Giving in India

This week NPC has launched two reports, one on giving in India, and the other on early childhood development, which we produced in partnership with Copal Partners in Delhi. They’re the result of over a year’s research looking at non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across India and getting to grips with what is happening with philanthropy in India.

We’ve spoken a bit on this blog already about some of their findings—the way that few donors and NGOs focus on results, and that philanthropy seems to be diverted into a restricted range of topics and geographies. In the reports we set out some of the things that need to be done to make philanthropy in India more efficient and effective.

None of this is straightforward. Giving may be easy, but giving well is really hard. Working out which issues and NGOs to support in India is a complicated business, and there’s no easy way to get round this. Too often people try to deal with this by clinging to a simple blanket set of assumptions—such as ‘charities spend too much on administration’, or ‘paying for concrete stuff, like a school or a well, is the only way to have lasting impact’.

Often these beliefs are just wrong. In our research we have found hundreds of NGOs that are damaged and hobbled by bad funding practices. Organisations which lack the money to pay senior staff or even chief executives, as all their funding is restricted to their projects. Or NGOs that can find loads of money to build wells, but no help establishing projects to actually keep these wells working.

Simple lessons do not work—at least not those based on anecdotes and little evidence. But this is not to say that we should all just give up. The reports set out just how vital philanthropy is in India and what impact it can have. It just requires some thought and effort.

We hope that these reports can help donors along this road, giving them concrete tools and approaches to thinking about their giving and choosing effective NGOs. For donors particularly interested in early childhood development or water and sanitation, these reports set out priorities for funding, as well as highlighting effective NGOs.

While we can’t claim to have all the answers, we believe that these reports are a start on the right direction. A journey that starts by saying ‘How can my money have the most impact for the people I am trying to help?’