GiveIndia launched the First Givers Club with a summit on July 30, 2010 with over 100 members making the pledge to donate Rs. 5 lacs and dedicate 40 hours of their time per annum to support a cause and non-profit organizations of their choice.

We have had coverage in papers including an excellent, extended article about the summit in Indian Express (http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/will-give-money-time-for-charity-100-pledge-at-giving-summit/654459/). Reproducing snippets of the report here –

In yet another indication that high net-worth Indians are becoming increasingly open to the idea of contributing money and time to charity, an elite group of business executives came together in the financial capital to pledge that they would donate almost Rs 5 lakh a year and dedicate 40 hours of their time to support non-profit organisations in the country.

Inspiring the gathering was a family from the US, Kevin and his wife Joan Salwen, who, with their two children, decided one morning that they would give away half of their “things” to help others. The Salwens sold their 6,000 sq ft “dream” mansion and moved to a home half that size. “After a year of research and discussion within the family about areas we wanted to work, we decided we wanted to work in Africa. We associated ourselves with the Hunger project in Ghana for a five-year programme,” said Kevin.

Indian couple Amit and Archana Chandra are emulating the Salwens. Amit, Boston educated and a former managing director of DSP Merrill Lynch, and Archana already have several support programmes. Now they also support Jai Vakil, a group which helps mentally challenged children, and Hear India, which supports children with hearing challenges.

“I went for Vipasana and came back to quit my job. Through that week, I realized I had benefited by scholarships. I had begun thinking about wealth and realized that it is useful if spent in our lifetime. Even if you give five percent it does not affect your lifestyle,” said Amit.

The Chandras decided to calculate their annual expenses, “holidays, trips, overhead expenses” included, and doubled that amount. “Unlike Salwens, we thought in doubles. We calculated our expenditure and doubled it. That became our capital pool which would be able to sustain us. The next task was to decide what to do with the remaining money. We sat down with investment and tax consultants and decide to give away the rest of money in charity,” said Amit. 



Explaining the idea behind such pledges, Narayan Vaghul, former CEO of ICICI and now chairman of GiveIndia, said, “the idea is not to narrow down our contribution to writing a cheque... We should be interested in betterment in society to create equality in opportunity.”

“I began from a personal experience. We had a son and we realized that there were many who did not have a bed to sleep at night. We started by supporting an organization for orphans in Bangalore. Later, as we kept looking for more, we came across a much neglected area of mentally challenged homeless women. A group called The Banyan was working in this area and we have been supporting them,” said Dr Nachiket Mor, former ICICI board member and Chairman, Institute for Financial Management and Research. 

Dr. Mor inspired members to share professional skills in the area they choose. Citing his example, he said he realised he was good at starting from scratch and building it up.

Deval Sanghavi, co-founded Dasra, which provides philanthropists with intelligent investment strategies. The former NY investment banker created India’s first venture philanthropy fund, Impact Partners in 1999. He has played a key role in incubating and scaling organisations including Magic Bus, Rural Innovations Network and Aangan Trust.

“I wondered why we cannot use our skills in the non-profit sector. I started out with helping in UP and Bihar. It gave me immense personal satisfaction but the question of impact remained. That is when we founded Dasra.”

At the first Giving Summit, members had obvious questions about their donations like any of their other investment — how do I know that the money will be used for what I am giving? How do I identify a good NGO and when do I start to give?

Questions which were answered by a group of experienced and veterans in the field, who gave up their swish jobs to work within the community in India.

Answering the anxious new givers, Archana said, “It was a matter of starting. Once the ball sets rolling, it takes over our life. I started with giving half-an-hour a month to now being on board of organization.”

Kevin added that “there were moments of panic. The decision had been so quick. We realized that to see what half that size would look like until we actually did it. Till then, we were not really fully committed.”

Talking about the increasing trend of investment in NGOs and spending money in India, Dr Nitin Nohria, the first Indian dean of Harvard Business School, said “Rather than fear of taxation, there was more fear of what they had today would be gone tomorrow. People thought there was need to be conservative in their approach toward money. The fear has now transformed into confidence, reflecting a profound psychological change in the last two decades. People feel more secure and confident of giving and are sure of their future."

We would be running a 4-week series on each of the sessions featured at the summit, delving deep into the topics of How much to Give?, various approaches one could take to giving, figuring out who to give to and explore options for giving together as a family.

We would like to once again thank our partners on their support of the First Givers summit

This week we bring to you a very personal article from one of our employees, Shashi Bhushan Singh, who joined us as a Marketing Communications Manager in the Payroll Giving team. The article reflects his personal struggle on deciding whether to give or not, how he not only overcame it through a simple shift in his thinking but also decided to work for a cause by joining GiveIndia about a month back.

Donations and charity have gained very controversial overtones in our society today.  Many people want to help the poor but do not see “donations” as an effective or helpful mode. The multiplicity of NGO scams, inefficient government fund allocation and corruption in the name of curing poverty provides no succor to people who want to really give. Due to such hyped incidents even the very word “NGO” has almost become soiled, thus putting even good social workers and social firms at a disadvantage. As one says, it takes 1 bad deed to spoil a 100 good ones. So it is with the "NGO Sector". 

Even I, myself was cynical whether donations could really help cure social issues. My opinion was that donations make the other look inferior and hence actually hurts the self-respect of the beneficiary while boosting the ego of the donor thus being quite harmful to both of them. Further, I also strongly believed that we should not feed people but teach them how to fish.  Lastly, I always subscribed to the popular notion of believing that NGOs just don’t do enough good work.

Then, only one shift in my thought process changed my whole approach of looking at things. I decided to stop thinking and fantasizing about the ultimate social revolution I want to create and started working at the grassroots to see how I could contribute. The first thing I realized was that there were good NGOs and committed social workers who are ready compromise and devote their whole life to serve the humanity. The second thing I realized was - there are poor people and then there are very poor people. While poor people might achieve self sustenance if helped rightly, for very poor people who do not even have one proper meal a day self sustenance is a next life dream. A donation helps them to exist!

Further, poor people are less worried about self-respect. Self-respect comes a lot later as they fight for existence everyday. If we can create the social version of Maslow’s pyramid, replacing self-actualization by self-respect, it can explain how first the needs and basic necessities are of utmost importance. Forget about Maslow, think about yourself sitting hungry for 3 days with no surety when and how will you get the next meal – what will be your priority, having self respect or saving your life?

We, as matured and pragmatic citizens, need to understand the difference between “ideal” and “practical” solutions. While donations may not be an ideal solution, it certainly helps in real life. If one really tries, it is possible to find tons of real case studies showing how donations transformed lives significantly. This blog has featured many stories such as Srinivasan who himself was a beneficiary at Sevalaya who learned to make a livelihood there and started supporting students at Sevalaya himself. Another story is about Jeevan Anand who started earning his livelihood through SGBS Trust.

 To give or not to give is a personal choice but one should consider all the factors before choosing any one side. A donation given to an entity that will not use the money correctly is as good as not donating at all; may be even worse because you are getting a pseudo satisfaction of contributing to society. So you must ensure that you know how your money was spent and that it was spent well since that is what will enable you to give more.

The fear is diminishing interest of current generation in philanthropy and their trust in NGOs. But the hope from future entrepreneurs is to create sustainable social models like Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank which can result in inclusive growth.  

The following two quotes I recently heard from two great philanthropists might be right way to close this post:-

“Our mission is to bring our society to a place where we no longer need institution like GiveIndia.”  - Venkat Krishnan (Founder, GiveIndia)

"Lanat hai is desh pe agar 2020 tak we can't remove poverty. For the first time in history we have financial resources, human capital, tried and tested and beaten up revived institutional frameworks and we have a place in the sun" – Mr. Mahajan (BASIX Group CEO & Chairman)  on India today given that we now have the talent, resources and everything that we need to tackle this challenge.

A recent article in the Forbes India issue presented a few statistics on countries and where they stood in their philanthrophic giving. Here's what it revealed:

In addition, here's what the same article says about India - "Poor no more, if you go by the Forbes Rich List. India has 49 billionaires, six of them in the top 50. For all this, India has a poor record when it comes to philanthrophic giving. As a percentage of GDP - a better metric than the absolute number - it's lower even than Pakistan, Kenya and South Africa."

Clearly not a pretty picture. Isn't that ironic though for a country which believes that charitable activities are one's path to salvation? Moreover, given the tremedous challenges that we face as a society, isn't it surprising that we fare so badly on the giving scale?

One may argue that the US (or even Germany and the UK for that matter) has a far more developed economy; and that a comparison between its figures and India's has its limits. But admittedly, the figure is impressive by any given standard. This comparison but gives out a clear message - that we still have a long way to go, especially as a growing number of Indians accumulate wealth.

What will it take for our giving to reach the levels of the US or the United Kingdom, where philanthrophy tops 2 percent of GDP annually? - an extremely relevant question, given our economy's continuous vigorous growth.

You tell us - Do you think Indians are poor givers? For a society, whose culture and traditions promote giving, why do you think Indians fare badly on the giving scale?

What do you think is the right amount that a person should give? What can we do to increase the level of philanthrophy here in India? Should individuals, particularly the well off, be giving more?

With less than 20 days to go, 15+ corporates and 50+ NGOs are gearing up yet again for the second edition of the The India Giving Challenge - India's largest and only online giving event - www.GiveIndia.org/IGC2010

That's right. With over Rs. 91 lacs being raised through 5,000+ donors for charity last year, the India Giving Challenge qualifies to be the largest ever online fundraising event in the country. 100 NGOs and 14 corporates took part in the event

GiveIndia is back with the second edition of the event, which offers more and larger prizes for NGOs. Infact, the size of the overall matching pool has been increased from Rs. 56 lacs last year to Rs. 65 lacs this year!

Some of the companies that have already signed up with us this year are:

• Eclipsys
• Firstsource
• Genpact
• HDFC Bank
• HDFC Standard Life Insurance
• ICICI Securities
• ICICI Securities Primary Dealership
• InfoEdge (naukri.com)
• Interglobe
• KPMG
• MakeMyTrip
• Paternoster / Jardine Lloyd Thompson
• Thermax
• Vodafone

So do gear up to win some money for your chosen cause! The event scheduled for September 8 - October 20, 2010 and the process of setting up online fundraising pages has already begun.

If your NGO would like to participate in the challenge, please contact junaid@giveindia.org. If your NGO is not listed with GiveIndia, do contact rasika@giveindia.org
If your company would like to participate in the event, please contact dhaval@giveindia.org
Individuals are also invited to take part. Please contact tarika@giveindia.org to learn more.

While news of the situation in Leh does not feature in the headlines anymore, the situation is still grave as Save the Children, an NGO which has stationed a team in Leh, reports.

"Heavy rain on the night of August 13 caused widespread panic throughout Leh with villagers rushing to the mountain. There is a high level of trauma within the community, worry about the winter and further cloudbursts. As the weather worsens, fear and trauma increase."

Through its efforts, Save the Children has distributed over 1,000 hygiene cum utility cum shelter kits in all the affected areas of Leh town and its six surrounding villages; reaching out to a total of 1,054 families (5,270 people including 3,162 children). However, with winter less than 8 weeks away, a lot remains to be done.

This includes reaching out to the many villages where help has not yet arrived. More villages have not been assessed than have been. The government has not yet produced a plan on building shelter. This is an urgent requirement. And it is important that schools are reopened as soon as possible so that normality can return to children’s lives.

If you would like to support Save the Children's relief activities, you can do so at http://www.giveindia.org/give/pledgepage/Savechildren

You can donate towards other NGOs as well at http://www.giveindia.org/t-donate-leh-floods.aspx

Please forward this message to people you know to help strengthen support for the flood-affected.

Please keep in mind, as with all iGive projects, GiveIndia has not done any diligence on these projects.Save the Children being a Tier II NGO has also not undergone a due diligence.

More than a month back, we entered a contest on Causes.com - "Supercharge My Project" wherein the winners would be helped by the Causes team to raise funds for the project. The project that we entered for the fundraising was titled “Right to Sight” which would restore eyesight to 300 poor people in Tripura through cataract surgery for only $25 per surgery. The project is being implemented by our partner NGO – Voluntary Health Association of Tripura (VHAT). Do have a look at our Causes page for a detailed description of the project.

We were overjoyed to learn that we were one of the winners of the "Supercharge My Project" contest along with 3 others. Over the last month, Susan Gordon from Causes.com has been helping us with various aspects of our fundraising campaign and we are all ready now to launch this campaign next week.

Along the way we held a Facebook Contest to increase membership to our Causes page and now have nearly ~2,500 members. While we set out to achieve much bigger numbers, we hope that all of you will continue to ask your friends to join our cause and donate towards this campaign.

We hope that you will support us to raise the entire $7,500 required to provide cataract surgery to 300 poor people of Tripura. VHAT sent us a short video on the work they do through their hospital which we are showcasing here.

Some time back, we held a blog post contest on IndiBlogger around topics related to Giving. Participants had to write blog posts around the topics of:

• Philanthrophy/Giving in India
• Donating and Taxes (eg: Do you believe that tax-savings help donations in India? If no, what tax reforms do we need to encourage more donations? If yes, what efforts could NGOs make to increase donations?)
• Giving and Saving/Getting

We received many blog posts and a winner in "Giving Is An Art..." by Neeraj Shinde. We congratulate Mr. Shinde and apologize for the delay in announcing the winners of this contest. We have reproduced the blog post below with his permission.

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I nodded and moved on as I grabbed the ticket from the man.

This must be a bad day for me, I thought as I realized that I had just missed the train. The fact that the next train is expected after an hour made things even worse. I must be the unluckiest man in the world, I thought as I cursed myself for being late.

The railway platform was sparingly crowded and it wasn't too difficult to grab an empty seat. I decided to grab a newspaper from the nearest book stand - what an awesome way to kill time, I thought.

I was not more than a half way reading through the cover story of the newspaper when I noticed someone standing right in front of me. I lowered the newspaper giving myself a room to see the person standing in front of me.

"You again?", I asked as I noticed the boy again begging in front of me.

This time I was able to have a clear look at him. A moderately muddy shirt and a half sized trouser. Black hair that had turned muddy brown due to lack of proper care. I decided not to guess the last time he would have had his bath cos' I knew that my every attempt would have failed to get it right.

I waited for an answer but all I got were stares.

"What do you want?", I asked.

"A rupee!", the boy said.

"I can't give you a rupee my friend; I can feed you some snacks if you are hungry. Are you?", I interrogated.

The boy seemed uninterested in my offer and immediately left as he realized that he was wasting his precious earning time before a weirdo.

Smart professional, I murmured as I saw him sneaking away.

I began searching the last sentence that I had read in the newspaper article. I like reading articles about President Obama. I had just resumed reading when I saw another boy standing in front of me. He seemed almost half the age of the previous one.

"Now what do you want Barack?", I asked the little boy as he looked into my eyes with immense hope.

"I want a wada-paav, the one which you were about to give to him!", he said.

"Oh! Did he send you?", I asked in dismay.

"No! I heard you", he said honestly.

Sometimes it is not very difficult to spot the truth; especially when words come out straight from the heart, they possess a spark. Just as the eyes of the little boy had. I knew he was too hungry. I folded the newspaper and kept it in my bag.

We walked a small distance together until we reached the nearest snack corner.

"A tea for me and a wada-paav for the little one", I ordered.

I instructed the little boy to have a seat. I noticed him as he kept on moving his legs to and fro on the chair.

"Where are your parents?", I asked him anxiously.

He nodded.

I learnt, he must be an orphan. That's just too much to handle for such a tender age, I thought. If I thought it was a bad day for me today and that I am the unluckiest man in the world, the little one must be way beyond it all.

I came back to my seat but was unable to concentrate on the article. I decided not to read. I looked around and noticed the little boy sitting just besides me.

"Well Barack, what are you doing back here?", I asked.

"I like you", he said.

"Is that why you are here again?", I asked as I touched his little cheek.

He smiled as he asked me to follow him. There was a small garden beside the railway platform developed and maintained by Indian Railways. He took me to a toy seller who was sitting in the garden.

It wasn't so hard to study the little chap's intentions behind bringing me there. I bought him one.

I was moved.

I was able to feel the happiness spread all around his face. It wasn't about money rather a lending of a caring hand, to someone who really needed one. It's all about those little gestures that touch and impact lives. Imagine if a few minutes of such caring gestures can turn a bad day into one of the best days of one's life, how positively far it would help building up a society free of poverty and illiteracy?

Shedding a rupee to a beggar is not Giving. It is all about caring and nurturing your donations in the right directions.

There are numerous such little boys who are less fortunate in their lives. To be able to touch even one of these will make all the difference. Imagine, had it been otherwise...