THE INDIAN JOURNAL

OF
SOCIAL WORK

Volume 84, Issue 1

January 2023
Tata Institute DOI: 10.32444/IJSW.2023.84.1.5-18
of
Social Sciences https://journals.tiss.edu/ijsw/index.php/ijsw

SPECIAL EDITORIAL

NGOs and Private Sector Funding

An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages

PUSHPENDRA

Pushpendra is Former Professor, Centre for Community Organisation and Development

Practice, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. In the past, he has worked with
international development organisations.

Domestic private sector giving for philanthropy has steadily grown in

India. The private sector givers include non-public sector companies
through their corporate social responsibility (CSR)1, ultra-high net-worth2,
high net-worth, and affluent individuals3, and retail givers (also known as
crowd funding).4 In CSR funding, the private sector accounts for more
than four-fifth of overall CSR contributions. Of the total philanthropic
capital in India in 2021–22 amounting to 2,09,000 crores, corporate trusts
accounted for half of the money. Out of the remaining 1,04,000 crores,
retail givers account for 33 percent, CSR 27 percent, high net-worth
and affluent individuals 25 percent, ultra-high net-worth individuals 4
percent (it was 11.5 percent in 2020–21, but it registered an unusually low
contribution in 2021–22 due to Azim Premji’s drastically reduced giving),
and foreign contributions 14 percent. Based on the trend for a five-year
period, 2017–22, the India Philanthropy Report shows that the highest
growth registered in terms of compound annual growth rate is witnessed
in the case of ultra-high net-worth individuals, followed by CSR and high
net-worth individuals and affluent individuals. While retail funding has
IJSW, 84 (1), 5–18, January 2023
6 Pushpendra

registered a low growth rate5, foreign funding has registered a decline both
in terms of overall volume as well as compound annual growth rate.
The India Philanthropy Reports point out that the government has
remained the main spender in the social sector through various welfare
schemes. Though part of the funding is routed through NGOs6 through
grant-in-aid, the volume of such grants is difficult to assess. It is believed
that government grants to NGOs have been declining; a large part of the
money goes to bigger organisations, and in many cases, such grants are part
of handing over service delivery operations. Private foreign funding has
steadily contracted in terms of volume, growth rate, and overall share in
philanthropic capital in India. This is largely due to the cancellation of the
Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of thousands of
NGOs and also major changes in the FCRA in 2020. Additionally, several
changes in the rules in the recent past have also affected the flow of funds.
The changes in the composition of funding broadly conform to the
trends in India’s economy since Liberalisation was initiated in the 1990s.
The private sector has expanded exponentially and replaced the public
sector as the growth engine of India’s economy. This period has also seen
a phenomenal rise in the number of large corporates and dollar billionaires
in India. Philanthropic pledging by domestic UHNIs and HNIs, though
slow and much small compared to the US, UK and China, is also picking
up. This has prompted the establishment of several non-profit portfolio
management organisations that work as a bridge between donors and
NGOs. They also manage part of retail donations. Above all, they aim
to create and shape a philanthropic ecosystem in the country and deploy
resources on certain criteria that match the donors’ priorities. Since NGOs
have been the largest receivers of private funds for achieving social
sector goals, the changing composition and ecosystem of private funding
have major implications for their work, management, and organisational
culture. While this special editorial gives a brief overview of the changing
funding scenario for NGOs, it aims to critically analyse the impact of
these changes on NGOs in India. In particular, it will analyse the current
discourse on community engagement, professionalism, scale, and impact
in relation to private philanthropic funding and NGOs.

The Ascend and Descend of Old-type NGOs

There is a growing conspicuous divide between the old and new types
of NGOs, apart from the transformation of several old NGOs into new
avatars. Though the NGO sector is too diverse to characterise it into
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 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 7

neat typologies, I would consider only benchmark characteristics of old

and new NGOs here7. The old NGOs are primarily led by grassroots
activists, usually based in field areas. Their founders come from diverse
social backgrounds, including some from economically humble and
socially disadvantaged groups. Many of them come from rural areas
and lead simple, lower or lower-middle class life. There is an element
of sacrifice associated with working at the grassroots. Some have left
their lucrative careers. Some have their beginning and grooming in the
Sarvodaya and bhoodan movement, the JP-led agitation in 1974, the
Naxalite movement, environmental movements, and Adivasi rights
movements. The NGO sector’s transition in the 1990s from charity and/
or community development to rights-based work suited their orientation.
This prompted social activists to establish their NGOs or join an existing
NGO and be part of mobilisation, networking, agitations, campaigning,
advocacy, negotiations, experiments in community-led solutions to
social and economic developmental problems, and providing people few
basic services. This shift particularly brought to the centre stage rights
of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), minorities, bonded
labour, informal labour, HIV-AIDS patients, commercial sex workers,
persons with disabilities (PWDs), and other marginalised groups.
The shift aimed at addressing the underlying causes of poverty,
marginalisation, injustice, discrimination, and violence, rather than their
manifest symptoms. It required taking a stand against injustices and social
oppression. The usual gap between social movements/activism and social
action through NGOs started narrowing. The underlying philosophy of
taking sides has been “Cooperate where you can and resist where you
must”. It is natural that old-type NGOs emphasise physical contact,
people’s mobilisation and organisation building. They mostly hire local
staff from the local community and build community organisations. They
pay attention to the access and improvement of local productive resources,
women’s access to resources, challenging local power structures and
patriarchy in the domestic sphere, and addressing immediate community
needs, such as education, health, food, water and sanitation. They are also
sensitive to social harmony, peace-building, and democratic space. They
have gradually built an understanding of how class, social hierarchy and
patriarchy work in tandem and defend the oppressive structures.
Old NGOs take a more integrated view of people’s problems, linking
them with systemic and larger national and global environments. As a result,
they work beyond their funded project’s mandate, participating in protest and
IJSW, 84 (1), 5–18, January 2023
8 Pushpendra

agitation activities, for example, against price rise, unemployment and cases
of atrocities including, movements against displacements, dams, the adverse
environmental impact of developmental projects, large trawlers encroaching
on fishing rights of traditional coastal communities, and land acquisition.
Movements for forest rights, preservation of biodiversity, land rights, Dalit
rights are some of the shining examples of old types of NGOs, some of
which proudly call themselves as movements. We have seen landmark public
interest litigations, gyan vigyan (cultivating scientific temper) campaigns,
experiments in the field of comprehensive community health, soil and water
conservation, reviving traditional water bodies, and the SEWA experiment
with women in Rajasthan—all these have created benchmarks in social
innovation. NGOs and movement groups are also credited for creating
landmark legislations, such as the Right to Information Act, National Food
Safety Act, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
and Social Security Act. Innovation in terms of participatory approaches
and methods has opened the scope for breaking top-down bureaucratic
development culture. Public hearings and social audits have created space
for community participation in policy processes.
These organisations have also been able to attract funding, as there have
been Indian as well as foreign donors, who subscribe to rights-based and
‘process approaches’. Funding by international development organisations
has been crucial, as they allowed raising voices even if it angered the
state. Long-term (extending up to ten years) and process-oriented projects
(despite not aiming at tangible results), which allow people to come
together and form solidarity, help conscientisation within the community,
unleash their initiative, and allow them to strive for multi-layered solutions
to their complex problems, are considered empowering and preferred over
service delivery oriented projects. Some international NGOs even provide
open-ended or untied funds, so that the implementing NGO can respond
to emerging needs or situations, retain their core staff, and continuously
upgrade their own capacities. The process approach emphasises building
community institutions, empowering ways of delivering services, and
treating people not as passive recipients but as active agents in the
struggle to change their lives. Many donors equally value unintended
empowering benefits more than the intended project outcomes. This is
based on the realisation that people’s problems are structural, interwoven
and interdependent; projects can play only a small role in alleviating
them. At best, projects are useful in addressing immediate survival needs,
generating awareness about people’s issues, creating some pressure (or at
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 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 9

least making noises) for conducive policy-making, and initiating processes

that facilitate people’s agency. The dialectics of structure and agency is
complex, and unless the agency is supported by larger political and social
processes, it can hardly succeed in changing the structure. These are well-
settled positions in the old NGO world.
However, in many cases, the majority of the old NGOs have been
less professional in establishing systems; they run their organisations in
informal ways and lack proper reporting, documentation, and accounting
skills. In many cases, they also tend to become individual-centric. Despite
using a systemic approach to people’s problems, they lack systematic ways
of formulating their issues, strategising, and identifying their key result
areas (KRAs). There have been efforts by some donors on NGO capacity
building and organisations like Voluntary Action Network India (VANI),
Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development (AVARD),
Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), and Voluntary Health Association
of India (VHAI), who have made specific efforts in this direction. Various
experiments have been undertaken to nurture smaller NGOs, for example,
the concept of a ‘mother NGO’ leading a group of NGOs in implementing
a multi-locational project and grooming individual NGOs in programme
planning and building systems. While some old NGOs have become really
big and have been able to get a larger slice of the funding pie, the real
strength lies in the vast number of small NGOs spread over the length and
breadth of the country, particularly in the remotest areas.
Old NGOs have been grossly underfunded by Indian donors. Their works
have been heavily dependent on funding from international development
organisations. For rights-based work—campaigning, advocating,
mobilising, agitating, building alliances, research, communication, and so
on—salaries are the main component of expenses. However, amendments
in the FCRA in 2020 and the subsequent rules in 2021 require NGOs
to keep their administrative expenses within 20 percent of the project
expenses. Moreover, it does not allow making sub-grants thus forcing the
international donors’ India Chapter to turn into implementors. NGOs from
all over the country are required to open an FCRA bank account with the
New Delhi Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India. FCRA
registration of thousands of Indian and international NGOs have been
cancelled in recent times. All these have badly affected rights-based work
in India. The Act effectively forces the NGOs to shift their focus of work,
if they cannot find a domestic donor to fund such activities. Their options
are gradually contracting.
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10 Pushpendra

The Growth of Venture Philanthropy and New Debates

It is not easy to arrive at a precise estimate of what Indian corporates
and high-net-worth individuals spend on their philanthropic pledges. Their
own trusts run various projects and institutions. Besides, their donations go
to government institutions and designated funds, not-for-profit companies,
for-profit companies working for social causes, and NGOs. Nonetheless,
the new millennium has definitely brought a corporate turn in funding
non-profits, particularly NGOs. With declining funding from government
agencies such as Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural
Technology (CAPART), Khadi and Village Industries Commission
(KVIC), central and state social welfare boards, and Ministry of Social
Justice and Empowerment, and the foreign funding squeezed very hard,
corporate funding has gained phenomenal importance. Those NGOs who
do not seek corporate funding for ideological reasons but want to continue
working with a critical approach to the current development paradigm
have been hit the hardest.
The new-age Indian private philanthropy is expectedly emerging
as venture philanthropy.8 It is positioning itself as distinct from charity
and CSR, as it intends to go beyond helping people to create large social
impacts. This philanthropy is located in a liberal market environment.
For venture philanthropists (i.e., impact investors), those who implement
projects in the social sector are or ought to be entrepreneurs. The project
implementors (i.e., social entrepreneurs) must have a clear idea about
the cause they want to address, an innovative business plan, a willingness
to employ the right talent, and demonstratable skills in entrepreneurship
management. The impact investors, in effect, seek a profitable solution to
a social problem. Bishop and Green (2008) in ‘Philanthrocapitalism: How
Giving Can Save the World’, a book highly acclaimed in the corporate
philanthropy circle, call this philanthrocapitalism.9 Bishop (2007) writes,
“In periods of great wealth creation, that wealth tends to be unequally
distributed and the wealth creation process tends to be highly socially
disruptive. Yet throughout the history of capitalism, the winners in the
distribution of the new wealth have tended to play a crucial role, through
their philanthropy, in funding the search for solutions to the social
disruptions.”10
On a conceptual level, McGoey (2015: 7–8) raises three main
concerns while summarising the critique of philanthrocapitalism.
She says, “The first centres on the accountability and transparency of
private philanthropic players – or lack thereof. The second concern is
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 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 11

that philanthropy, by channelling private funds towards public services,

erodes support for governmental spending on health and education.
Private philanthropy is no substitution for hard-fought battles over labour
laws and social security, in part because philanthropy can be retracted
on a whim. The third major concern is that many philanthropists, both
today and in the past, earned their fortunes through business strategies
that greatly exacerbate the same social and economic inequalities that
philanthropists purport to remedy.”11
Edwards (2008), a veteran of civil society activism, points to how
important non-profit organisations could not get support from venture
philanthropy because their work did not generate a “social return on
investment”; community groups were forced to compete with each other
for resources instead of collaborating for a common cause; and how some
prominent civil society organisations’ chief executives were recruited
from business with no experience in philanthropy or any other work for
social change. Further, activists felt passed over by a new generation of
Samaritans who stopped to calculate how much money they would make
before deciding whether or not to help.12
Hence, this philanthropy goes beyond the old ways of channelising funds
through NGOs; it includes philanthropic support (in some cases lending
on low expected returns) to social enterprises, a sort of corporate/HNI
funding to another corporate. It is beyond the scope of this special editorial
to discuss in detail the philanthropic tools and technologies, the nature and
strategies of major philanthropic institutions in India, and philanthropy’s
relationships with the state and the market. It should, however, suffice
to say that private sector donors have been experimenting with funding
strategies, funding vehicles, and market-linked funding instruments.
Davis (2021) underscores the emergence of large giving vehicles,
modelled after the private equity industry. According to him, the major
bottleneck the corporate givers face is scaling non-profits in a significant
way and investing large monies through for-profits as programme-related
investments (PRIs) at scale.13 In this case, the giver firm’s business model
measures returns for investment in terms of social benefits and not just
monetary rewards. Kassam et al. (2016: 169) give an example of The
Acumen Fund, which invested $1 million in a small IT firm called Drishtee
Dot Com, which gives citizens access to computerised kiosks that provide
critical information on health, pensions, government resources, and so on.
With The Acumen Fund investment, Drishtee Dot Com established more
than 1,000 kiosks by 2006.14
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12 Pushpendra

How some NGOs have transformed themselves under market-driven

philanthropy is well exemplified by Pushpa Sundar (2010: 45). According
to her, “They considered using equity for their business operations, while
grants funded their non-profit ones. They began to enter the marketplace
themselves to turn market forces to the advantage of poorer groups.
Thus alternative modes of production and organisation and different
legal options and organisational structures for conducting social activity
began to be explored.” 15 She further explains how there have been
experimentations with purely for-profit subsidiaries by poor producers,
as well as combinations of non-profit and for-profit activities, funding
arrangements and organisational forms. Section 25 of the Companies Act
has become a preferred organisational form for registering producers’
associations. Whether by choice or by a lack of it, the strategy shows a
side of the emerging scenario, which has impacted the NGO sector.
Venture philanthropists have paid attention to building an ecosystem
to achieve their funding goals and the desired impact. They are investing
in support services for philanthropy. Consequently, several non-profits
and consulting firms have come up, which provide support in research,
selection of thematic impact areas, selection of potential implementing
partners, developing a theory of change, strategy-making, providing
hands-on assistance on managing the project throughout the project cycle,
scaling up, organisational systems building, knowledge management,
change management, training, accounting and audit services. A variety
of instruments have been invented by philanthropy strategists that serve
venture philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, researchers, governments,
and implementing institutions.16 Behind these developments is a general
concern that in the absence of a robust ecosystem, wealthy individual
donors will not be sure of their money resulting in any real social impact.
It is also worth mentioning that private philanthropic giving is not
monolithic. It contains diverse approaches and practices. Some prominent
HNIs take strong political positions to promote democratic values and
practices, justice and equity. Public Spirited Media Trust, founded by
Rohini Nilekani, has provided vital financial support to some digital media
platforms considered to be fierce critiques of the government. Some of the
issues of governance reforms, LGBT rights, rights of indigenous people,
and protecting ecology have received overwhelming support from some
corporate entities.
While the expanding richness of philanthropy makes it an interesting
area of academic research, it has also attracted strong critique for how this
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 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 13

corporate turn philanthropy has impacted the NGO sector in India. The
debate has intensified around the new keywords, which resonate with the
world of business and commerce. These keywords are social impact, scale,
measurement, professionalism, innovation, and social entrepreneurship.
Srinath (2018) points out how by scale many funders imply building
giant organisations. Interventions are limited to “those that are considered
‘scalable’—essentially, delivery of basic goods and services that are often
low-cost, stripped down versions of their market counterparts. It also
assumes a degree of standardisation that leaves little scope for communities
or other client groups to contribute to the design of the services. Funders
also like this approach because of the lower transaction costs of few, large
grants that allow for leaner donor teams.”17
The scale obsession leaves out those ideas that do not appear to
be scalable. The problem associated with the obsession to scale is that
organisations with low budgets and financial needs fail to attract corporate
philanthropic funding. Grassroots mobilisations are often devalued as they
require less money but greater dedication and commitment by volunteers.
Besides, quick researches done by professionals replace long-term deeper
engagements with the community to gain a nuanced understanding of
complex and often integrated problems. What if a project is not scalable,
for example, eradicating caste-based prostitution in a particular area?
Should it be deprived of funding? Even in those service delivery projects
where scalability may be feasible, projects tend to make people their
passive recipients, if the question of an appropriate form of scalability
is not considered. Sadly, large and cost-intensive projects have become
preferred career destinations for professional social workers, as they allow
them to afford a comfortable, middle-class life. This group of social sector
professionals join the bandwagon leaving their social work education that
demands a critical view of how private philanthropy, that spends less than
five percent of social sector spending in the country, disproportionately
influences the state policy to drive it further towards privatisation of public
goods and services.
The issue of impact is more controversial as philanthropists demand
value for their money. This is translated into projects where results are
measurable, often statistically. Venture social fund managers and HNIs
particularly demand real-time tracking of progress (often in the form of
a dynamic dashboard), impact reporting, communicating results and co-
branding. Reporting impact data focus on qualitative and anecdotal data
in narrative and case study formats. However, quantitative data sharing
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14 Pushpendra

is considered the primary measurement tool. It is also valued as the most

reliable tool for creating transparency in donor relationships. Such a
narrow interpretation of impact is likely to ignore projects that deal with
issues related to injustice, discrimination, stigmatisation and atrocities –
projects that require investing in social processes and where results may
be difficult to quantify or require a long gestation? A new trend in impact
project financing is outcomes-based financing (OBF). As Parekh and
Miranda (2023) explain, “OBF instruments tie the disbursement of funding
for development projects to the achievement of results. These results are
linked to the stated development objective—outcomes—as opposed to
actions, inputs, activities, and outputs. Some types of OBF instruments
include development impact bonds (DIB), impact guarantees, result-based
financing contracts, and social success notes (SSNs).”18 These complicated
funding instruments require a high level of pre-existing capability in the
implementing partner. Small grassroots organisations are the ones who will
undoubtedly be left out. In their critical assessment, Parekh and Miranda
(2023) opine, “While donors are shifting towards outcomes, it does not
always translate into OBF projects or tools. Therefore, there are limited
opportunities for non-profits to raise funds or apply their learnings. There
is a need and opportunity for traditional grants—which is the primary
source of funding for non-profits—to take on a more pronounced outcome
orientation.”
There are more practical criticisms of corporate philanthropy in the
Indian context. The available data19 on private sector philanthropy shows
that it has a narrow focus in terms of geographical spread. About 50
percent of state-specific CSR spending is directed towards just a few states,
namely Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, indicating a
geographical bias which reflects how Indian corporates are interested in
funding in their own areas of operation and around their headquarters. The
main poverty belts—Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh—have received little social
investment by them except in those blocks or districts where they have a
significant business presence. On the contrary, public allocation is more
evenly spread out and focused on need-based spending, with a greater
allocation for the least developed states. Private sector funding also has a
narrow focus regarding their choice of social causes. In terms of sectoral
allocation of funds, healthcare and education got about a 58 percent share
of CSR contributions in the FY 2021-22, while contributions to sectors
such as rural development and livelihood enhancement actually dropped.
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 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 15

CSR projects are often short-term, spanning up to a year in the majority

of cases. Hence, the choice of projects is often skewed in favour of what
is immediate and where quick, measurable results can be shown. This
shuts possibilities of funding projects that propose to deal with structural,
complex issues, demanding long-term investment for any results to show.
Venture philanthropy claim to be doing well in supporting some startup
social enterprises with higher chances of commercial success through
business skills and startup capital. Anecdotal evidence suggests that their
own business network and business management knowledge are useful in
such projects. They help the startup leverage other grants and guide them
in scaling up and cost-effectiveness. Venture philanthropists appreciate the
need to invest in building organisational capacity, particularly systems and
processes. However, the jury is still out on the success rate of the long-
term sustainability of such social enterprises.

Coda
With the growing dominance of the corporate sector in philanthropic
funding in the last decade, there is a corporate, more specifically venture
philanthropy, turn in philanthropic funding in India. NGOs have been
either pulled or pushed towards the new funding dispensation. A new type
of NGO is joining the development sector. As a clear departure from the
past, these NGOs are trying to create a more business-like NGO ecosystem
that identifies with the corporate aspirations and market-aligned social
development framework. Many old NGOs are also trying to reorient and
reinvent themselves to align with corporate philanthropy. The changed
funding scenario has created a yawning chasm between new and old
NGOs. The old funding regime has been criticised for not creating a strong
and sustained ecosystem to create NGOs’ capacities and attract talent. Old
NGOs are being criticised for lacking vision and capacity to make impacts
on a scale.
On the contrary, some old NGOs emphasise the fundamental difference
in values, perspectives, and methods between civil society or the third
sector (as NGOs or voluntary organisations are also referred to) on the
one hand and the market and state on the other. For them, their role lies
where both state and the market fail. They try to empower people to seek
accountability from the state and market and use their (people’s) agency to
make both work for people. Incorporating learnings from the corporates,
particularly in running livelihoods initiatives or learning elements of
modern management in running organisations smoothly, is different
IJSW, 84 (1), 5–18, January 2023
16 Pushpendra

from following corporate values and their funding dictates. From their
perspective, for example, climate change cannot be addressed without
holding corporates accountable for ecological destruction worldwide.
Hence, holding NGOs’ institutional independence to call a spade a
spade is the sine qua non for attempting a change. For old NGOs, the
new buzzwords of venture philanthropy are more sound and less music.
From a venture philanthropy point of view, however, corporate ways of
development are irreversible. Capitalism keeps reinventing itself and
the solution to today’s problems is more capitalism, not less, through
responsible philanthro capitalism – capitalism where the capitalist also
acts as the social investor.
Various datasets point to rising wealth inequality, unemployment, and
socioeconomic, political and cultural vulnerability of the vast majority
of masses in India, further exacerbated by climate change, wars, and
unequal international relations experienced globally. Capitalism is the
main driver of these problems. Can philanthrocapitalism be the answer to
problems of capitalism’s own creation? Success stories and optimism of
leading venture philanthropists are based on on-the-ground anecdotes. The
question is who is interpreting these anecdotes?

NOTES
1. Section 135(1) of the Indian Companies Act 2013 envisaged the private sector tak-
ing the lead in social sector development by contributing at least two percent of its
average net profit (before tax) in the preceding three financial years for social welfare
activities.
2. UHNIs are those who have net worth above Rs. 1000/- crore.
3. HNI are defined as those having net worth of Rs. 200-1000/- crore. Affluent individu-
als are those who hold net worth of 7-200/- crore
4. For details on philanthropic capital in India, see India Philanthropy Report for dif-
ferent years. The latest report is available for 2022-2023 [https://www.bain.com/
globalassets/noindex/2023/bain_dasra_report_india-philanthropy_2023.pdf]
For the 2021-22, the report estimates private CSR funds to be 27 thousand crore, High
Net Worth and Affluent Individuals’ contributions at 25 thousand crore and that of
Ultra High Net Worth Individuals’ at 15 thousand crore. The Corporate Trust philan-
thropy is estimated at 15 thousand crore, Retail/Crowdfunding at 33 thousand crore
and Foreign Contribution regulated under FCRA 2020 at 4000 crore. Also see various
reports by the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP, Ashoka University):
https://csip.ashoka.edu.in/research-and-knowledge/. For details on CSR funding, see
the CSR portal by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs at: https://www.csr.gov.in/con-
tent/csr/global/master/home/home.html. For household giving, see the CSIP report at:

IJSW, 84 (1), 5–18, January 2023

 NGOs and Private Sector Funding: An Uneasy Alliance and its Presages 17

https://csip.ashoka.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/How_India_Gives_2020_21.
pdf
5. Retail funding is generally calculated based on the revenue foregone by the govern-
ment due to tax relaxations under 80g and other provisions of the government as well
as some projections based on household surveys. For details see, How India Gives
2020-21 by CSIP at: https://csip.ashoka.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/How_In-
dia_Gives_2020_21.pdf. Important to note here is the fact that only 22 percent of the
retail/crowd funding is received by NGOs.
6. Here the term NGO is used interchangeably for non-profit, civil society, and voluntary
organisations.
7. Here I have considered rights-based organisations only. Traditionally NGOs have
been concerned primarily with relief and welfare. There have been faith-based or-
ganisations, welfare wings of churches, Gandhian and Khadi NGOs; NGOs formed
by middle-class professionals; community-based organisations formed by the poor,
particularly Dalits and tribals, with the help of other NGOs; non-party activist groups;
NGOs formed by corporations as part of their philanthropic initiatives; and, develop-
mental NGOs formed by the government.
8. According to Helmut Anheier & Regina List (2005), “Venture philanthropy applies
venture capital strategies, skills and resources to charitable giving. It typically seeks
new or expanding organizations—sometimes also programmes or projects—with
high potential for social impact. As with venture capital, venture philanthropy adds
value to whatever financing might be offered through the provision of capacity-build-
ing support. In fact, the focus tends to be more on building greater organizational
capacity and infrastructure, rather than or in addition to covering programme costs.
Venture philanthropists, also called donor-investors, support such capacity-building
by providing management and other expertise and through the leverage of a wide net-
work of outside contacts, resources and professional advisers.” Anheier, H.K., & List,
R.A. (2005). A Dictionary of Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Non-Profit Sector.
London and New York: Routledge.
9. Bishop, M., & Green, M. (2008). Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the
World. New York, Berlin, London: Bloomsbury Press.
10. Bishop, M. (2007, March 1). What Is Philanthrocapitalism? Alliance. Retrieved April
16, 2023 from https://www.alliancemagazine.org/feature/what-is-philanthrocapital-
ism/
11. McGoey, L. (2015). No such thing as a free gift: The Gates Foundation and the price
of philanthropy. London and New York: Verso.
12. Edwards, M. (2008). Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World. San Fran-
cisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
13. For a general understanding of how large corporate pledges for philanthropy are being
operationalised worldwide, read Davis, S. (2021). Solving the Giving Pledge Bottle-
neck: How to Finance Social and Environmental Challenges Using Venture Philan-
thropy at Scale. Palgrave MacMillan. Ebook. For more India specific understanding,
read Kassam, M., Handy, F., & Jansons, E. (2016). Philanthropy in India: Promise to
Practice. New Delhi, California, London and Singapore: Sage Publications. Another
useful reading is a Bridgespan report entitled “The Future of Domestic Philanthropy
in India” by Bain and Company and Bridgespan Group: https://www.bridgespan.org/
insights/the-future-of-domestic-philanthropy-in-india.

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14. Kassam, M., Handy, F., & Jansons, E. (2016). , op. cit.
15. Sundar, P. (2010). Foreign Aid for Indian NGOs: Problem or Solution? New York,
London and New Delhi: Routledge.
16. For a case study on two leading strategic philanthropic foundations, Dasra and Give
India, refer to pp. 182-186, Meenaz Kassam et al., op. cit.
17. Srinath, I. (2018, December 6). Questioning scale as we know it. Idr. https://idronline.
org/questioning-scale-as-we-know-it/
18. Parekh, A. & Miranda, R. (2023, March 23. Outcomes-based financing: What do
nonprofits need to know? Idr. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://idronline.org/ar-
ticle/fundraising-and-communications/outcome-based-financing-what-do-nonprofits-
need-to-know/
19. For details see the 2023 India Philanthropy Report, op. cit.

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