ADVERTISEMENTs
.png)
A Historic Year for Diaspora Giving
Indian-American giving to India is estimated at around $200 million in 2023.
(left to right) Alex Counts, IPA; Neha Gupta, Teach for India; Jay Sehgal, Sehgal Foundation; Ushree Roy, Vicente Ferrer Foundation USA; Sejal Desai, Akanksha Education Fund; Shannon Paz, Antara International. / Courtesy Photo
It has been a historic year for diaspora philanthropy to India from the United States. We began the year reflecting on the latest series of studies on Indian-American philanthropy.
This most recent installment, titled "Bridging the Sustainable Development Goal Gap: The Role of U.S. Diaspora Philanthropy", was issued by Indiaspora and Give and written by Bridgespan.
It estimated Indian-American giving to India at around $200 million in 2023. It also projected that with thoughtful and intentional cultivation, the community's giving to India could increase to $1.5 billion by 2030.
Early in the year, 33 India-focused nonprofits were feverishly preparing to celebrate the second annual India Giving Day, a national effort that is seeking to do exactly the kind of cultivation called for in the Bridgespan report mentioned above.
The campaign resulted in $5.5 million in contributions on March 1, including many new donors attracted by 181 mostly young peer-to-peer fundraisers. That was a 400% increase from the inaugural India Giving Day campaign.
Amid the many galas and smaller gatherings held by Indian nonprofits, including Pratham's event in New York City that featured Maryland governor Wes Moore, there was another important effort: a call for essays by middle and high school students to describe what philanthropy meant to them, and what it could mean to those in critical need in India.
A record-setting 110 essays were submitted, and in the fall IPA announced the two winners—Nirmal Melam and Sia Lakshmi Sampson— along with several runners up and finalists.
The Sehgal Foundation celebrated its 25th anniversary contributing to agriculture and education, and the Foundation for Excellence (FFE) observed its 30th anniversary and also announced that in the 2023-24 fiscal alone it provided scholarships to 16,294 low-income students to pursue university studies in India in engineering, medicine, and law. That brought the cumulative number of scholarships to more than 100,000.
The FFE also announced that alumni who had received scholarships in the past contributed ₹7 crore (US$826,000) in the last 12 months to the organization through its "Pay Forward" initiative aimed at supporting new scholars.
In the fall there were two excellent conferences focused on American philanthropy to India: one organized by Dasra and the other jointly organized by Dasra and Indiaspora. Keynote speakers at the latter event included Vikram Gandhi of Harvard Business School, a leading practitioner and scholar of impact investing.
It was noteworthy that the American India Foundation (AIF) was selected as one of the 50 best U.S. nonprofits to work for. The foundation is also one of the most successful practitioners of the strategy of partnering with state and local governments in India to maximize impact, which is becoming increasingly common.
For instance, PlanetRead's effort to ensure same language subtitling for films and television—a proven way to increase literacy rates—led to important new decisions. They also attracted India's Supreme Court and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
On Gandhi Jayanti (October 2), IPA announced the launch of its third India Giving Day campaign, which will emphasize growing peer-to-peer fundraising and also major gifts from individuals and family foundations. The campaign will culminate in a national day to celebrate American giving to India on Mar. 14, 2025.
Finally, 20 leading organizations that are represented on the India Philanthropy Alliance Board and which collectively raise $120 million annually in the U.S. for development programs in India put out a statement about good philanthropy practices meant to serve as an educational tool to help improve the qualitative aspects of diaspora philanthropy.
In other words, it intends to enhance philanthropy's positive impact on society, and its meaningfulness to donors. The priorities they emphasized were: focus on institutions rather than on projects, fund where the need is greatest, measure what matters most, support collective impact efforts, and support nonprofits that partner effectively with government and that engage youth.
About this statement, Phil Buchanan, the founder and president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and a noted thought leader on giving, wrote on LinkedIn, "This is an incredibly thoughtful statement from the India Philanthropy Alliance. I appreciate the nuance here and the avoidance of overly simplistic binaries or rigid dogma. All the pushes and encouragement feel in the right direction to me -- and relevant to funders everywhere."
Indeed, philanthropy can benefit not just the recipients, but the contributors too. As Deepak Raj and Raj Gupta, two prodigious Indian-American donors, reminded us in a recent article, “Research shows that people who give the most to charities are, on average, happier, healthier, and more successful than those who give less, or not at all.” Increasingly, these benefits of giving are becoming well known and are prompting a growing number people to be more generous.
The author is the Executive Director of the India Philanthropy Alliance, a nonprofit leader, educator, and a consultant.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad.)
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
E Paper
ADVERTISEMENT
.jpg)
Video
.jpg)
-1.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
Comments
Start the conversation
Become a member of New India Abroad to start commenting.
Sign Up Now
Already have an account? Login