How can we leverage technology in the Indian philanthropy sector to increase informed giving?

“If donors are provided with the knowledge, tools and insights they are able to make better informed decisions and create social impact at scale”

Indian donors today face a number of challenges that hinder their maximum potential to give, such as:

• What are some of India’s most pressing and urgent development challenges?
• What are some of the best practices in giving and who can I learn from?
• Who are the credible and innovative NGOs across India to whom I can pledge my support?
• How do I ensure capacity building of grantees for sustainable impact?
• How do I manage and oversee my philanthropy effectively, given limited time resources?
• How do I assess the impact of my funds?

Dasra helps philanthropists, corporates and foundations answer these questions and navigate through the Indian development landscape to ensure that their giving intentions align with their passion and values. Dasra’s experience in this sector is a culmination of years of thorough analysis, expert engagement and due diligence on social organizations that work in areas that require immediate attention.

Our experience has shown us that there are different types of donors, each with different attitudes and behaviors to giving. Traditionally, some of the challenges have been the high “opportunity cost” for funding decisions, multiple personal interactions with donees, cumbersome and lengthy reading material, not being aware of the other donor activities, and the want to support specific issues that only certain social organizations can address.

Taking into account these challenges, Dasra has leveraged technology to create an online platform with critical research and knowledge to address Indian donor challenges and provide them with searchable easy-to-consume information to make strategic decisions about their philanthropy.

Stay Informed

Dasra’s Knowledge Hub is a repository of information on causes, insights and social organizations that are easy to search and quick to access. It is a tool that helps donors sift through information, enabling them to make informed giving decisions.

Currently, it hosts 16 years of in-depth research and sector intelligence derived from Dasra’s 48 research reports across 20 causes and features 160 creditable social organizations across various sectors: adolescent girl empowerment, sexual reproductive health and rights, menstrual hygiene, early forced and child marriage, gender based violence, sanitation, governance, education, nutrition, child protection, maternal child health, sports for development, civic participation, life skills and livelihoods and employability This platform will be updated in real time with sector information, articles, blogs, announcements and partner NGO successes.

Key Offerings of the Knowledge Hub include:

• Smart search capabilities that allows a donor to find creditable organizations or causes that they care about across different sectors
• Smart filters to locate high impact social organizations by program focus, geography, registration details, impact and scalability
• Access to detailed up-to-date information on innovative programs that have received Dasra support either through our leadership programs or through a Dasra Giving Circle
• Connecting with impactful credible social business directly or through Dasra

The availability of up-to-date information through this online platform will reduce the barriers for funders to engage with impactful social organizations by addressing challenges and guiding donors to support urgent areas of development to support, learn through best practices and manage and assess their philanthropy either directly or through an enabler like Dasra.

So while the landscape of Indian philanthropy seems somewhat disconnected and spread out, digital platforms like Dasra’s knowledge hub brings together fragmented knowledge to provide opportunities to engage and encourage donors to leverage technology to make a significant difference to the lives of millions of Indians.

Many thanks to Evans Rebello, who leads Dasra’s digital communications for the post.