The intelligent giver

The end of the year, and decade, is a time for reflection. In The Mag on Sunday, we look at how we can be helpful to others who are less privileged. What emerges in this special issue is an awareness that it is not how much you give that counts, but how much of a difference it makes. and, as donors pay attention to the end uses, NGOs too are
learning to channel the generosity of people in a transparent way.

At Goonj, Anshu Gupta has long resigned himself to the fact that Delhi’s middle class and its money are not soon parted. So he asks it, instead, to let go its household excesses.
The NGO’s sorting room is full of discarded clothes. The jeans that cannot hold your girth, the shirt with a stain down the front, the underwear whose elastic is overstretched, the sock without a pair or even the kitchen rag you want to chuck. Every scrap means something to Goonj. If they are intact, the clothes are donated; if torn, they are tailored into smaller outfits for children or stripped and fed into a loom to create mats.

The smallest squares of cloth that cannot be tailored into anything wearable are washed, ironed and carefully wrapped in layers to make clean sanitary napkins. Sealed into paper bags, these are then dispatched to women in villages and slums across the country.
Gupta is among the many in the social service sector to realise the need to step out of the box to tap the philanthropic core in Indians. Traditionally, for most, giving is a religious ritual — the money that goes into the daan peti at the temple, the offering to appease Shani or the alms to the beggars outside a mosque.

Opening up the purse for secular, community or even research related causes is not easy for the average Indian. There was a time when community funding was used to set up dharamshalas, gurukuls and other public institutions. There are few such examples today. Compared to the merchant philanthropists of say 19th century Mumbai, there are few givers among the urban wealthy. Which city millionaire these days contributes a fraction of what Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy or Jagannath Shankar Sheth did to civic or social causes?

So, are today’s wealthy Indians tight-fisted? Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, who figures among the world’s top donors, doesn’t believe there is any need to fret. “For Indian corporates, wealth creation is a relatively new phenomenon and as they become more comfortable with their sustained wealth creation, they will take up philanthropy in a more meaningful way,” he told DNA.

NGOs are also working on new approaches to raise resources. From easy and painless monthly charity to focussed micro-giving, a slew of innovative methods are ensuring that Indians, especially the growing population of young, well-heeled professionals, open up their purses.

“How, when, where can we reach our potential donors — we need to constantly rethink these questions,” says Kapil Kaul, country head of Helpage India.

Give as you earn
This works beautifully for the lazy philanthropist. If the trouble of writing that cheque and handing it over to a charity regularly is what stops  you from giving, Charity Aid Foundation and Give India have formulated something that works like a billing system. Every month the fraction of your salary you are willing to give away to a cause close to your heart is deducted automatically.

“Inertia, not lack of generosity, is one of the greatest blocks to sustained philanthropy. There is no deadline to giving, you can donate whenever you please, so you put it off forever. But NGOs need regular inflows to plan ahead. Sporadic giving cannot sustain large projects,” says CAF India head Amita Puri who says that salary deduction is becoming increasingly popular among professionals. Microsoft, ABB, Sri Ram School, Dominos and PriceWaterhouse are organisations where employees have signed up to regularly donate from salaries. Employers too are encouraged to match this giving.

Focussed giving
Many of us are wary of writing out a big cheque to an NGO without knowing where exactly the money will go. But if a small target is specified, it allows the giver to form a connection with the subject of generosity.  Helpage, for instance, allows you to pick a cause, like adopting a grandparent or paying for a cancer surgery.

Sudip Mouzumder, who works in a multilateral agency, funds the educational requirements of 15 poor students, some of them orphans, at the Vinay Nagar Government Higher Secondary School in South Delhi. “I know who the children are, what they need and track their progress. I even know for instance that a child I supported through school has just got through to the Delhi College of Engineering,” he says.

Rajender Johar is a paraplegic with a mission: to help others who suffer from disabilities become financially self-sufficient. He runs FOD (family of disabled) which offers small but handy funds to help physically challenged persons set up their own businesses and lead a life of dignity.

“The act of giving has come a long way from merely donating to your local mandir and not bothering to find out how that money was used. Today, people value the impact they make on a cause,” says Yogita Verma, director, resource mobilisation, CRY. There is pride in the ownership of a project – be it giving time to help acquire ration cards or working with the authorities to ensure good standards in a government school.

Take for instance CRY’s Mumbai-based project, Right Exposure. This was an initiative where a group of amateur photographers came together to document children’s lives and their challenges. It allowed donors to keep track of the changes their time and money made.   

Charity counselling
Are you one of those who want to give but cannot quite decide who to donate to? Maybe you have someone in mind but would like a quick credibility survey before giving? Or would like some help with channeling the funds or even tracking its usage? This counsel does not come free but many consider it a small price to pay for ensuring that your hard-earned money is well-spent. Organisations like CAF and Give India provide this service and take a small percentage of the donated money. They do not, however, charge the NGOs anything for the resource-building assistance.

Marketing professional N Bharadwaj has been scouting for a small, lesser known but sincere NGO to fund. But credibility issues have held her back. “We have been looking for worthy organisations for two years. We did not want to give to large organisations that are already well-funded. Credibility is a big issue because we are using only information that comes to us through word of mouth and the internet to make a decision. Frankly we gave it up because we were not sure about the credibility of whatever was being put on the table. There is a basic mistrust of NGOs and a rating agency would help,” she says.

Greater transparency
Most people who haven’t yet ventured into regular philanthropy will tell you that they are sceptical about the credentials of the NGOs, especially those that are not in the big league. This has severely limited the flow of charity from ordinary middle class givers. “We need to create a robust and transparent sector,” says Kaul.

In the School Choice Campaign, donors sponsor education vouchers for needy students. Traditionally poor children have no choice but to settle for government schools which are stretched for seats and resources. But now these vouchers allow them to aim at private schools and better quality of education. School Choice offers financial reports to donors indicating how their money is spent. In fact, most established NGOs now publish their accounts on their websites.  “In this sector, we are not in the habit of offering clear accounts for public scrutiny. This works against us. But it is only fair that the donor would want to know,” says Baladevan Rangaraju, national director of the School Choice
Campaign.

Starting with schools
Helpage is currently collaborating with schools to introduce to children the concept of philanthropy early in life. Though schools encourage children to be generous, there is no systematic emphasis on the need to give a part of one’s wealth to the community.
“Where are the references to sharing in their books? The young, like the rest of society, are becoming increasingly individualistic,” says Pradeepta Naik of Sampradaan, which is trying to create community-driven philanthropy in backward pockets of the country.
From giving as a route to moksha to actively participating in the lives of beneficiaries, philanthropy has come a long way in India. Says Jasmine Wadhawan, a volunteer with Give India: “Of course, handsome amounts donated to causes are badly needed but what is also heartening is the thought behind a lot of contemporary giving. For instance, a gentleman in Kerala decided to ‘give back’ to the rickshaw driver who safely ferried his daughters to school for years.”
(With inputs from Kareena Gianani)