We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Harish Kotecha. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Harish below.
Harish, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.
The mission of HC4A is to bridge income disparity through education.
To this end, we have three programs:
School Supplies for homeless children at the beginning of the school year. This program is started in 2010 and from 2012, it became a joint service event between HC4A and Shalom Austin and broader Jewish community in the Austin area.
The second program is vocational training scholarships for economically disadvantaged students. We fund vocational training scholarships, more to organizations that provide wrap around support through placement to better then living wages jobs. The recipients are any age from post high school to heads of households. We have many healthcare workers coming out of this project.
A third pilot program has been launched to provide certification training, again for the economically disadvantaged students. We hope to further develop this program to get folks into the industry at a faster pace.
Harish, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Harish Kotecha is a retired engineer from IBM where he worked from “chips to systems” and holds two dozen US patents. Post retirement, he has been involved in leadership roles in cultural, civic, religious and charitable organizations including helping with resettlement of Bhutanese refugees in Austin, Texas area.
Harish was born in Uganda – He is Hindu by heritage, African by birth, British by nationality and American by naturalization! He migrated to the USA with $200 and an engineering degree when dictator Idi Amin ousted the Asians. His degree and support from his friends helped him live the American Dream.
After early retirement, Harish felt that lot of those who migrated to USA and living the American Dream, should give back to the less privileged. The gift of education can transform lives and hence he founded Hindu Charities for America in 2010.
His vision is to make Hindu Charities for America/HC4A (now doing business as Education & Careers for America/EC4A) a nationally recognized charity for its impact to transform lives of those who live in poverty.
Since HC4A was founded in 2010, it has served over 14,000 homeless children with school supplies and provided over 850 vocational training scholarships to economically disadvantaged students that has led to higher paying vocations. It has launched a pilot program for Certification that HC4A hopes to develop over time.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
When Harish founded HC4A in 2010, he reached our to few friends and relatives to get seed funding that will help register the non-profit, pay for website, marketing materials and such start up costs for a typical non-profits. He maintained that we will not have paid staff. This gives an opportunity to those who are passionate about the cause, an opportunity to give back.
With time, fundraising event was put in place. In 2013, to fund school supplies, HC4A and Shalom Austin launched Bollywood Meets Borscht Belt fundraiser. The fundraiser has supported the Austin area school districts and other organizations serving homeless children with backpacks to start the new school year. The event is family friendly with cultural entertainment, educating about the severe poverty in USA (30+ million, per PovertyUSA.org), and inspire the attendees to donate. To date, HC4A has been able to fulfill the requests from those whom we serve.
In 2014, HC4A started fundraising event for scholarships that evolved into HC4A Scholarship Gala. The Gala, as name implies, is a formal event with entertainment, savory Indian foods, stories by the scholarship recipients on how their lives got transformed to inspire the attendees to donate. This event, in aggregate with other funding, enables HC4A to typically provide 120 or so $1,000 scholarships.
HC4A has also created an endowment fund for long term funding for the scholarships, once the fund reaches a threshold. The contribution comes from our Foundation members who contribute minimum of $2,500 per year. We are reaching a quarter million dollar mark as of now.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Most of our donors are from the Indian diaspora. As a result, their natural affiliation is to provide funding in India for education among other needs.
Most fail to understand the “invisible poverty” in the USA. It takes time for them to be made aware that over over 1.5 million children experience poverty every year and over 37 million in USA live in poverty (poverty.usa, as of this writing). Harish knows of folks in Austin metro area who have no water! It has taken time to build a loyal donor base.
As our donors and potential donors learn of this face and that there is a platform that serves this population, slowly they are willing to open up their pockets. 
Contact Info:
- Website: e4a.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hinducharities/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HinduCharities
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hindu-charities-for-america/
- Twitter: hcfora
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSJb63viINZPhbuASFX3Ng?app=desktop