A Study in Shifting Paradigms: Aid to Self Sustenance

Abstract

Post-independence the social impact organisations of India (be it NGOs, social entrepreneurs, corporate foundations) were mostly donation based or philanthropic organisations. The challenge in this model of philanthropy lead to the abortion of various truly impactful works when the grants dried up. Neither scalability nor a programmatic approach towards self support were envisioned by such organisations. It is imperative therefore for such organisations to evolve a strategy that will enable them to sustain their field level activities, beyond the aid. In the last decade international grants to India have been on the decline and in 2013, a change in the Company’s Act was introduced by way of which the corporates are mandated to spend a part of their profit as CSR . Most companies started by donating money to the implementing agencies (NGOs etc) or set up their own foundations. This model suffered from the same inherent flaw of the earlier one where lack of sustainability collapsed all the good work done and there was no lasting impact. Objective of this paper we explore how selected SE/ NGOs have moved from the grant based model to the financially sustainable business model. The mythology adopted will be exploratory by conducting semi structured interview based primary data collection of some selected entities who have been in operation for more than 10 years and have built a portfolio of funds which includes grants and self generated funds. The goal is to use their learning experiences to identify a path way through which grant dependant bodies can ensure their independent existence and growth.