Social development funding from the Christian community in India

CA Sunil Fernandes

CA Manju George

CA Paris Verghese

CA Mark D’Souza

CA Simon Rodrigues

Coordinated By: Pradeep Dewars

The Vision - Love

• “Love your neighbour as yourself” - Jesus

• Viewing India and Indians as our neighbours

• Loving enough to make a difference

The Challenge

• New regulations making foreign contribution more difficult for Christian NGOs

• Lack of trustworthy options for charitable contributions

• A growing need for CSR and philanthropic spends in the social sector to bolster development needs in India

The Solution

• Focus on creating and developing a 100% local funding channel

• Creation of Section 8 Company to encourage funding to Christian NGOs▫ Funding for Secular activities only▫ Partnership approach with Christian NGOs to

promote effectiveness and impact

• Core team of respectable professionals

• A metric driven approach

Objectives

• 100% Local Funding

• Empowerment of NGOs▫ Medical▫ Education▫ Charity▫ Others

• Accountability

• Services

• Advocacy

CSR Activities

• Indian Companies that want to maxiseimpact investment

• Primarily Philanthropic CSR activities• Operational and Transformational can be

added later as advisory service• Metrics to gauge effectiveness of activity

NRI Funding

• Primarily NRI Christians who may want to contribute to the development situation in India

• Largely web based interface and through word of mouth

• Metrics to gauge impact of investment made

Local Funding

• Push and pull based methods to encourage contribution from Christian community

• Community focused events• Initially community driven, scaling up to

national impact

Local Events

• Fetes, fundraisers etc. held once or twice a year

• Rallying the community to stronger participation

Localised Funding –100% by Indians for

India

NGO Empowerment

Focus on Development

Partnering with NGOs across development sectors including Medical, Education, Charity and Others

Best Practices

Tracking of international best practices in the space and sharing of methods with partner NGO

Social Impact Metrics

Sharing of metrics and scorecards used in sector so partner NGO has tools to track the impact they make

Sector Highlights

Sharing of information on NGOs operating in underfunded sectors or sectors without enough participation

Metrics for Greater Accountability

Impact

• Measuring effect of investment made• Social factors• Development

factors• Effect on BoP

Efficiency

• Are partnered NGOs performing as well as they can?• Access to best

methods• High Social

Returns/Impact per Rs. 1,000 funding received

Contribution

• Channel-wise Percentage of funding passed on to NGOs

Services

Building of Scorecards for Social Impact

NGO assessment

Fundraising events and advocacy

Accreditation of NGOs

• Handled through separate entity

Ad

vo

cacy

Identify unsatisfied sectors and boost awareness / requirement for social development in that space (Eg. Family counselling, Old age care, etc)

Bringing knowledge to investors of NGOs operating in underfunded sectors or priority social development sectors

Build Affiliations both to expand reach and increase impact of advocacy actions

Getting off the Ground

• CEO with passion and a strong social perception

• No Share Capital

▫ Investment of time, office space and other needed resources

• Policy of no FCRA

• OPEX resources

Contributing to building the Company

Businessmen

Professionals

Individuals

WhoTime

Talent

Resources

How

Core Strategy

Unique tangible and intangible assets that create a competitive advantageGenuine Assets

• Plenty of charity aggregators operating in India make it more difficult to source ready funds. Need to

differentiate ourselves in order to make funding goals

• Unique access to Christian community in India – we are the first to actively target this sector

• Eventual creation of unique intellectual property (year 3+, provided success of concept)

Tracking of both global best practices in the non profit space as well as governmental and other local legislation impacting business

Vigilance to Forces of Change

• Technological trends: Are NGOs globally achieving greater impact through newer/different methods?

Can we help partner NGOs develop those same methods to increase impact?

• Governmental trends: Awareness of restrictions and new regulations that can either help or adversely

affect the company

Metric driven approach to performance of company, impact of charitable contributions and effectiveness of NGO partners

Disciplined Performance Measurement

• Strict performance measurement and reporting to facilitate transparency

• Tracking of performance metrics to forecast expected funding patterns and to identify NGOs with high

impact of activity

• Identification of NGOs with low impact so we can see if we can help them become more effective