37.5% grantmakers extend non-financial support to their partners while 62.5% restrict only to financial support : AIP Report
Grants are a powerful tool for emerging philanthropists to contribute positively to social development, but effective philanthropy requires careful decision-making. Accelerate Indian Philanthropy recently surveyed more than 20 philanthropic entities to understand their grant-making lifecycle and approach to grant-making. The insights were collated into a report aimed at providing decision-making frameworks for funders to facilitate informed, effective grant-making.
The grant-making lifecycle consists of five distinct stages, which largely tend to follow Grantmaking Thesis, Sourcing, Monitoring and Evaluation, Assessment, and Post-grant Support. A thesis serves as the starting point for most funders to engage in giving, and having even a skeletal framework in place enables funders to focus their philanthropic efforts on what is most important to them. Sourcing is then adopted to identify opportunities that align well with the grant-making thesis. Most funders consider a range of factors to assess how well an organization or project will fit with their objectives and priorities.
The study reveals a clear preference for a high-touch model among larger funders, while all individual philanthropists prefer the low-touch model.
Learning to partner with Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) and support them in a way that creates the best conditions for success is critical for philanthropy to be successful. Post-grant qualitative support by grant-makers can take different forms, such as capacity building, storytelling, and communications, advisory and strategy support, fundraising, and partnerships.
Key points
- 62% of respondents indicate that either Leadership and Governance or Track Record and Impact of a potential partner are key factors in their assessment metrics
- Over 71% of funders had a defined framework for grantmaking
- Industry names such as Azim Premji Foundation, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, ACT, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropy, and Rainmatter Foundation amongst others participated in the survey
Ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is critical to assess the extent of impact, challenges, and recalibration requirements at periodic intervals. The study reveals a clear preference for a high-touch model among larger funders, while individual philanthropists prefer the low-touch model.
The Director of Accelerate Indian Philanthropy, Radhika Jain, hopes that this report encourages funders to think about grant-making in an informed, structured manner, supporting non-profits to reach their true potential, as they come closer to their goal of bringing sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
Ashish Dhawan, Founder-CEO of The Convergence Foundation, believes that Indian philanthropy is now poised to take off, with modern-day philanthropists showing the power of strategic giving. He hopes that the study by AIP serves as a useful addition to the body of ecosystem resources that help channel effective grant-making by many more philanthropists.
(India CSR)
