purpose, CSR, and skill-sharing across geographies, making impact authentic, measurable, and future-focused.]]>
virtual volunteering’s digital and human connection.

For years, employee engagement followed a familiar playbook: team lunches, birthday shoutouts, an annual off-site. That worked when everyone sat in the same office. It works far less now, with teams split between home offices, co-working hubs, and cities apart. Into that gap steps virtual volunteering—and it is quickly becoming the next major shift in how companies keep people invested.

What Virtual Volunteering Really Means

At its core, virtual volunteering is simple: giving your time and skills to a cause from wherever you are, using nothing but a laptop. As Katherine Gorman puts it, “Volunteering takes place on your couch, with your coworkers, during your workday.” That could mean mentoring a student over video call, writing website copy for an NGO, or teaching digital skills to someone who never had access before.
Unlike an office party, virtual volunteering scales across a whole company at once. That scalability is exactly why it is shaping the future of engagement.


Purpose Overtakes Perks

The real driver here isn’t perks—it’s purpose. As Joshua Harris notes, “Employee volunteering is no longer just about social good; it’s a strategic business advantage.”

That shift explains the rise of Volunteer Time Off (VTO), treating giving back as paid work, not a weekend Favor. It also feeds directly into CSR strategy, building trust with stakeholders and compounding results over time rather than creating one-off PR moments. Technology now matches employee skills to real needs, ensuring impact is both authentic and measurable.

Artisan Incubation Model: Mon Ami Foundation

Our unique AI model demonstrates how this works in practice. Backed by CSR partners like DCM Shriram Foundation, HCL Foundation, Dalmia Bharat Foundation, and Synergy Consulting Inc., it has:

  • Trained over 1,000 women artisans across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi NCR, and West Bengal in crafts like zardozi and crochet.
  • Paired IIT Roorkee research students with the camel-herding community in Rajasthan, exploring new uses for camel dung, wool, and milk by-products—skilled volunteering feeding directly into livelihood innovation.
  • Extended impact inward through initiatives like a Dental Health Camp for school staff in NCR, showing how volunteering can strengthen an organization’s own workforce.

This is not yet a finished success story. Mon Ami’s reach is still concentrated in a few regions, dependent on year-to-year CSR funding. Projects like Pastoral Livelihoods and Project Ektara need deeper market linkages to scale. But the proof is clear: expert time and CSR partnerships already work, even as honest ground remains to cover.

The Road Ahead

Virtual volunteering is more than a stopgap for remote teams—it is a blueprint for the future of employee engagement. It aligns purpose with productivity, scales across geographies, and embeds CSR into everyday work.
So, the next time your company mentions virtual volunteering, recognize it for what it is: not a trend, but the trajectory of engagement itself.


Contributed by Shreya Mangla, student St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-mangla-03486124a/

]]>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:27:46 +0530<![CDATA[The Shift to Sustainable Crafting]]>https://www.monamifoundation.com/blogs/post/the-shift-to-sustainable-crafting

The Shift to Sustainable Crafting

Of late, terms such as renewable products, biodegradable material, sustainability, circular economy and decreased carbon footprint, are common-place. The whole cycle of production and consumption is moving from being linear(use and throw) to circular (resource regeneration).

In India, craft traditions have always been produced in a sustainable manner. Having evolved within local communities, traditional knowledge has been passed on for generations, making them resource-efficient and in-sync with local ecosystems. For example, the Ajrakh technique of hand block printing with natural dyes, the moonj baskets woven from moonj grass in the villages of Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand and kala cotton production in Kutch, Gujarat, where cotton is cultivated using minimum water and pesticides free.

Today, consumers are also making a conscious shift to sustainable living by opting for ecologically conscious products and aligning themselves with brands that reflect these values. How has the product been manufactured? Where was it manufactured? What materials were used? in addition to production cost, what is the social and environmental cost?

At Mon Ami Foundation, we are committed to setting up the largest Crochet movement in the country. Our vision is to help build a socially responsible ecosystem by creating sustainable opportunities that will improve the quality of life for women in marginalised communities. Two questions we ask ourselves:
  • Are we doing the right thing?
  • Are we doing the thing right?
Our products resonate with customers who want products produced sustainably. Our core drivers are:
  • Linking sustainability to craft design: Philosophies such as up-cycling, waste minimisation and material optimisation lie at the heart of traditional craft. These aspects, which define sustainability, are intrinsic to the continuity of womens craft.
  • Supporting vocal for local: The clarion call is for India to become atmanirbhar. Along with promoting traditional crochet craft, we are focussed on the well-being of the craftspeople.
  • Creating local ecosystems, reducing carbon footprint: We skill migrant women to earn a sustainable livelihood through online skill building sessions ensuring that our products have a negligible carbon footprint. We endeavour to link products to markets by encouraging self-sustaining mechanisms.
  • Creating customised products: As opposed to mass manufacturing, every single one of our products is handmade and hence, tells a unique story. With the purchase of every product, an inexplicable emotional connect is formed between the maker and the user
      • At Mon Ami Foundation, we are driven by our passion to ensure inclusive and sustainable growth amongst communities by maximising the social impact of corporate investment. Our efforts are in sync with the CSR Act for social responsibility in India, and we work with corporates to maximise impact on-ground. Committed to setting up the largest Crochet movement in the country, through extensive skill building efforts, Mon Ami Foundation, in partnership with HCL Foundations Craft Hub, creates new products for the domestic and international markets, keeping the tastes and preferences of customers in mind.

      To become a market linkage partner or to commission direct projects, do connect: contact@monamifoundation.com
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