Cover Story
Reimagining the Future of Social Impact: The India Opportunity
A Call to Action for Fundraisers and Nonprofit Leaders
By Ingrid Srinath and Willeke van Rijn
The abrupt halt in funding by USAID, one of the world’s largest aid agencies, has served as a wake-up call for the global development sector. With a staggering $60 billion in aid impacted, its ripple effects are being felt not just by direct recipients, but across entire ecosystems — among intermediaries, local partners, and collaborative networks alike. And it’s not just the United States; European nations traditionally at the forefront of cross-border philanthropy, such as the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, are now cutting aid budgets significantly due to changing political winds and internal economic pressures.
These shifts have fueled a global conversation around the urgent need for a localised approach to fundraising. This moment of crisis and uncertainty worldwide, while daunting, presents an opportunity to reimagine where the money comes from and who holds the power to create change.
The India Landscape
India occupies a fascinating position in this global transition, with the focus of the sector shifting from foreign to domestic funding over the last few years. Contrary to popular belief, foreign funding to the social sector has marginally increased, but its composition has shifted from rights-based work to technocratic, service-delivery efforts. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding, buoyed by corporate profits along with giving by high-net-worth individuals, is on a definite rise. Individual giving or retail giving, as we call it, remains a major untapped source. While it is growing, most of it is directed toward religious causes, with secular nonprofits capturing only a sliver of this.
On the other hand, social sector organisations in the country grapple with old and new challenges that hamper their work. The regulatory front continues to be intimidating. Deeply entrenched social issues like gender equity and caste continue to receive very little attention — an oversight that is truly appalling in a country like India. A significant concern is the lack of solidarity within civil society, with a huge schism between old-school nonprofits that are more grassroots and movement-oriented, and new-age organisations pursuing technocratic approaches that don’t want to take the risk of upsetting anyone. This division makes the sector vulnerable. Finally, the sector has a perception problem. Public narratives portray nonprofits as either well-meaning do-gooders or as possibly corrupt and anti-national, with no effective counter-narrative.
This context demonstrates that while India is ahead of the curve with its focus on localised fundraising approaches, there are unique challenges that make this moment an opportunity to reshape not only the future of fundraising but the future of social impact in India.
Reframing the Narrative
For the last 20 years, there has been a constant drip of negative narratives about the nonprofit sector, leading to a trust deficit in the work we do. There is an urgent need for the sector to collectively disseminate a narrative that talks about what civil society is, what it does, and the impact it has had over the last 70 years. Efforts to document the sector’s impact, sadly, have been limited to long reports that do not appeal to the general public.
For the sector to collectively disseminate a narrative that talks about what civil society is, what it does, and the impact it has had over the last 70 years.
The sector needs to learn how to tell its stories in a manner that is relevant to today’s audience preferences. A compelling narrative and a strong brand will not only help generate funding but also attract skilled professionals, influence policymakers, and most importantly, mobilise public support for critical causes.
It is critical to engage the public, particularly the next generation of givers, through well-crafted communication. Recent work by organisations like Behan Box demonstrates effective approaches to addressing serious issues in accessible formats. Similarly, Alt News and Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) engage people and build a loyal base of supporters on complex issues like fake news, hate speech, surveillance, data privacy, etc, through effective communication. IFF, for example, excels at raising funds from individual donors and regularly engages them via monthly calls to discuss successes, failures, challenges, and plans, building ownership and emotional connections beyond just financial transactions. It doesn’t hurt that they also provide swag like stickers or keychains that allow a giver to advertise their cool quotient.
Social media-driven movements like Fridays for Future and local campaigns like Archana K R’s sanitation work in Karnataka, which secured ₹450 crore in government funding, are evidence of youth-led impact at scale.
Fundraising is not just about raising money; it is about building support for your cause.Fundraising is not just about raising money; it is about building support for your cause. A strong base of individual donors creates such constituencies, providing not only legitimacy to the work but also building credibility with institutional donors and government bodies. For instance, even as Child Rights for You (CRY) raised 90% of its funding from individual donors, they used institutional fundraising strategically. The foundations respected the organisation more because the organisation had public support. The benefits of building a constituency of people who trust in you, believe in your work and are ambassadors for your work are immeasurable. Besides donors, this group can include your volunteers, consumers of your products or services, and the audience for your events, among others. This approach extends beyond funding to building a committed community of supporters who strengthen the organisation’s reach and impact. It is a sad commentary on our fundraising efforts that the second most cited reason donors gave for not contributing to social purpose organisations, according to a study by the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, was that nobody had asked them.
Embracing Innovation
It is heartening to see that most exciting innovations in fundraising are no longer emerging only from the Global North but from the Global Majority. Countries like India are becoming hubs of experimentation in localised giving, with newer models like impact investing and the social stock exchange offering access to new pools of capital.
There are increasing opportunities to create sustainable income sources outside of raising traditional grants. Increasingly, organisations are exploring the hybrid format by setting up dual entities with a social enterprise and a Section 8 company working in tandem, where the former accepts fees for services, while the latter accepts grants.
There is also an opportunity to innovate on donor engagement strategies. In Europe, adoption of CRM technologies is a big differentiator for organisations that achieve success with individual giving, as they are equipped with knowledge of their donors. They demonstrate an understanding that donors do not want to be seen as an ATM for your organisation. True engagement involves building a relationship through regular and meaningful communication. An important maxim to keep in mind is ‘If you need advice, ask for money. If you need money, ask for advice.’
Collaboration and Solidarity
The fragmentation within our sector undermines collective impact and makes all of us vulnerable. Research by Erica Chenoweth shows that engaging just 3.5% of your population in non-violent action can create significant social change. If we can create a force of people who are willing to step up, we can create change. And that really requires us to collaborate as a sector and start working together.
Collaboration does not mean a merger. Organisations can maintain their unique approaches, working towards a common purpose, resulting in a much richer impact. This approach can be seen in successful large-scale movements, such as the Right to Information movement, which built solidarity across a diverse set of constituencies to achieve significant change without any philanthropic support. There have also been successful examples in healthcare where think tanks, implementers, and scale-driven partners combined strengths to create comprehensive models that attract funders.
A Call to Action
When we think about the future of social justice in India, the biggest source of our hope is the power of the people we often refer to as ‘ordinary’. It is on us, as a sector, to come together and harness this power.
We need a functioning, national association of social impact organisations that transcends the factions dividing our sector. Fundraisers may be uniquely positioned to build these bridges, much like diplomats who bring different viewpoints together while holding the purpose close to their hearts. The Resource Alliance’s Global Community Platform represents a promising step toward this vision, connecting some of the estimated 30 million fundraisers, campaigners, and changemakers worldwide. Similarly, the India Fundraising Conference 2025, attracting over 700 people, is also a step in this direction.
Now we must expand this solidarity, creating spaces where fundraisers can advocate for better funding practices, where program expertise informs funder strategies, and where access to knowledge becomes equitable. This isn’t just about survival in uncertain times — it’s about reclaiming our collective power to shape a more just world.
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