Our Expertise

VIVA Development Strategies is a niche consultancy in India's growing social development sector. We work with all the stakeholders of the sector viz. Government, International Development Firms & Donor Agencies, NGOs & Corporates to create and/or strengthen programs across all stages of its life cycle. The organization's expertise lies in providing a customized and stakeholder relevant approach to achieving their objectives and helping them navigate through the complex and sometimes challenging development ecosystem in our country. VIVA and its founders have immense experience and demonstrated expertise across the entire spectrum of program needs: Research, Strategy development, Program creation, Drafting program policy, Identification of relevant grass-root partners, Capacity Building for successful program implementation, Advocacy (Media, Stakeholder & Community), Communication, and Reporting & Impact Assessment. On another hand we applied the above skills and experience in multiple development areas: communicable diseases, nutrition & lifestyle, maternal and child health, family planning, education, livelihood & up-skilling.

Research
 

From insight mining, situational analyses, baselining to process setting and program design to performance evaluation and benchmarking - a strong research oriented approach adds value to every stage of a program’s life cycle. We employ a need based approach to conduct research studies depending on the research objective and nature of study. In the past, VIVA Development Strategies and its founders have facilitated research projects (both qualitative & quantitative) across a variety of areas like: Increasing uptake of govt. services, media consumption habits of high risk groups, nutrition patterns and behaviors across multiple states.

Strategy and Program Development

VIVA Development Strategies often works with clients on long term visioning exercises that either define, refine or re-define the strategic direction that an organization or program needs to take. We also specialize in creating highly synergistic program models that help clients realize strategic and/or operational goals in a sustainable and often collaborative manner between the public and private sectors. Some noteworthy bodies of our work in this domain have been in the areas of family planning, enabling equitable access of health services, creating public private models for nutritional support to augment govt. drug therapy and policy development under the governance of the CSR law with a focus on education and skilling.

Stakeholder Engagement & Partnerships

Development needs in a country like ours are immense and can only be successfully met when the government, non-government organization, independent agencies and corporate bodies work together in an integrated and intensive fashion. Anybody that has attempted this may also be aware that in reality this is much easier said than done due to differing agendas, conflicting priorities and sometimes incompatible working styles. However creating intricate win-win solutions between stakeholders is something that VIVA Development Strategies excels in and has been successful in mobilizing stakeholders to align support in multiple projects on education, maternal and child care and health.

Communication & Advocacy
 

Our background across sectors and our vast experience in communication makes us especially adept at strategic communication and advocacy initiatives across – community, media & stakeholders. The founders have had a very distinguished track record of working on several initiatives in this area which have won national acclaim and awards. Along with delivering remarkable solutions VIVA Development Strategies has also created some never-done-before models and frameworks in the area of communication and advocacy. VIVA Development Strategies has very noteworthy case studies of work in the areas of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis & menstrual health.

Capacity Building & Implementation Support

We strongly believe that strategy is only as good as its execution and take immense pride in being able to help our clients actualize strategies into realities, thereby taking concepts to the grassroots effectively. Setting up processes, human resource planning, drafting implementation guidelines and SOPs are some services that we offer to ensure robust implementation. We are also experienced in conducting capacity building interventions for field teams as well as teams at the managerial level to address existing need gaps or upskill human resource as per evolving program needs. We have worked with pharma companies, municipal bodies, associations, international development firms and various health departments at local and national levels.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Impact Assessment & Documentation

VIVA believes in working towards an in-built monitoring mechanism within every project to ensure appropriate data usage and reporting, course corrections and impact measurement for projects. VIVA’s founders have significant experience in running large scale sustainable programs that showcase measurable impact, only due to the M&E that was made intrinsic to the projects. VIVA's expertise includes developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks, impact assessment and related documentation.
VIVA and its founders have undertaken various projects in M&E, Impact Assessment & documentation (both print and video documentation) for various clients, stakeholders and partners with backgrounds across health services, pharma, maternal & child care and for corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in industries like oil & petroleum, business process outsourcing etc.

Founders

Vinitha Venkatraman

She brings together media, communication and the social perspective to create solutions for the development sector and corporate social responsibility. Having worked in leading positions with two leading organizations in their respective sector: Times of India (Media), National AIDS Control Organization (HIV AIDS-social sector), she has an understanding of media, corporate bodies, government, society and strategies to develop integrated solutions under CSR. She founded VIVA Development Strategies in 2013 that has 12 clients in less than three years - 4 global organizations Read More..


R. Varadarajan

Varadarajan brings 15 years of rich professional experience of the creative and business field to VIVA Development Strategies. His corporate experience helps contextualize social programs in the business setting and throws light on the role of the private sector. His exposure of work ranges from clients in diverse industries like Health, Nutrition, Education, Construction, Transport and Automobiles, Finance, FMCG etc. Collaborating with clients on media neutral marketing solutions and driving sustainable marketing and communication programs through strategic planning are his expertise. Read More..


 

Projects

Partner With Us

National & International Agencies

VIVA provides solutions to specific development issues through focused a approach. These include – visioning exercises, building a strategic plan, setting up systems, structures and standard operating procedures, strategic partnerships, implementation models, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, impact frameworks, communication, advocacy, among others. VIVA also helps organizations build sustainable and scalable social enterprise models thereby empowering the community and the organization.

Corporate sector

We help companies create and manage project life cycles that are inherently aligned, attuned and beneficial to their core business eco-systems.
We support organizations in their journey of taking projects from the seed concept to a full-fledged sustainable program. VIVA will conceptualize the project, frameworks for standards in operation, develop effective control mechanisms and play a catalytical role in implementation of socially relevant models. We assist both corporate CSR and corporate Foundations in their work towards social impact.

Partner with/Donate to our clients

At VIVA, we ensure that you are successful in achieving your goal. Apart from the services we provide, we are happy to help you achieve your goal by assisting you to meet your ideal partner and/or donor for a project.

If you wish to partner with or donate to any of our clients or projects please write to us.

To know more about projects / organizations you can partner with, client section

Testimonial

VIVA Development Strategies developed our long term strategic plan through a series of consultations with stakeholders of FPA, India. The efficiency with which they planned and implemented the strategic plan development process was impressive. At each stage they worked closely with our headquarter team, branch employees and volunteers and picked up nuances of the program that were intrinsic to the strategic plan. They kept us all engaged through their interactive approach for the consultative sessions. It was designed to bring out the best in our programs, address gaps and work towards improvement areas. The final strategic plan and implementation models were thoroughly written out, it will be the foundation of our work for the next seven years. Kudos to the team and VIVA at keep up the good work!

Dr Kalpana Apte
Secretary General
Family Planning Association of India





VIVA Development Strategies was our go-to option when we needed to organize the WHO Eleventh Global Public Private Mix meet in India. They immediately came to our rescue to take up the task at the enth hour. Impeccable planning, completely reliable and a great team to work with. They became an extended arm of the PATH team during the project phase, it was a phenomenal experience to watch them work. Only when we started work with them did we realize they do so much more than what meets the eye. That was the beginning of our extended association that spilled over to other projects too.
My best wishes to the team at VIVA Development Strategies and keep up the great work!

Dr Shibu Vijayan
Project Director (Private Provider Interface Agency)
Mumbai mission for TB control





VIVA Development Strategies did some excellent work with both the corporate advocacy initiative and capacity building training workshop for Futures Group. Their skills were useful on ground in working on the employer led model for raising employer attentiveness to employee health and HIV/AIDS. Their understanding of the private sector is in depth and is backed by strong strategic thinking and effective communication skills. Their command over the audience and ability to think and work on their feet is an unique quality that is a boon to any capacity building program.

Shekhar Waikar
Senior Private Sector Specialist Futures International
PIPPSE Project





Vinitha has worked with me for three years very closely, as Mumbai Smiles Head of Partnerships Unit. She is a very open minded person with a good sense of professional commitment, strong at networking, sharing knowledge as being a contagious creative communications professional. With a passion for innovating, learning new ways of business and collaboration. A highly positive thinking professional that meets deadlines. VIVA Development Strategies is a fresh and dynamic approach to Development and CSR strategy with a competent and well experienced team of professionals. New think tank and action combined for a future to be built at any institution, organization, corporation or government agencies.

Alexandra Haglund Petitbó
Former General Director
Mumbai Smiles International





I have worked with VIVA Development Strategies when they developed the Strategic plan for FPA, India through management consultative sessions and innovative approaches and again when I hired their services for the social enterprise of Novartis. Their understanding of the union of society and business is unique and they come with the inherent knowledge of bringing together social outcomes with meeting a company's enterprise goals. With a keen understanding of the development sector, VIVA Development Strategies is a power house of energy and will augment the progress of any project they work for. It is a proud moment to see the consultancy for where is it today.

Monique Kamat
Head - Health & Social Marketing
Novartis India





Vinitha worked closely with GHS to support the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) for the effective prevention and control of Tuberculosis in the city of Mumbai. Vinitha, the founder of VIVA Development Strategies, developed and implemented an effective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy to address some of the funding gaps and brought corporates and donors on board! She plans meticulously, is strategic in her thinking and can work with multiple partners including the government, NGOs and corporates. I wish Vinitha and VIVA Development Strategies all the very best.

Anjali Nayyar
Executive Vice President
Global Health Strategies





We at KHPT have been very choosy about who we engage with as external consultants. This has been deliberate decision due to our inability to find individuals who could get into the skin of our work and understand our heart behind what we do. VIVA was an exception. They at once, took ownership, dissected our thoughts deeply enough to understand our exact requirements for every assignment and delivered efficiently and wholeheartedly. Happy to have them on board of KHPT.

Mallika Tharakan
Deputy Director- Communications and Partnerships
Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT)