GiveIndia – Professionalize Giving

Introduction1
GiveIndia is a donation platform that allows people to support a cause of their choice
from about 100 NGOs that have been scrutinized for transparency & credibility. We will try to
understand in following sections how GiveIndia operates, where does it get funds from, how it selects
NGOs, what its team structure is, how it manages feedback and lastly what the takeaways could be for
WeKare.

Sources of funds
Let us refer to the diagram-1 on page 2 to understand the money flows in and out of
GiveIndia. Primarily GiveIndia exploits 6 sources in order to generate funds for donations. Let us study
each of these sources in brief.

1] Internet Giving –
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GiveIndia is designed on the basis of ‘Philanthropy Exchange’ which allows donors to donate directly
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to any of the ‘listed’ non-profit organizations. Depending on the choice of donor, GiveIndia directs
the funds to respective NGOs.

2] Payroll –
GiveIndia has teamed up with nearly 40 Indian companies (like Reliance, Bajaj Allianze Life
Insurance etc.) for payroll contribution from their employees. Employees in these companies have an
option of registering with GiveIndia for regular (monthly) donations to NGOs or to GiveIndia. The
chosen amount is then deducted by company’s payroll department and is transferred to GiveIndia.

3] Corporate Giving –
GiveIndia provides corporate and HNIs (High Net worth Individuals) unique solutions to satisfy their
philanthropic needs. They provide solutions to companies to attain the objectives of Corporate Social
Responsibility. GiveIndia charges fees to corporate to provide professional services.

4] Project Implementation –
GiveIndia helps companies implement charity projects. The companies specify what they want to do
and how should it be done. GiveIndia executes the projects by hiring professionals from outside,
implement and monitor the progress. For example, if Outlook/India Today/ToI collects Rs 5crore

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This paper is written by Sameer Alve (MBA2009_Batch3 – Asian Institute Of Management) as part of research on
NGO operating models in INDIA. The material is developed solely for the purposes of finding best practices
followed in NGO industry. It is also to understand the reasons for existence of the NGO. It is neither designed nor
intended to illustrate the correct or incorrect management style. This paper is expected to guide WeKare in
structuring its operations. Neither GiveIndia nor AIM has any role to play in this paper. www.Giveindia.org is been
referred to collect information needed for this paper.
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For more details on ‘Philanthropy Exchange’, refer to http://memestreamblog.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/the-
philanthropy-exchange/
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We will cover in more details the process of selecting NGOs

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 as relief fund for, say, earthquake victims & if they want to build houses, GiveIndia would get
it done for them, for a fee of, say 2-5%.

5] NGO Listing & Renewal –

GiveIndia charges all associated NGOs a listing fee of Rs. 7500 and annual renewal fee of Rs. 5000.
The funding through this channel is not substantive.

6] Charity Events –
Another channel of raising funds is through charity events. GiveIndia organizes events like Mumbai
and Delhi Marathon for raising funds for a cause.

(Diagram-1  Money & Information Flow in GiveIndia)

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NGO Selection Process
GiveIndia believes that the donated amount must reach in good hands for efficient use
of funds. As shown in diagram-1, since it acts as a middle layer managing funds, it has developed a
selection process for NGOs to be associated with them to avail funds. Since the selection process is
based on set of criteria, it minimizes any personal influence over the decision. The process (as depicted
in Diagram-2) is methodical and every organization must clear each step to be finally profiled on
GiveIndia.

(Diagram-2  The selection process)

Some of the criteria include NGOs to be registered with government of INDIA, to be non profit in nature
with underprivileged getting maximum benefits out of their work. There are various steps involved in
getting NGOs associated with GiveIndia right from filling application form to submitting financial details
each year.
The exhaustive selection process forces NGOs requiring steady funds to be credible and responsible
towards expenditures and maintaining records.

Keeping NGOs on toes – Once listed, the NGOs need to undergo a renewal process annually in
November. The process takes around 2 months and requires NGOs to submit latest documents such as
annual reports, audited statements, Income Tax returns. The renewal process helps GiveIndia verify that
the NGOs continue to remain accountable and credible. The NGOs failing to complete renewal process
are delisted from the GivIndia list.

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GiveIndia team structure
GiveIndia is divided into 3 parts. It has 7 person governing board, core team and
volunteers. The governing board consists of eminent citizens such as Mr. Vahul (Chairman, ICICI), Mr.
Chandra (MD, Bain Capital), M/S Anu Aga (Director, Thermax), Mr Chaukar (MD, Tata industries), M/S
Bijapurkar (independent director – Infosys), Mr. Das (CII) and Mr. Krishnan (Director – GiveIndia). The
governing board is heart of the institute which drives and influences key decisions in GiveIndia. The
social network and contacts of these people must be helping GiveIndia add more and more clients to its
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corporate plus payroll giving . The core team is divided into functions such as Payroll giving, internet
giving, Back office, CIO, Listing, events and corporate partnerships, NGO listing and projects, Marketing,
Designer, Feedback, Financial & accounting management services. The existing strength of employees in
individual functions is mentioned below in Table-1. Lastly, the volunteers join GiveIndia from diversified
industries to support various activities and causes.

(Table-1  Functions under core team and employee strength)

What do we infer from this employee model?

The table shows

1. Importance of ‘payroll giving’ to GiveIndia as a major source of funding.
2. After listing initial 100 NGOs, GiveIndia is focusing on generating funds to support these NGOs.
Thus they don’t need much people (only 2 people for ‘NGO listing and projects’) to add on more
NGOs but to support extensively existing NGOs and projects.
3. It surprises me that GiveIndia has only 1 person for Feedback function when Feedback is a major
source of trust to its donors. I wonder how with only 1 person GiveIndia manages to give
feedback to so many corporate and payroll donors on how their money is used. I understand
GiveIndia has mandated its NGO associates to give feedback to its donors regularly but the
responsibility of making sure that the feedback is sent still lies with GiveIndia.

Feedback Process
Feedback plays a very important role in keeping the donors satisfied about usage of
their donations. They ensure that donors always know how their donations are utilized. GiveIndia tracks
every donation and sends donor feedback within six months of donations reaching NGO. The feedback is
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given to individual donor through a feedback report .

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This is author’s inference. All such inferences in this paper are pure author’s point of view.
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A sample feedback is given at end of this paper in Exhibit -1

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Continuous Process Improvement
In order to make the feedback process more transparent and measurable, GiveIndia is
planning to start sharing ‘feedback efficiency rating’ for each NGO. This transparency will also help
donors decide which NGO to donate to. The ratings reflect the feedback sending efficiency of GiveIndia-
listed NGOs. It compares how good an NGO is at sending the feedback reports for the donors.

Concept – Give (Reason for existence)

When studying the GiveIndia team structure, I was unable to understand how it can
manage huge funds (in excess of Rs. 17 crore) with so little volunteers. I tried to understand the reason
and concept behind designing such a structure. My findings on GiveIndia’s reason for existence are as
follows

1. In order to eliminate human suffering, it is important to share, to give. However just donations
wouldn’t suffice. Instead of feeding poor, it is far more important to enable them feed
themselves.
2. GiveIndia is been established by its founder (Venkat Krishnan) to ‘professionalize giving’. It
means, bringing transparency in NGO reporting and utilization, keeping records & documents
and finally to make these records available to donors. It never intended to work on its own to
bring the society up. It in fact was established to help other NGOs get funds from across
locations and help donors find credible NGOs.
3. GiveIndia thus created a place for donor and recipients to come together.

Which all causes you can donate to through GiveIndia?

Give has following broad level of categories to donate. Under each of the categories,
GiveIndia has created options for donors to choose a project as per their choice and preference for
donating amount. It thus gives variety of options to all set of donors having personal preferences for
donations. One such example of options available under ‘Women’ category is shown in exhibit 2.

Children Disabled Education

Elderly Employment Environment
Health Human Rights Women
Youth

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What can WeKare take from GiveIndia.org?

NGO selection process

New NGOs –
WeKare can come up with certain prerequisites for any new school/NGO to get
associated with it. Considering that WeKare works through volunteers and not full time
associates, it would be difficult to come up with a selection process as exhaustive as
GiveIndia. However, it can definitely build such a process over time by rolling out
“WeKare – Bringing Transparency” projects in phases as follows. The purpose
of these phases is to streamline activities not only in WeKare but also in supported
NGOs.

1) Roll out project “WeKare – Bringing Transparency” phase-1.

2) Under phase-1, let WeKare core teams across all locations come up with an
application form to be filled in by any new NGO/school/organization requiring help
from WeKare. The application form may include details such as NGO name,
government registration number, work area, NGO members and their profile, latest
expense reports, feedback from 3 beneficiaries and recommendation from a known
personality / government official etc. Expected deadline to develop an application
form would be June 2009. (Please refer to ‘proposed visibility’ worksheet in WeKare
calendar excel).
3) Once through, WeKare should mandate these details for any new NGO/school to get
associated with WeKare. The application form can be shared with 3 locations.
4) In annual process review, WeKare would take suggestions from all parties
(volunteers, beneficiaries) on changes needed and why those changes are needed.
(NGO selection process needs to be reviewed annually to understand its usage).

Existing NGOs
1) In July 2009, under “WeKare – Bringing Transparency” phase-1, the 3 locations will
share the application form with existing NGOs/schools to fill it up by September
2009.
2) The 1st phase of “WeKare – Bringing Transparency” completes here.
3) Roll out project “WeKare – Bringing Transparency” phase-2 in October.
4) The project will be in line with phase-1 but will come up with those parameters that
will help WeKare make its process more transparent to donors (Capgemini
Employees). The phase thus must take into consideration what donors want. The
WeKare core teams across locations would therefore carry out an extensive survey
of sample associates (the sample can be chosen from monthly donations list) to
understand what motivates them to keep donating (self satisfaction, tax benefit etc.)
and what details would they like to receive from WeKare about their donations. (The

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 expectations would vary from an e-mail report to extensive report or a visit to the
school or financials of NGO).
5) WeKare would carry out these surveys for a period of 3 months (till end of
December).
6) We would then analyze the expectations in depth to understand which all
expectations could be managed by WeKare solely (example – arranging annual trip
to a school for donors) and which all expectations would need cooperation from
NGOs (example – details of money spent).
7) The list of expectation mark end to phase-2.
8) WeKare would then form its annual calendar events taking into consideration
expectations of donors and would communicate to NGOs the details it needs.
9) Over next months, WeKare would roll out more transparency projects to keep track
of individual donations. (I will write in detail about subsequent transparency projects
in subsequent papers)

Benefits

1) The transparency projects would align processes not only in WeKare but also in
associated schools / NGOs.
2) The projects would help bring up existing NGOs and make them financially credible and
responsible. The NGOs would need to create its annual budget and present it to WeKare
over the period of time (this would be part of 3rd and subsequent transparency
projects). This can be done only through small initiatives in phases.
3) The surveys conducted by WeKare across locations would portray WeKare’s positive
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image on associates of Capgemini . It would not only highlight WeKare’s efforts but
would also help it get more mature volunteers. The process by its nature would carry
one-on-one (or one-on-few) meeting between associates and volunteers.
2. Coming up with a way of giving personalized feedback to donors would enforce their
trust in WeKare. The phase-2 would help WeKare roll a ball towards this goal.

Other takeaways

1. The technical & marketing teams of GiveIndia assist it in spreading the message fast and
effectively using internet and other communication medias. How can WeKare develop
such a function (say PR)?
2. How can WeKare come up with donation types (such as insurance to individuals, or
insurance to school properties etc.) for associates to select from pool of choices?
3. How can WeKare continuously improve its processes? Who should be given
responsibility of long term vision and adapting WeKare towards it?

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Capgemini employees (called as associates) are currently major donor’s of WeKare

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4. In line with point 3, what technical project WeKare would need to carry to allow its
donors directly donate amount to a cause? What all details would be needed to carry of
such a project?
5. How can WeKare track and force NGO to track each donation and provide details of
expenditures? (later part of transparency projects)
6. What other regular or adhoc events can WeKare start to raise funds, donate amounts
etc? (Example – raising funds to buy bullet proof jackets for policemen or raising fund
to start a small scale business venture for women).

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Exhibit – 1  Example of a Feedback report given to donor

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Exhibit – 2  Donation categories under Women category

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