Category: IDR

In systems of social change, we grapple with an enduring tension: connection versus abstraction. Connection is slow, human, and relational. It thrives on trust, listening, and collaboration. Abstraction, on the other hand, simplifies complexity into patterns, insights, and models. It is fast, scalable, and efficient.

Both serve a purpose, but they pull in opposite directions. And now, with the rise of AI tools like large language models (LLMs), this tension has reached new heights. LLMs thrive on abstraction; they reduce human interaction into data points, surface patterns, and generate outputs.

While LLMs are not intelligent in the sense of reasoning or self-awareness, they can serve as tools that reframe, rephrase, and reorganise a person’s ideas in ways that feel expressive. This can enable creativity and reflection, but let’s be clear: It’s not agency. The tool reshapes inputs but does not make meaning.

In market-based systems, where efficiency is paramount, this might work. But in social systems, where relationships, context, and trust are everything, abstraction risks losing what makes systems real and resilient.

This essay is a case for vigilant embrace. It asks how we can keep tools in service to relationship, not the other way round. It draws from our country’s experience of the self-help group (SHG) movement and its microfinance offshoots, tests it against the new frontier of LLMs in the social sector, and distills a few design rules for keeping the work human in an age of speed.

Connection as infrastructure

Decades ago, India’s SHG movement reframed finance as a relationship first, and a product second. Groups formed through affinity; members saved together; rules emerged from context; repayment schedules matched rhythms of life and livelihood; and trust was the collateral. Over time, SHG–bank linkage became a way to bring formal finance into places where formal institutions had no legitimacy of their own. It only worked because process mattered.

As Aloysius Prakash Fernandez (long-time leader in the SHG movement with MYRADA and a key architect of its practice) has argued, SHGs built economies of connection. The time it took to form an SHG was not friction to be eliminated, but rather the formation and cadence of months of meetings, savings discipline, conflict resolution, and learning to keep books and hold each other accountable. That slow work created legitimacy and resilience so that when crisis struck, the relationship fabric held.

Then came the turn. As microfinance commercialised, much of the field shifted from SHG thinking to microfinance (MFI) thinking—from affinity to acquisition, from place to product, from presence to process compliance. Loans became standardised, repayment cycles rigid, and growth a KPI. Speed, greed, and standardisation (to borrow Aloysius’s pithy phrasing) took what was relational and made it transactional.

The results were predictable. Repayment rates looked spectacular—until they didn’t. In many places, risks were accumulating: multiple lending without visibility on household cash flows, incentives that pushed volume over suitability, and the slow erosion of trust with lenders treating people as portfolios rather than participants. Products scaled, but belonging did not. The social infrastructure that had once underwritten financial inclusion was being displaced by numbers that looked like progress.

It is tempting to narrate this simply as a story of ‘bad actors’, but that misses the deeper point. Even well-meaning institutions slide here because their structures privilege the measurable: gross loan portfolio, on-time repayment, and cost to serve. The things that make SHGs work—mutuality, ownership, repair—resist instrumentation, and become, quite literally, less valuable.

If this sounds familiar to those working at the intersection of LLMs and social systems, it’s because we’re watching the same film again.

The question, then, is this: Where, if at all, do LLMs belong in the work of social change? And what can we learn from the SHG/MFI shift?

LLMs and the mechanistic view of wisdom

There are now many LLM-based tools designed to abstract and synthesise insights from human interactions, promising to amplify collective wisdom. In social change systems, where resources are stretched and problems are vast, this promise is tempting and does have some strengths.

• It organises and systematises human insights into building blocks.
• It surfaces diverse perspectives, tracing inputs back to their sources to ensure inclusion and accountability.
• It accelerates decisions, offering actionable outputs at scale.

But these strengths are also its greatest weaknesses because they abstract the human process of turning messy, situated conversations into neat patterns. This comes at a cost.

1. Loud voices and flattened complexity: They risk over-representing frequent or louder perspectives while erasing nuance, dissent, and marginal views.
2. Loss of relational insight: Wisdom doesn’t arise from patterns alone. It comes from the trust, tension, and emotional connection born of human interaction.
3. Hollow consensus: Outputs that bypass relational work may appear actionable, but they lack the trust and shared ownership that give decisions their power.

The result? Systems that look efficient but feel hollow because tools, frameworks, and processes sever the relational ties that make systems real.

Recent empirical evidence seems to confirm what we sense intuitively about these limits. When researchers systematically tested LLM reasoning capabilities through controlled puzzles, they discovered something profound: “As problems grow more complex, these models don’t just struggle but collapse entirely.” Even more telling, when complexity increases, they begin to reduce their effort, as if giving up. They find simple solutions but then overthink them, exploring wrong paths.

Perhaps this is a window into the fundamental nature of these systems. They excel at pattern matching within familiar territories but cannot genuinely reason through novel complexity. And social change? It lives entirely in that space of the new and the complex, where contexts shift, where culture matters, where every community brings unprecedented challenges. If these models collapse when moving discs between pegs, how can we trust them with the infinitely more complex work of moving hearts, minds, and systems?

Apply the narrow versus wide lens

To navigate this challenge, the tension between connection and abstraction must be examined through another dimension: narrow versus wide. While connection and abstraction often feel like irreconcilable opposites, the narrow–wide lens helps bridge this gap by revealing how different kinds of tools can play meaningful roles in social change.

• Narrow tools are specific and targeted, solving well-bounded problems.
• Wide tools are generalised and scalable, seeking to address large systems.

Combining this in a 2×2 framework gives us four distinct spaces where LLMs can, or cannot, play a meaningful role.

1. Narrow connection (Relational amplifiers)

• What it is: Tools that deepen human relationships by enhancing context-specific, targeted work.
• Example: A frontline caseworker uses an LLM to synthesise notes across multiple user visits in order to personalise their follow-ups. The LLM helps amplify memory and insight, but the relationship remains human.
• Why it works: These tools augment human connection by surfacing insights without replacing relational work. They stay rooted in the specific, bounded context of their application.
• Key use case: Tools for case management in social services. For instance, LLMs help social workers tailor interventions to individual users based on their unique needs and histories.
• Key question: Does this tool augment connection, or does it replace it?

2. Wide connection (Relational ecosystems)

• What it is: Tools that map and visualise relationships across broader ecosystems, enabling collaboration without eroding the human work of trust-building.
• Example: Stakeholder mapping tools that reveal community networks and power dynamics.
• Why it works: Wide connection tools respect the complexity of human systems, helping actors navigate and strengthen relationships without reducing them to transactions.
• Key use case: Network mapping for advocacy coalitions. LLMs can surface insights about overlapping efforts, potential collaborators, or areas of conflict, but the work of building those connections remains human.
• Key question: Does this tool illuminate relationships, or does it flatten them into transactions?

3. Narrow abstraction (Efficiency tools)

• What it is: Tools that automate repetitive, bounded tasks, freeing up time for relational or contextual work.
• Example: A grant officer uses an LLM to scan 100 applications for missing documentation or budget inconsistencies and flags files for review, but leaves decisions to humans.
• Why it works: Narrow abstraction tools stay within well-defined parameters, ensuring that the abstraction doesn’t undermine human judgement or erode trust.
• Key use case: Administrative automation in nonprofits. AI can handle routine data entry or flag missing information in grant proposals, allowing staff to focus on strategic decisions and relationships.
• Key question: Has the process of abstraction removed necessary details that deserve human consideration?

4. Wide abstraction (Context flatteners)

• What it is: Broad, generalised tools that prioritise scale and efficiency, but risk erasing context and relationships.
• Example: A philanthropic CRM tool employs LLMs to rank grantees on ‘impact potential’ using prior grant reports that reward well-written or funder-aligned language, not those doing contextually important work.
• Why it fails: Wide abstraction tools produce outputs that are disconnected from the lived realities of the people and systems they aim to serve. They often impose generic solutions that lack local resonance or trust.
• Key risk: Policy recommendations generated by LLMs that ignore cultural nuance, power dynamics, or local histories.
• Key question: Does this tool flatten complexity, producing solutions no one truly owns?

Wide abstraction tools fail social systems because social systems are built on trust, context, and relationships. Change doesn’t emerge from patterns or averages; it emerges from the slow, messy, human work of showing up, listening, and building together.

This requires moral discernment, cultural fluency, and the ability to hold space for uncertainty. Even the most sophisticated tools are not capable of these things. A tool cannot sense the difference between a pause of resistance and a pause of reflection. It cannot understand silence or the weight behind a hesitant request.

LLMs can play a role in social change, but must stay narrow, supportive, and grounded in connection. They can amplify relationships (narrow connection), reveal patterns in systems (wide connection), or automate tasks that don’t require human judgement (narrow abstraction). But they cannot replace the relational processes that make systems real.

Designing for a human age

The promise of LLMs is seductive. It offers speed, efficiency, and a sense of control—qualities we crave in complex, uncertain systems. But if we think of connection as the foundational infrastructure and abstraction as a tool, how do we build (and fund) accordingly?

Four clusters of practice follow from the analysis:

1. Placement and scope

• Keep it narrow (bounded contexts) when automating.
• Hold it wide and human when mapping relationships.
• Avoid wide abstraction in relational domains (welfare, justice, health, community development). If you must use it, treat outputs as hints, never decisions.
• Assume drift; design for it.

2. Process and ownership

• Process matters. If a ‘consensus’ tool removes dissent and dialogue, it is producing hollow agreement.
• Ownership signals reality. If a decision is not of the group but about it, expect distance and eventual resistance.
• Messiness test. Did we stay in the mess to listen, disagree, compromise? If not, the outcome may travel poorly. Consensus that bypasses repair will not hold.

3. Measurement and accountability

• Measure what you can while protecting what you can’t. Build explicit guard rails so that unmeasurable goods (trust, belonging, repair) are not crowded out.
• Use AI where failure is acceptable. Drafting, summarising, data hygiene: yes. Decisions about dignity, safety, or entitlements: no.
• Allow override without justification. People closest to the context must be free to resist machine outputs.
• Capture moments of failure. Document not just technical bugs, but also when people forget how to act without the tool.

4. Funding and institutional practice

• Finance the foundational layers. Budget for convening, accompaniment, group formation, and follow-through, and not just transactions.
• Reward stewardship, not throughput. Celebrate organisations that prune, pause, and repair, not just those that scale.
• Create collision spaces. Funders should host containers for connection—open-ended gatherings where practitioners make meaning together, not just report up.
• Reframe accountability. Shift from counting outputs to honouring conditions: psychological safety, trust density, and role clarity across the network.

The work we do in the sector is the work of belonging, and it does not scale by flattening. It scales like a forest: root by root, mycelium by mycelium, canopy by canopy, alive and adaptive, held together by relationships we cannot always see and must never forget.

Disclaimer: IDR is funded by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 25 September 2025.

How do we resist the pull towards control and instead lean into the messiness of connection?

In an earlier piece on IDR, I explored connection and abstraction as two distinct approaches to systems change. That framing was meant to start a conversation, to ask what it takes to build what I call a rainforest of change in a world so often drawn to the efficiency of plantations. A rainforest conjures images of abundance, resilience, and diversity—a thriving ecosystem in which each element plays a role in sustaining the whole. A plantation, by contrast, symbolises uniformity, control, and extraction, where the goal is not thriving but harvesting.

Since writing that piece, I’ve been reflecting on the ways connection and abstraction interact, not as binaries but as polarities. They’re not opposites; they’re interdependent. The tension between them doesn’t have to pull us apart. It can hold us in balance, like the dance between the roots and branches of a tree.

This follow-up piece builds on that idea. It draws on recent conversations and experiences to look more deeply at the relationship between connection and abstraction, the role of trust and language, and what it means to lead in a way that honours both.

Systems work as rainforests

The rainforest is the model we often hold up as an ideal—diverse, resilient, and alive with connection. But saying we want to create rainforests of change means little unless we understand what it actually takes to nurture one. Rainforests are the result of countless unseen relationships of roots, fungi, and microbes all working together in ways we cannot always observe or control.

Contrast that with a plantation. It’s certainly efficient, but only in a narrow sense. It replaces diversity with monoculture, relationships with extraction, and adaptability with rigidity.

In a recent conversation with Rajesh Kasturirangan at Socratus, I spoke about the concept of terroir. It wasn’t his framing, but it became a starting point for our dialogue about connection, abstraction, and systems change. I used terroir to describe how deeply place matters—how the soil, history, relationships, power dynamics, and culture of a community create a unique context that resists replication, and how this context must be understood and respected. Just as wine reflects the terroir of the vineyard, change reflects the terroir of the community—and in systems change, we cannot treat every community as a blank slate.

Rajesh pushed back not to dismiss the value of connection or terroir, but to emphasise that abstraction matters too. His point was that we shouldn’t think of them as oppositional. Rather, they are part of the same ecosystem, each enriching the other.

This brought me back to a widely used metaphor when comparing systems work with project-based approaches: the rainforest versus the plantation.

The more I think about it, the more I see how much of our work risks becoming plantation-like when we lean too heavily on abstraction. Frameworks can flatten the complexity of the systems we’re working in, turning vibrant ecosystems into neatly pruned rows—useful, but also brittle.

Rajesh offered an important clarification here: patterns, he said, are not the frameworks themselves, nor are they abstract blueprints. Instead, they are regular, repeated forms that emerge from the underlying structures, whether in nature or communities. They arise when the conditions of connection, trust, and collaboration allow something meaningful to grow.

This idea of patterns as a bridge between connection and abstraction is powerful. It suggests that while abstraction helps us recognise patterns, it is connection that makes those patterns meaningful and rooted.

How we lead

Two podcast conversations I listened to recently, one with Jim Dethmer and another with Karen Kimsey-House, offered language that deepened the idea of leadership for me. They discussed different ways of showing up: ‘to me’, ‘by me’, ‘through me’, and ‘as me’. It struck me how closely these ideas map onto the tension between connection and abstraction.

‘To me’ is an approach of helplessness where life is something that happens to us. There’s little agency here, only reaction. ‘By me’ is where most of us spend our time as leaders. It’s about taking charge, creating outcomes, and owning our role in the process. It is empowering, but it can also lead to overcontrol and trying too hard to shape the world to our will.

The shift to ‘through me’ feels like the key here. It’s a practice of letting go, not of responsibility but of attachment. Karen expresses this well: when we lead ‘through me’, we allow the frameworks to recede into the background. They don’t disappear; they’re still there, but they no longer dictate the moment. Instead, we make room for what’s emerging. This requires trust, not in the sense of blind faith, but in a kind of grounded confidence that the system knows what it needs, that the connections will hold.

What stood out most to me was this idea of invisible networks. In a rainforest, the mycelial web is what connects everything, shuttling nutrients and information between species. In systems change, those networks are the relationships, trust, and shared purpose that hold a system together. The networks are not always visible, but they’re essential. And they can’t simply be transplanted from one place to another. They have to be cultivated, nurtured over time. Trust plays a key role in this—it is not a soft variable, but the primary infrastructure of flourishing, resilient systems, as relational theorists suggest. However, for trust to thrive, belonging alone is insufficient; action is necessary too. Belonging is foundational, but it cannot substitute for action. Trust deepens when it is made visible through showing up, following through, and co-creating the future together.

Donella Meadows touches on this in her reference to Wendell Berry’s concept of ‘tyrannese’—language that abstracts so much it loses its grounding in lived experience. Meadows, echoing Berry, warned that “our words, if we’re not careful, can become tools of control rather than connection.”

But language can also be expansive. It can help us make the invisible visible and give shape to the networks we sense but can’t always see. This ties back to Rajesh’s emphasis on trust as a foundational virtue, one that not only connects people but also allows the emergence of empathy, justice, insight, and complexity.

The idea of trust

The podcasts also touched on something else that feels relevant here: the idea of trust. To lead ‘through me’ is to trust not just the system, but ourselves. Jim talked about the work it takes to get there, the inner stability we need to stop outsourcing our sense of ‘okayness’ to external markers of approval or control. That’s not easy. It means letting go of certainty, of the need to be right, of the urge to cling to frameworks as a safety net. But it’s also freeing. When we trust, we make space for something new to emerge.

This is where connection and abstraction can meet—not as opposites, but as complements. Abstraction helps us see patterns, while connection reminds us that those patterns are rooted in place, in relationships, in the invisible networks that sustain life. The art lies in holding both, in knowing when to let the framework guide us and when to let it go.

This isn’t just a question for leaders; it’s a question for all of us who care about change. How do we resist the pull towards control and instead lean into the messiness of connection? How do we create systems that honour the terroir of each place while still learning from one another? How do we trust in the mycelial web of the rainforest, even when we can’t see it?

These aren’t easy questions, but they’re the ones I want to sit with. Maybe it begins with simply noticing when we reach for control, and when we might lean into trust instead. And today, as large-scale technologies increasingly abstract people’s lived realities, the need to restore connective language and practice feels even more urgent.

Because the more I think about it, the more I believe that the work we’re trying to do—whether it’s in leadership, systems change, or simply in being human—can’t be done without them. Connection and abstraction, roots and branches—what grows between them is what we call change, and like any living thing, it needs care, attention, and time.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 16 May 2025.

Philanthropy’s most important role is not to abstract solutions by distilling them into replicable frameworks. It is to nurture the connections that make them possible.

The cool November air in Pune carried the aroma of chai, mingling with the low hum of conversation and occasional laughter in the foyer of the Global Opportunity Youth Network (GOYN) Global Convening. This gathering of youth leaders, philanthropists, and practitioners had been buzzing with energy all day, but now the crowd was quieter and more reflective. American law professor and civil rights scholar John Powell had just delivered a keynote that left everyone thinking.

“Belonging isn’t about inclusion,” he had said. “It’s about co-creation—about creating the systems where everyone can thrive together.”

I lingered on the edges, mulling over his words. Around me, opportunity youth leaders spoke animatedly, sharing their experiences of navigating systemic barriers and reimagining futures. Alejandra, a young leader from Colombia, recounted how her community had rallied to co-create a youth innovation fund. “The fund goes beyond money,” she explained. “It’s a way for us to invest in one another’s ideas, to show that our creativity and solutions matter.”

Change emerges when communities lead

Alejandra’s words crystallised a realisation I’d been circling for years: Change is not something we deliver to communities—it’s something that emerges when communities lead. Her story was echoed by Nandita, an artist-activist from India, who shared how her initiative to revive the Warli painting tradition had grown into a movement connecting tribal youth with global audiences. “It’s not about preserving art in a museum,” she said. “It’s about living it, evolving it, and letting it speak to today’s struggles.”

Both stories reflected a shift from prescriptive solutions to systemic transformation rooted in identity and agency. These youth-led efforts focused not on extracting abstract lessons or scaling a fixed model but on weaving connections, fostering belonging, and enabling environments where communities could thrive on their own terms.

This tension—between abstraction and connection—was the thread John had pulled at, challenging my assumptions about how change happens.

The programme trap

In philanthropy, it is easy to think in terms of programmes and singular solutions. The logic is clean, almost comforting: Define a problem, design a solution, and measure its impact. For years, we donors have funded initiatives that followed this model across education, health, sanitation and other areas. But time and again, we encountered the same limitation—no single intervention could meaningfully shift outcomes in a complex, interconnected system.

Take the example of education. We have poured resources into teacher training, remedial education, and curriculum enhancements, believing these would improve learning outcomes. But these efforts didn’t account for the realities outside the classroom. Hungry children couldn’t concentrate; anxious children couldn’t thrive. Teachers were overwhelmed by challenges that no amount of professional development alone could solve. The strands of nutrition, mental health, infrastructure, and community support were deeply interwoven. Addressing one issue in isolation unravelled others.

This programmatic approach had a second, subtler flaw: abstraction. When we tried to replicate success by distilling it into frameworks, we froze something dynamic into a static snapshot—a moment in time divorced from the ongoing evolution of the work. The problem isn’t just that abstraction simplifies; it also misrepresents.

When intermediaries step in to codify and distribute learnings, they often capture a single version of the work at a particular moment in its evolution. But the work itself continues to change, informed by new challenges, insights, and relationships. These static frameworks, though widely distributed, fail to reflect the dynamic nature of the work and risk reinforcing outdated approaches.

What we need isn’t a better intermediary or a sharper snapshot. We need spaces and venues where people with common values can find each other, forge deep personal connections, exchange ideas, co-learn in real time, and co-create enduring solutions. For social change to occur, it is relationships that must serve as the scaffolding for growth. This relational foundation is not a secondary feature; it is the essence of meaningful, adaptive change.

The shift to connection

John’s keynote articulated something I had sensed but was struggling to name: the distinction between ‘bridging’ and ‘breaking’ solutions. ‘Breaking’ solutions separate ideas from their origins, freezing them in time. ‘Bridging’, on the other hand, creates spaces where stories, ideas, and relationships flow freely, evolving as they connect with new contexts.

This shift from abstraction to connection isn’t theoretical. It’s already happening. The 24×7 ON Court initiative in Kollam, spearheaded by the Kerala High Court and supported by the nonprofit mission PUCAR, is a promising example of how trust and alignment can fuel collaboration.

A collective of lawyers, technologists, and policymakers, PUCAR is working to unstick a justice system bogged down by outdated processes and inefficiencies. Their goal is to make dispute resolution faster, fairer, and more accessible for everyone. The 24×7 ON Court in Kollam, India’s first fully digital court, is one example of this vision in action. The court handles cheque dishonour cases entirely online, enabling litigants to file cases, attend hearings, and receive judgements without stepping into a courtroom.

Though still in its early days, the initiative has already seen strong participation from the local bar association. Far from being a centrally orchestrated roll-out, the project has been a collaborative, co-created effort. Lawyers at the bar association have taken ownership and are not only implementing the system but also actively contributing to its evolution. Their inputs—ranging from practical tools such as payment calculators and drafting templates to systemic process improvements—have enhanced the platform’s relevance and responsiveness.

The high court’s leadership in setting the stage, combined with the bar association’s stewardship, has allowed this initiative to develop as a relational ecosystem—one where tools and processes are refined through connection, dialogue, and shared purpose. This isn’t a top-down roll-out masked as collaboration; it’s a genuinely co-created ecosystem in which the focus is on trust and working towards a shared purpose. Instead of imposing solutions, the different actors are focused on constant dialogue and iteration. The lawyers are more than just users of the system—they are stewards who are refining the platform so that it fits the real needs of their community.

While much remains to be seen, early signs suggest that when trust and ownership intersect, innovation can take root in ways that are both meaningful and enduring.

Belonging as a systemic lens

At the GOYN convening, I witnessed the principle of connection in action. Rather than being passive recipients of interventions, opportunity youth leaders were co-creators of solutions deeply rooted in their own communities. Whether tackling unemployment, education, or mental health, these young leaders were not building programmes but ecosystems of support.

For example, in Mexico City, young people worked with more than 90 institutions to push for inclusive employment policies. The intention was to go beyond job placements and build a network of public, private, and civil society partners committed to creating real pathways to meaningful livelihoods.

This, I realised, was the essence of John’s idea of belonging: co-creating systems where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered to contribute. Belonging isn’t something you can deliver through a single intervention. It is the foundation of systemic change, the thread that ties individual outcomes to collective transformation.

John’s call to create systems where belonging is a design principle invites us to broaden our understanding of orchestration. Orchestration refers to the coordination and management of multiple components, programmes, and stakeholders in the service of achieving a common impact goal. Effective systems orchestration, while critical, can risk becoming overly reliant on abstraction if it loses sight of the people and relationships at its core.

To catalyse transformation, we must pair orchestration with a deep commitment to the messiness of human connection, the unpredictability of relationships, and the humility of shared learning. This balance allows us to build systems that are not brittle frameworks but resilient networks—forests capable of weathering any storm. Belonging, therefore, isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a practical one.

Philanthropy’s role in connection

For philanthropy, this committing to connection means moving beyond prescriptive approaches. It requires trust, humility, and a willingness to relinquish control; letting communities lead, and paving the way for solutions to emerge organically. The challenge lies in navigating the shift from linear, programmatic approaches to non-linear, systemic change.

John’s concept of targeted universalism offers a way forward. It starts with a universal goal—such as equitable education or dignified livelihoods—but acknowledges that different communities require different pathways to reach it.

For philanthropy to embrace this shift, it needs to rethink its role entirely. Instead of designing and deploying solutions, it must become a facilitator of connection. Here’s what this involves:

• Investing in ecosystems: Supporting the holistic conditions that allow communities to thrive, rather than having a narrow focus on isolated outcomes. For instance, in the city of Mombasa in Kenya, youth leaders avoided quick fixes for unemployment. Instead, they co-created initiatives such as the County Revolving Fund and ICT hubs, building an ecosystem that combined skills training, government partnerships, and long-term economic support.
• Creating collision spaces: Building platforms for practitioners, community members, and youth leaders to share, adapt, and evolve insights. At Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies (RNP), we’ve seen this in action through convenings designed as containers for connection. At a recent retreat, we avoided packed schedules, allowing unhurried, iterative dialogue where participants—not intermediaries—shaped the conversation. Insights from day one dynamically informed day two discussions, fostering a network of ideas and relationships that remained alive and adaptive long after the event.
• Trusting the process: Accepting that systemic change is non-linear and unpredictable, and that the best solutions often emerge from the ground up.

A vision for belonging

John’s call to action at the GOYN convening was to create systems where everyone belongs. Philanthropy has the power to catalyse this kind of belonging, but it requires a leap of faith. It means stepping back from the comfort of frameworks and into the uncertainty of human relationships. It means seeing communities not as beneficiaries but as collaborators. And it means understanding that the best solutions are co-created, not prescribed.

As the convening wound down, I observed Alejandra animatedly exchanging ideas with Nandita, their conversation flowing effortlessly between laughter and deep intent. Around them, other youth leaders, funders, and practitioners lingered, chai in hand, their discussions unhurried and vibrant. The scene felt alive—a living ecosystem where connections, rather than outcomes, were the driving force.

This, I realised, is what connection looks like. Not abstraction, not a framework, but a dynamic, evolving web of relationships. And in that moment, I understood that philanthropy’s most important role is not to abstract solutions, but to nurture the connections that make them possible.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 16 January 2025.

With the introduction of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, it may be useful to revisit how we think about data collection and impact measurement.

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 marks a significant shift in India’s legislative landscape. By establishing a comprehensive national framework for processing personal data, it replaces the previously limited data protection regime under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The DPDP Act applies to the processing of digital personal data within India, and to data collected outside India if one is offering goods or services to Indian residents. The act encapsulates various principles of data protection, such as purpose limitation, data minimisation, storage limitation, and accountability. It also provides multiple data subject rights (rights of individuals whose data is being collected), including access, data correction, deletion, and grievance redressal.

Beyond its legal ramifications, however, the passage of the DPDP Act calls for a moment of introspection for the philanthropic community. The act’s emphasis on data protection and privacy rights is a timely reminder of the evolving responsibilities and challenges faced by philanthropic organisations and their grantees.

While the DPDP Act covers a broad spectrum of data concerns, this article focuses on exploring its implications on impact measurement within the philanthropic realm. As we delve into this facet, it’s worth noting that the act, like any evolving legislation, will invite further interpretations.

CSR’s focus on data-driven impact measurement

India’s CSR regulations have historically pushed companies towards a data-driven approach to demonstrate their social and environmental impact, insisting on detailed tracking of both user data and impact measurement. This is regardless of the model adopted by CSRs, that is, whether they run their own social and environmental projects or allocate grants to nonprofits to execute initiatives on their behalf.

For instance, if a company undertakes an education initiative directly, it might require detailed student profiles to demonstrate the tangible outcomes of its interventions. In a similar vein, nonprofits being funded by companies are often asked to furnish comprehensive reports showcasing impact—this necessitates the collection of data such as medical histories, personal narratives, or academic progress, depending on the project.

The rigorous demand for data and impact evidence is now at odds with the stringent provisions of the DPDP Act.

This rigorous demand for data and impact evidence (in both approaches) is now at odds with the stringent provisions of the DPDP Act, especially those pertaining to user data collection, storage, and reporting. Such a clash has significant implications for funders and civil society organisations that engage in impact measurement and evaluation, and raises important questions about user data collection and reporting and compliance.

What will change?

Collecting personal details without informed consent was an ethical conundrum even before the introduction of the DPDP Act. The act merely crystallises these ethical concerns into tangible legal mandates. For example, under Sections 3 and 4 of the new legislation, gathering intimate personal information such as health records or financial data without explicit consent could pose legal risks.

Moreover, the act’s emphasis on data security, minimisation, and explicit consent complicates the previously straightforward reporting processes integral to CSR. Complying with data security and minimisation requirements in Sections 8 and 11 may add substantial administrative burdens for resource-strapped organisations.

In addition, if nonprofits are to comply, they will be confronted with increased legal liabilities and administrative overheads. This cost is more than just financial; it takes away from resources that could be channelled into doing transformative work.

Going beyond numbers

Given the stringent requirements of the DPDP Act, there’s a pressing need for revisiting and potentially revising the CSR guidelines. Striking a balance between accountability and privacy becomes crucial in ensuring compliance with both CSR and data protection mandates.

While accountability remains paramount, it’s time to transition from rigid metrics to narratives of change. By fostering relationships built on mutual respect and shared learning, practices followed by donor organisations can resonate with the ethos of the DPDP Act and nurture a more collaborative philanthropic ecosystem.

This necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how social impact can be measured, and shifting the focus from data collection to storytelling and community empowerment. By upholding privacy and agency, as per Sections 6 and 12, the law provides an opening to develop more participatory and human-centred evaluation frameworks. Funders are pivotal in enabling this evolution by modifying expectations, building capacity, and championing new trust-based and collaborative models of assessing progress.

While the philanthropic sector, especially CSR, has traditionally leaned heavily on quantitative metrics to measure impact, it’s becoming increasingly evident that numbers alone don’t capture the full spectrum of change. Trust-based philanthropy does not seek to abandon these metrics but to complement them. It suggests that, alongside traditional measurements, there’s room for more qualitative, human-centric indicators.

Drawing from the experiences of pioneering funders and nonprofits, here are our learnings on implementing trust-based philanthropy in the context of the DPDP Act.

1. Have conversations with your grantees

Funders have an obligation to understand impact, but the understanding becomes more profound when it’s rooted in both data as well as human experiences. Strict numerical metrics sometimes miss the nuanced changes and adaptations taking place in communities.

Instead of solely focusing on end results, trust-based philanthropy encourages funders to appreciate the journey—the collaborative learning processes, the stories of resilience, and the community-led innovations that are responsible for those results. This doesn’t mean throwing away the numbers, but instead adding layers of narratives and community feedback to them.

Rooted in values such as equity, community, and opportunity, trust-based philanthropy aims to build stronger relationships with grantees, cultivate mutual learning, centre trust with nonprofits, and redistribute power in the philanthropic sector.

Funders can start by initiating conversations with grantees about their experiences and stories on the ground. Impact assessment can become a richer, more holistic process by incorporating tools such as participatory storytelling and feedback loops. The idea is to strive for a balance between quantitative outcomes and qualitative process learnings.

Trust-based philanthropy envisions a future where impact measurement is not only about hitting targets but also about understanding the depth and breadth of change—change that is driven by people and their stories, and supported by numbers, not dictated by them.

2. Streamline data demands

By streamlining data demands, trust-based philanthropy liberates grantee partners from the complexities of data management and aligns seamlessly with the DPDP Act. The implications of excessive data collection extend beyond administrative burdens. Constant monitoring can feel invasive to communities and reduce their rich life experiences to mere data points. Such scrutiny can be emotionally taxing and may alienate the very individuals we aim to uplift.

Trust-based philanthropy inherently champions data minimisation and privacy—both of which the DPDP Act emphasises—by valuing qualitative insights over exhaustive quantitative data.

From an economic perspective, trust-based philanthropy offers undeniable benefits. By minimising costs related to data collection and compliance, funds can be redirected to more impactful initiatives, optimising the societal value of every rupee invested.

A compass for CSR and philanthropy

Recent research provides mounting evidence that trust-based practices are taking hold in philanthropy. A 2023 CEP study found that more than half of the nonprofit leaders surveyed reported increased trust from funders compared to the previous year. Many nonprofits also experienced shifts towards alignment with trust-based tenets, including 48 percent seeing reduced grant restrictions, 40 percent receiving more multi-year funding, and more than 50 percent facing streamlined applications and reporting. Nonprofit leaders specifically cited unrestricted and multi-year funding as the most helpful changes. This demonstrates the growing embrace of flexibility, responsiveness, and mutual understanding.

The DPDP Act should serve as a compass for CSRs and the philanthropic community. By moderating our data demands, we uphold the privacy and agency of the people we serve and alleviate the burdens on our grantee partners.

As we stand at this crossroads, we envision a future where Indian philanthropy is celebrated for both its generosity as well as its trustworthiness. This is an opportunity to champion philanthropy that’s not just compliant with the law but also resonates with the communities it serves.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 13 October 2023.

In the quest for social impact, community building and platform creation are crucial strategies for nonprofits. The power of shared values, the vibrancy of collective action, and the sustainability offered by a community-centric approach can help amplify the reach and resonance of an organisation’s mission.

These strategies are the equivalent of turning a single powerful gorilla into a herd of nimble deer, with the organisation acting as a life-giving oasis. Let’s explore how leadership can guide this transformation using the idea of fractals.

Fractals are shapes in geometry that repeat the same pattern on different scales. Leadership is much like this. It’s not a one-way journey but a process that needs constant refining and adjusting, just like a fractal shape that keeps refining itself. Small changes in the beginning can lead to a significant difference later. Similarly, in a community, small decisions can create large effects.

Consider an instance where a leader’s values differ slightly from the organisation’s. At first, it may not be a reason for concern, causing only small ripples. But as this difference is repeated, it can create larger problems in the organisation, leading to confusion and inefficiencies. Over time, this slight difference can become a big issue, leading to the failure of the organisation.

I’ve learned from my experiences that leadership is like a fractal. It starts with one person making a change, which then affects those around them. Here are six ways in which leaders can help their communities grow and make a bigger impact.

1. Sharing core values

Community building begins with identifying and articulating your organisation’s core values. These values serve as the lifeblood that guides the community’s interactions, behaviours, and goals. It’s essential to understand that these core values aren’t merely imposed from the top but rather emerge naturally as an embodiment of the team’s shared beliefs, experiences, and aspirations.

The values thus formed become the common thread that connects diverse individuals, magnetically attracting those with similar beliefs and instilling a sense of camaraderie and shared identity within the community.

These values also give everyone a common language and frame of reference, guiding their actions towards achieving collective goals. This process is not a one-off event but a continuous exercise requiring constant introspection, mutual conversations, and a deep understanding of the community’s mission and vision.

Each member must live and breathe these values, and not just pay lip service to them. This can only happen when they are shared openly, regularly, and with conviction. Leaders for their part should incorporate these values in all communications and demonstrate them through actions.

Socratus, an organisation that works towards arriving at political solutions by bringing together all key agents who are the proponents of competing schools of thought, undertook an exhaustive process of reformulating and crystallising its core values, involving everyone from the senior management to all levels of the organisation. This process aimed to ingrain these values in the organisation’s collective conscience and is consistently revisited in weekly meetings.

The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community.

Similarly, Agami, a nonprofit that works towards innovation in law and justice, has integrated service leadership into their operations and community interactions, reflecting the organisation’s core values. Arghyam uses its mission of providing ‘safe, sustainable water for all’ as a guiding star, helping them discern whether their actions mitigate or aggravate issues. By conducting regular dialogues with stakeholders and beneficiaries, Arghyam ensures alignment with its mission of water security.

Articulating and sharing core values is an ongoing journey. The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community, evolves with it, and guides it towards a shared vision.

2. Encouraging unexpected connections

Serendipity—the occurrence of beneficial events by chance—can fuel innovation and foster deep connections within the community. It is the impromptu conversation at a networking event, the unexpected collaboration from a casual chat, or the innovative idea sparked by a chance meeting. Serendipity brings novelty and spontaneity, allowing diverse ideas and perspectives to mingle and generate unique solutions.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation.

Creating ‘collision spaces’ where members can cross paths, interact, and collaborate is essential in fostering this culture of serendipity. These are not necessarily physical spaces but occasions, platforms, or environments that encourage and facilitate unexpected interactions and exchanges among community members. This could take shape in various forms—community meetups, workshops, online discussion forums, virtual coffee breaks, or social gatherings.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation. This involves striking a delicate balance between structure and freedom—enough structure to provide a sense of order and coherence, and enough freedom for members to explore, express, and experiment. It also includes crafting an atmosphere of psychological safety where members feel seen, heard, and valued—spaces where they find it safe to voice their ideas and concerns, take risks, and make mistakes.

3. Building trust in the community

Building culture transcends merely assembling individuals around common interests or goals. Instead, it is rooted in creating an environment where care and trust are the foundations of every interaction, relationship, and initiative.

Leaders play a crucial role in this process. Their task extends beyond simply setting rules or defining boundaries; they must embody and model the behaviours they wish to see reflected within the community. This means constantly demonstrating empathy, practising active listening, offering support, and extending kindness and respect to all members. Furthermore, leaders must reinforce these behaviours through effective policies, constructive practices, and responsive feedback mechanisms.

Investing in trust is equally essential. Building trust is not an overnight process; it requires persistent and earnest efforts, transparent and open communication, and a willingness to face conflicts respectfully and constructively. Trust is built and sustained through consistent actions that validate the words spoken. And as trust grows, members become more willing to contribute, collaborate, and take risks, knowing they are in a safe and supportive environment.

At Agami, camaraderie and trust between colleagues and external partners is built through activities such as retreats, offsites, and informal meetups. Responsiveness to user needs and addressing issues respectfully, even when they can’t be resolved, are part of the leadership’s approach at Pratham Books to cultivate user loyalty.

4. Developing a platform for engagement

Platforms serve as a communal space or ‘watering hole’ for your community, where members gather, interact, learn, and collaborate.

These platforms often emerge organically from the needs and aspirations of the community rather than being predetermined structures. Therefore, they must not merely be technical solutions, but instead offer a space that nurtures a sense of belonging and encourages co-creation.

Community members should feel empowered to contribute to, innovate within, and take responsibility of the platform’s development and governance. This active participation deepens engagement and creates a stronger sense of ownership and accountability. It results in a platform that evolves with its users, ensuring its relevance, utility, and longevity.

Pratham Books developed StoryWeaver by observing how translators work offline and replicating this process online, making the platform intuitive and responsive to the needs of marginalised users. Arghyam amplified community capabilities by creating digital spaces to make skills training data visible and reusable at scale. This approach also fostered collaboration between government departments previously operating in silos.

5. Getting ready for decentralisation

The journey towards a community-centric model is a significant transformational process that involves rethinking and reorienting traditional organisational structures. It necessitates the shift from a hierarchical, control-based approach to a more collaborative, decentralised model, embracing shared ownership and governance.

This shift is not just operational but also cultural. It requires a change in mindset among the leadership and individual team members. It’s about redefining power structures and creating an environment that allows community members to shape the organisation.

A shift towards real decentralisation makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change.

Indus Action, for instance, is working towards a future where regional teams operate autonomously and are independently funded, while the central team focuses on specialised functions such as technology. Pratham Books has adopted a light-touch governance approach for their StoryWeaver platform, employing mechanisms such as red flagging to maintain quality while encouraging open contribution. The organisation believes in collective stewardship, allowing the community to control the platform with minimal gatekeeping.

Such a shift towards real decentralisation—handing over ownership and agency to the community members—makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change. By embracing decentralisation, the organisation truly becomes a platform that is of the community, by the community, and for the community.

6. Becoming a gardener

In a community-focused model, leaders transition from being the central authority to adopting the role of a ‘gardener’, often both within the host organisation and in the larger community.

Much like a gardener who cultivates a thriving ecosystem, leaders provide the necessary resources, conditions, and support for growth but also step back to allow the community to take the lead and evolve organically. This means creating opportunities for members to spearhead initiatives, mentor others, and even make mistakes from which to learn and grow.

But it’s more than just stepping back. It’s also about being attuned to the changing needs and dynamics of the community. It involves listening, observing, and offering targeted interventions when necessary, not unlike a gardener who prunes a tree or enriches the soil. Leaders need to maintain a hands-off, eyes-on approach, nurturing the environment while respecting the autonomy and individuality of its members.

Ashoka recognises individuals in the ecosystem who spotlight others’ needs without pushing their own agendas. Ashoka believes it serves as magnets, bringing together different stakeholders. At CIVIS, the leadership encourages organisations to cultivate volunteers’ passions, encouraging them to take ownership of the work rather than focusing on internal scaling.

Building communities is a journey of learning, adapting, and growing. The most successful organisations are those that enrich and are enriched by their communities. By embracing this fractal approach, leaders can help their communities become more resilient, creative, and impactful.

So, what patterns will you adopt to grow a thriving community? What new possibilities could your leadership unlock?

Disclaimer: IDR is funded by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 1 September 2023.

How does one create infinite good with finite time and resources? This is the challenge that many nonprofits face. The traditional approach to this question of scale has been to build a larger organisation. However, there is an alternative—one that enables the organisation to scale through external resources by building communities, engaging networks, and creating platforms.

To help illustrate this point, I often use the metaphor of a 300-pound gorilla versus a herd of 300 deer. The gorilla represents a central entity that is slow to move and expensive to feed, whereas the deer are agile, responsive, and independent, both as individuals and as a group. While it may be easier to manage the gorilla, there are ways to manage the herd of deer–by creating a watering hole where they can gather. This watering hole represents a safe place of trust and resources where the community can share knowledge, ideas, and solutions. By building such a watering hole (a platform), nonprofits can create value throughout the ecosystem.

Platforms are the best way to engage what Seth Godin calls ‘tribes’—a group of people or a community that has a shared interest. The platform then becomes a way for people to communicate and organise.

However, when platforms focus only on their scale, or the number of users they have, they can inadvertently fracture communities. This is because the sheer size can make it difficult for users to connect in meaningful ways, leading to a fragmentation of the community. It is, therefore, crucial for platforms to prioritise building depth and trust within communities.

Building deeper connections can help a platform create value for their users, and foster loyalty and retention.

Depth refers to the quality of connections and interactions among community members, while trust is the sense of safety and reliability people feel within the community. Fostering deeper connections and trust could mean offering features, services, or content that cater to the specific needs and interests of the community members. Doing this can help a platform create value for their users, and foster loyalty and retention—both of which are key to long-term success.

To achieve any of this, however, it is important to first nurture a community around shared values—essentially beliefs, goals, and principles that unite a group of people and guide their interactions. This is the foundation on which platforms can then build a thriving community that can grow and evolve over time.

Communities provide us with a sense of identity and belonging and can offer support during difficult times.

Building a community

I worked at Pratham Books from 2007 to 2014 when it chose the Creative Commons model and gave up its position as a content gatekeeper in the children’s publishing space—a bold move at that time. They openly licensed their content to spur discussion, and had regular interactions with the community. This enabled entrepreneurs to experiment with creating new formats for content, enabled organisations to make this content accessible for differently abled people, and encouraged everyone to localise the material in ways relevant to their contexts.

This approach allowed Pratham Books to harness the power of this vibrant community and the breadth of these external resources to achieve its larger goal of helping all children discover the joy of reading.

While Pratham Books is one of the first ones I know of that adopted this agile, community-centric platform model, I now see others in the nonprofit ecosystem such as Agami, Civis, Reap Benefit, and EdelGive Foundation’s GROW Fund that have developed innovative models to expand their impact using technology, capacity building, and social engagement.

Creating community-centric platform models

Agami seeks to elevate other innovators in the space to create a network of problem solvers rather than doing it alone. Civis is a platform that works under their umbrella. It creates a participatory structure for citizens to engage with draft policies and laws. Its open-source technology interface makes room for citizens to be active participants through public consultations on urban development, environment, social justice, information technology, and health. Civis then collates this data and shares it with the government to build accountability.

A similar initiative is Reap Benefit, dedicated to collective action around civic and environmental problems at a hyperlocal level in cities. Through a platform called Solve Ninjas, Reap Benefit gives agency to communities to solve the issues and propose solutions at the local level, whether it is designing better dustbins, waterless urinals, or community waste and garbage disposal methods. The information collected on the platform is then shared with stakeholders and governance to push for impact. Reap Benefit’s community-driven approach has allowed it to build a platform that empowers young people to become changemakers within their communities.

Platforms that serve communities can look very different while serving similar purposes.

An important realisation is that platforms that serve communities can look very different while serving similar purposes. EdelGive Foundation’s GROW Fund, which supports 100 nonprofits, is an example of a platform that goes beyond mere collaboration. It has effectively evolved into a transformative platform, fostering knowledge sharing, capacity building, and continuous improvement for its partner organisations. By implementing a platform model based on trust and community engagement, the GROW Fund has demonstrated the potential for such platforms to create sustainable social impact.

The reasons for the importance of these platforms are many:

• They provide a way to scale without scaling the organisation proportionally.
• They provide a way to bind and engage communities even without continuous engagement.
• They help build sustainability and reliability by creating many community audiences and voices.
• They are a force multiplier, offering the possibility of leveraging the power of networks. As the web grows, its value increases exponentially.
• They offer some protection against failure. Once stable, a platform needs far less overhead to function than an organisation.

While existing platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are good, they cannot be the primary platforms since their agenda is their own. They are beachheads in the digital world, but these companies hold the development, messaging, and purpose and seek to build their own communities on their platforms.

Investing in the community and nurturing it

Communities provide us with a sense of identity and belonging and can offer support during difficult times. However, communities don’t just happen; they need to be built and maintained through the investment of care. This can take many forms, from simply being friendly and welcoming to new members to organising shared events and forums. But whatever form it takes, the care we invest in our community helps to create a stronger, more resilient place for all of us.

J P Rangaswami, in his blog titled ‘The Plural of Personal Is Social,’ writes: “You need to start thinking of the customer as someone to have a relationship with, to get to know, to invest in, to trust, to respect. And you need to get everyone in the company to think that way, to act that way, in everything they do. And you need to do this everywhere, not just with your customers. Not just with your supply web or your trading partners. Not just with your staff and your consultants. Everyone. Everywhere.”

What organisations need then is an internal culture that enables this. They need to learn how to work with crowds and govern through the network rather than controlling the network itself, understanding the community by working with insights from learning and feedback loops. This can only be done if the tone is set at the top of the organisation and demonstrated in practice.

My time at Pratham Books taught me valuable lessons about communities and platforms and their role in creating positive social impact. Witnessing the power of building and nurturing a community to create value throughout an ecosystem has impacted my work—it has instilled in me the desire to cultivate care, trust, and value for users in any community-building endeavour. I have understood that nonprofits can achieve scale and catalyse infinite good with finite time and resources through engaging networks, creating platforms, and fostering communities.

I now approach platform and community building with a focus on deepening connections and building trust, and understanding that scale only happens at the speed of trust. Because only when we view the community as an investment are we more likely to work together towards common goals and create a stronger sense of connection. This is the mindset I now carry with me in all my work.

Disclaimer: IDR is funded by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 28 April 2023.

Philanthropy needs an overhaul, from narrow illusions of control to promoting empathy and agency.

We will likely remember 2020 for three things. The year the phrase ‘you are on mute’ went mainstream. The year we want to forget, and not view in hindsight. And the year of the pandemic that didn’t break us, but revealed how deeply we were already broken.

On April 23rd, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech titled “Citizenship in a Republic”. The portion that has been most widely quoted is this:

It’s not the critic who counts; it’s not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done the better. The credit belongs to those of us who are actually in the arena […] we strive valiantly and sometimes there’s the triumph of achievement but at the worst, we fail, but at least we fail while daring greatly.

Daring greatly. That is what Indian civil society was called to do this year. That is the moral obligation many felt and embraced.

Only samaaj has the legitimacy and capacity to reimagine solutions that work for all of us.

If the longevity of a society lies in its agility and resilience, in its capacity to stay true to its foundational values while evolving with the ever-changing nature of society, then 2020 showed us how samaaj—civil society organisations—continues to hold that flame and carry that message. Only samaaj has the legitimacy and capacity to reimagine solutions that work for all of us in ways that restore agency, redistribute power, re-craft egalitarian societies and renegotiate the social contract in contemporary times.

But demanding and driving such change is not a linear process. While the world today is much more interconnected and smaller in many ways, we continue to grapple with large and complex societal challenges. Many of these require systemic change—change that is collaborative, and that catalyses the spirit of innovation latent in our society. This requires reinforcing fundamental human values and encouraging new thinking.

As donors, we need to meet samaaj where they are

When we talk about systemic change, we don’t speak about what it will take from us. Not just from the leaders of movements and nonprofits, but also from us, the donors. We ask samaaj to dare greatly, but as funders, we must also recognise that supporting such change requires collaboration, risk, agency, and empathy. We need to learn to take bigger risks and to put more trust in social sector leaders.

Systemic approaches require making the ‘big’ bets collaboratively. They demand a new perspective towards philanthropy, one that fosters the agency of grantees and the communities they work with, and relinquishes illusions of control that tend to determine the contours of restricted, specific grants and hyper-reporting.

Societal change cannot occur overnight: As donors, we need to embrace unrestricted, organisational support grants, we need to commit to a higher quantum of capital, and we need to increase our risk appetite and patience to see change happen in the long run. To dare greatly is to trust in the people and the process and not misplace faith in the comfort of monthly reports. We need to meet samaaj where they are.

To dare greatly is to trust in the people and the process and not misplace faith in the comfort of monthly reports.

We all know many samaaj leaders who want to transform their work exponentially and reimagine the scale of their operations. We know they want to build movements of change and co-create, rather than deliver alone. How then, do we find ways for investors and other ecosystem partners to understand their pain, understand their needs and fears, and build support networks to enable daring greatly? Doing this as individual donors or funding organisations is difficult; but can we do it as a sector? We need wholehearted change and it will only come when we, as funders, choose courage over comfort.

Every failure offers an opportunity for everyone in the ecosystem to learn.

Yes, failure is inevitable. It is integral to innovation and it allows us to learn, do, learn again, and then do again. Every failure offers an opportunity for everyone in the ecosystem to learn, because when our programmes, approaches, and organisations fail and restart, they don’t start from scratch, rather from experience.

As donors, we must support norms and practices that minimise the costs of failure for leaders, missions, and the ecosystems in which we operate. Norms in how we, as donors, perceive and react to failure—not as a loss but as a chance for the sector to learn and iterate from. We must create shared spaces for our leaders to openly discuss these failures by encouraging the idea of public goods and public resources such that even when missions fail, the content and tools and methods built remain available to build upon by others.

As funders, we also need to have humility and empathy

Empathy is required to recognise that we need to redistribute, reorganise, and transfer power and agency rather than knowledge or resources alone. In her new book, Melinda Gates identifies that it is easy for funders to kill diversity in the areas they enter because, first, “…if a major funder enters an area and picks one approach over others, people working in the area might abandon their own ideas to pursue the funder’s because that’s where the money is. If this happens, instead of finding good ideas, the funder can inadvertently kill them off.” Second, “…in philanthropy—in contrast to business—it can be hard to know what’s working.” And third, that “…wealthy people can think that their success in one thing makes them an expert in everything. So they just act on instinct instead of talking to people who’ve spent their lives doing the work.”

And finally, we need the courage to let go and to say we do not know it all. Brene Brown says it best, “…vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never a weakness.”

Maybe 2020 can be redeemed yet. The year when we learned to meet others where they are. The year we learned to lead with love. After all, the modern definition of philanthropy—according to Francis Bacon who considered it synonymous with ‘goodness’—is as the ‘love of humanity’. Love, not log frames.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 4 January 2021.

Co-authored with Supriya Sankaran.

Where would you begin if you wanted to help everyone share in the sum of all knowledge? What ‘models’ would allow for the most inclusivity? Encyclopædia Britannica, first published in 1770, had a mission of compiling the sum total of human knowledge. In 2012, they announced the end of their print edition. Did they achieve their mission?

In 2001, an upstart called Wikipedia was founded with a similar mission as Encyclopædia Britannica; however, it adopted a radically different approach. Rather than an encyclopedia created by experts, Wikipedia believed that open content on open platforms would attract a community interested in improving the quality and quantity of knowledge over time. Today, Wikipedia has around six million articles in English alone and is available in more than 300 languages.

Remarking on how Wikipedia’s approach is interesting, but would not work for Britannica, the managing director said, “My job is to create more awareness of our very different approaches to publishing in the public mind. They’re a chisel, we’re a drill, and you need to have the correct tool for the job.” The final print edition of Encyclopædia Britannica had around half a million topics covered.

Will an open platform model like Wikipedia’s work in India?

Will an open platform work in areas other than those whose mandate it is to compile and share knowledge? Pratham Books is a case in point. A tiny publisher with a mission of ensuring ‘a book in every child’s hand’, Pratham Books was able to experiment in ways most other publishers did not. Open content, and open platforms and communities enabled them to pivot, and target both variety and quantity of books for children all over the world. They began releasing their books under open licenses and after years of experimentation, built an open platform called StoryWeaver, which today has nearly 17,000 stories in more than 200 languages.

But it wasn’t just books that flourished. Individuals and organisations, both known and unknown to them, created multiple derivative works ranging from iPad and iPhone applications, to creating versions of their books for the print-impaired such as DAISY and Braille books, as well as audiobooks.

Intention alone, or sharing resources only when approached, does not lead to true openness and spread.

These are just two of many journeys that build a compelling case for all of us, as philanthropies and civil society organisations, to create open resources and digital public goods.

But what does that really mean and involve?

The philosophy and intention are not unfamiliar to us in civil society. Many of us intend for the resources—the data, code, content, and processes—we create to be shared widely and used by all. Many leaders emphatically state their desire for their ideas to grow and for people to adopt them. But we all know that such intention alone, or sharing resources only when approached, does not lead to true openness and spread.

What does it take to be truly open?

Openness must be anchored in intent and to truly create open resources and digital public goods, we must proactively practice openness of three kinds.

1. Technical openness: Resources must be available in an easy, timely, and user-friendly manner online, adhering to a set of applicable open standards.

2. Legal openness: Resources must be legally licensed under an ‘open’ license for all manners of use and adaptation, whether commercial or not, subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute or share alike.

3. Financial openness: Resources must be accessible for free.

All three are critical to ensure that the resources we create are truly open and accessible to all, independent of the organisation or mission.

As changemakers and philanthropies working for public benefit, such an approach is obligatory. What we create must be designed as public goods. Given that the sourcing, creation, and validation of code, content, and data is time- and resource-intensive, opening up publicly-funded resources is critical—it will advance equity and enable collaboration.

Opening educational resources such as training materials, processes for running a local campaign, software, codes or applications can enable your resources to be localised, translated, and adapted far beyond their original purpose, intended reach, and individual imaginations. When KaBOOM!, a US-based organisation with the vision of ensuring every child has a great space to play, open-sourced its model of building playgrounds and created toolkits for communities to build their own playgrounds, it resulted in local communities building ten playgrounds for each one that KaBOOM! built. This resulted in more than 17,000 playgrounds that have impacted the lives of more than 10 million American children, and the activation of 1.5 million volunteers across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Opening data and code, in particular, can unlock scarce resources, avoid duplication of effort, and generate savings.

Opening data and code, in particular, can unlock scarce resources, avoid duplication of effort, and generate savings. For example, legal researchers take 8-24 months to source and clean datasets and a single project can cost anywhere between INR 20 and 50 lakhs; this is because it needs to be collected, collated, and then rationalised. The same is likely to be true in the fields of data-driven journalism and research in science, governance, and the environment. As seen from the example of the Human Genome Project, opening data and codes can enable publicly funded projects to go beyond their single use to be further built upon by others. Such openness increases the return on investment in each initiative, and the field as a whole.

Recognising this, foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have adopted an ‘open access policy’ as a non-negotiable term for all peer-reviewed, published research, partly or wholly funded by them. The policy also requires that the data underlying the published research results should be accessible and open immediately. This means that not only the published research but the process of research is also available to the public to make the best use of it. The underlying rationale is that “free, immediate, and unrestricted access to research will accelerate innovation, helping to reduce global inequity and empower the world’s poorest people to transform their own lives.” In various jurisdictions, and in the field of science in particular, the gold standard for the credibility of any research and data-driven effort is to make the data, ideas, and research open.

Opening resources is not without risks of misappropriation or misuse. Measures can and should be taken to mitigate these by placing appropriate disclaimers or limited warranties, documenting the process of creation, and enabling users to understand how the resource can be correctly used. But while weighing these risks, it is equally critical to consider the risk of not opening your resources, in terms of limiting their potential and spread beyond their own context and as seeds for new efforts and ideas.

In many ways, the bazaar (or market) has led in its contributions to the digital commons—with more than 4,500 employees actively sharing codes on shared open platforms such as GitHub. Microsoft may be the largest contributor to open codes. Sarkaar (the government) too has started doing its part with the Open Data Portal and Open Source Code Repository. It is high time samaaj (society), the philanthropic and civil society ecosystem, did the same.

We can each reach our highest potential only if we adopt ‘open’ as the default position.

All change begins with setting the intention, and we can take an ‘Open Resources Pledge’ today to put forth our commitment to creating open resources. It is key to remember that there is no requirement to open every resource or dataset, and we can start simply by opening up parts of resources one by one. We can leverage various guides to enable us to choose the datasets, apply an open license, make the data available online on our own website, or a third party website (DataHub, GitHub, Ekstep), or application programme interfaces (APIs), and make them discoverable.

We can each reach our highest potential only if we adopt ‘open’ as the default position. We have the power to create public resources and digital public goods of a new kind, where not only does their use not deplete the commons, but it enriches it.

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Co-authored with Supriya Sankaran. Originally published at India Development Review on 19 December 2019.

Co-authored with Reshma Anand. Deployed well, this form of funding offers multiple advantages. Here is a quick guide to understand the various options available and find the one that best matches your requirements.

Pooled funding from multiple donors has historically been used in emergency response situations, such as natural disasters and human made conflicts, to get timely resources and results on the ground.

However, the principle of pooling funds is increasingly being deployed by donors on issues that go beyond humanitarian aid. They see multiple advantages to this approach: they can take a comprehensive approach to a problem, address multiple facets instead of providing symptomatic relief, and have flexibility in supporting areas aligned to their priority areas.

Deployed well, pooled funds can improve efficiencies, limit duplication of efforts amongst donors, lower transaction costs with economies of scale, and ensure better risk management if governed well.

The different models

There are several ways in which donors can pool funds. Their impact and success depend on a range of factors, some of which are illustrated in this article.

1. Classic co-funding refers to a large-scale programme with two (or more) donors bringing in a similar quantum of funds.

• Funds may or may not be centrally pooled in one place–donors may hand over the baton from one funding cycle to the next.
• Key decisions are usually run through steering committees with representation from donors.
• This model may involve smaller, sub-contracted grants as well.

This model is widely known and adopted, especially since there is an emerging practice amongst Indian donors today to support no more than 40 percent of a programme’s cost. The onus usually lies on the implementing partners to find matching donors or use their own funds to finance the rest of the programme.

2. A managed fund entails a community of donors coming together for a common cause and common set of outcomes.

• Funds are typically pooled at a central repository and are managed either by a professional agency or a dedicated programme team based at the lead donor.
• The governance structure for this kind of a model involves a steering group, programme management group, an advisory board and an external evaluation agency.

The Dasra Giving Circle and the recently launched Co-Impact (from the creators of The Giving Pledge) are examples of this kind of funding.

3. An independent platform differs from a managed fund primarily in terms of the legal structure. In this case as well, a common cause and ambitious impact outcomes bring together a community of donors.

• The operational model, however, comprises a new and separate legal entity that is set up for developing and implementing strategy towards the intended impact goals.
• Oversight and control for an independent platform involves varying combinations of boards, advisory groups, steering committees, selection panels and programme management teams.

Examples of independent platforms include Ashoka University and the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF).

Ashoka University is India’s first collaboratively funded, liberal arts private university with over 90 donors bringing in INR 750 crore.

IPSMF is a foundation with contributions from several Indian philanthropists to fund independent journalism. Decisions are taken by an independent operating team and the donors have no influence over the organisations funded.

What to ask when picking a model

Each of these funding mechanisms have their own unique compelling factors, including alignment of purpose, structure, governance and systems for operational excellence, that will determine their sustained impact and ultimate success.

Within these factors, we have listed some guiding questions that we can ask to arrive at the funding model that would be best suited to help achieve the results we seek in our spheres of work.

Alignment on purpose (across donors, boards/committees and implementation teams)

• Is there a shared understanding of the problem?
• Is there a consistent articulated vision of what impact would look like? Is it tangible?
• Is the overall purpose politically neutral? Is it likely to have broad-based resonance or does it appeal to a restricted, finite group of people?
• Are there a couple of well-regarded core champions for the idea who can drive peers to contribute and collaborate?
• Are the motivations of the core champions clear and aligned?
• Is there a broad strategic framework that defines what the vehicle would do and not do?
• Is there an in-principle agreement on the risk(s) the collective is willing to take?

Alignment on metrics (across donors and implementation teams)

• Is there a clear set of cause-impact hypotheses in place?
• Are outcomes and impact metrics emerging from the core hypotheses defined?
• Are operating team performance metrics clearly defined and aligned with the above?
• Are the metrics of impact in sync with the proposed timeline for engagement? Are they feasible given the time frame?

Oversight and governance (board, selection/ steering/ advisory committees)

• Should the board/steering committee be constituted to maximise for credibility or practice?
• If the board is maximised for credibility, is the operating team strong enough on the subject matter? Does it need an advisory panel?
• If the board is maximised for practice, how is the operating team empowered with freedom to execute?
• Is the board in sync with the risk appetite of the overall partnership?
• Does the board define boundaries of what it would do and what not?
• Are clear firewalls in place between boards, operating teams and external experts/selectors?

Selection

• A grantee selection panel or committee is one way to build in independence into the model. The composition of this panel is an important determinant to factor in.
• Is a distinct selection team of external experts in place? Do they have a clear set of criteria for selection based on the overall strategy?
• Is selection done internally by the programme team based on an approved set of criteria determined by strategy?
• Is the external panel balanced between practitioners and subject matter experts?
• Is the selection of panel members free from bias and influence?

Operating processes

• Is a team or organisation structure in place for operationalising the strategy?
• Are clear and distinct roles in place for core members?
• Does the team have the right balance of generalists and specialists?
• Are effective management systems in place for periodic tracking of deliverables and course correction?
• Is the operating team suitably empowered to take core implementation decisions?

Expertise

• Are core subject matter experts in-house or external?
• Are subject matter experts represented through the board, selection panels and operating teams? Or only at certain levels?

Funding

• Should a bulk of funding to be raised upfront? Or is the mandate to seed, prove and then scale?
• Who should take the onus for fund raising? Core champions or others?
• Should there be a consistent fundraising momentum with new donors being added each year?
• Should the mix of funders be a consistent cohort or a mindful mix? Are individual philanthropists, institutional donors, CSR natural allies and partners?
• Are there clear benefits—wider, deeper impact, efficiency, influence, etc—for the funders who join the cohort?
• Is there any potential conflict of interest between the cause supported by donors and their ‘core business’? When does this become a deal breaker?

What is the expectation from government funding? Are areas likely to get government attention and funding more likely to be successful for pooled funding mechanisms?

Pooled funding vehicles are excellent venues for learning and we believe that these models are a natural progression as philanthropy moves to tackle difficult systemic issues.

However, what holds true for all such pooled models and must be a vital first step, is asking the right questions about their design, structure and governance. We hope that this article provides a starting point for your own pooled funding journey.

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Co-authored with Reshma Anand. Originally published at India Development Review on 15 February 2018.

Philanthropists and funding organisations grapple with various kinds of risks when considering grant making opportunities. Some are failure risks of theories of change, some of organisational capability and some of sustainability.

As grant makers and partners in change, it is imperative to proactively identify and mitigate these risks. Over this year we, at Nilekani Philanthropies, engaged in interviews and research that highlighted unique ways in which crowdfunding could change and expand the way we imagine our nonprofit engagements.

Why should philanthropists be thinking about crowdfunding?

While the primary case often made is to think of crowdfunding as a way to de-risk traditional funding models, there are other benefits and upsides that we identified.

It can be a crucial way to facilitate deeper engagement between nonprofits and the wider public–to create new ways of bringing people in and build networks and communities of support.

Digital networks have the potential to keep us disconnected from the lives and experiences of others. This deprives us of the empathy, vibrancy and ideas that flow from the diversity of communities beyond our own.

Crowdfunding engagements offer an opportunity to change that; to get involved and to acknowledge our interdependencies.

What can philanthropists do?

We believe there are clear opportunities for philanthropy to support and incubate crowdfunding platforms at a strategic level, and as a tactic within grantee organisations.

Offer matching funds

There is tremendous signalling value in philanthropy showing belief in the model and it can do so in multiple ways. It can be via for-profit investments in crowdfunding platforms, or through offering matched funds to grantees or to crowdfunding platforms to drive individual giving. These can be done either through the lens of sector portfolios or events such as #GivingTuesdayIndia.

Support storytelling and communications costs

It is important to keep in mind that organisations that are effective at crowdfunding are those that can tell their stories using both data and empathy.

As a primary step, grant makers must recognise the importance of this from multiple perspectives: it is vital for organisations to be able to tell their own stories of change; it is important to the narrative around civil society; and it is critical from the perspective of reaching out to wider audiences and engaging the communities so built.

Encourage grantees to experiment by underwriting implementation costs

Philanthropic commitment to the nonprofits they support must extend beyond the immediate grant period; they must be partners for the long term.

One way to do so is by creating capacity for sustainability within their portfolios. “Grants as the primary solution to funding needs are not sustainable” and organisations need to communicate their cause and impact to the public at large.

Grant makers can nudge nonprofits to experiment with such models by moving a small percentage of their philanthropic funding to matching grants against monies raised through crowdfunding and by underwriting the costs of implementation and execution.

Think beyond the immediate portfolio

Donors have an interest in the civil society ecosystem beyond just their immediate portfolio. Creating capacity within their portfolios to tell their stories of change and impact allows for new conversations and connections within the ecosystem and outside of it. This is vital if we want to move the needle on India’s societal challenges.

There is an opportunity to create a new energy around India’s vibrant civil society that includes a much wider section of citizens in change, and also has the potential to create new pathways to sustainability.

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Originally published at India Development Review on 20 December 2017.