Sampradaan Indian Centre for Philanthropy has a vision to revive the culture of philanthropy in India. We want people to give their resources, time, talent in a well thought out manner. Especially developing the relationship between philanthropy and development challenges of our country is of prime importance to us. We are working at different levels including the three programs mentioned below.
Their brief overview is presented below which is as follows:
1. Community Philanthropy Initiatives
India had strong traditions of philanthropy, which became weak over a period of time. We help in reviving some of the lost traditions and of course creation of new ways and institutions of giving. On ground this translates into a multi faceted program named as CPI. One facet of the program is to help build community foundations as grant making institutions, community funds through community chaste, cattle and grain banks; creation of endowments through donation of property, land, and other valuables by citizens. Primarily our focus is on the rural area. At the moment we are mentoring three Community Foundations in the country. Second facet of the program is to carry out a detailed research in the forms of community based giving in our country and cross-fertilizations of means and methods of philanthropy nationally.
2. Strengthening Board Governance and Organizational Performance
The voluntary organizations in India are often branded as inefficient, and dependent. They are expected to be voice of the citizens in a judicious process of development. In reality often they do not have the capacity to articulate the interests of their primary clients - the citizens as they lack the required ingredients like leadership, vision, strategy, organizational structure, right kind of human resources and funds. The onus of course lies with the Board of the NGO. To overcome this situation of resource deprivation, we are helping Boards of 310 NGOs to become stronger by improving their governing practices. We also educate the Boards to ultimately translate these practices in improved overall organizational performance. We do this through training, distance education, mentoring, group transformation workshops and advocacy. The Department for International Development, UK is supporting this program at the moment. We are interested to partner with other donors and NGO networks to promote this program.
3. Publication and Dissemination
The philanthropy movement in India needs fresh ideas, hard facts and global exposure to sustain itself. We bring out a bi-monthly newsletter, an important part of our publication activities, to satisfy this intellectual and methodological need of philanthropy community. Our newsletter is named Sampradaan (meaning Giving Wisely) and is printed for private circulation. Each newsletter number is focused on a contemporary issue or an outstanding theme. For example, some of the last issues dealt with youth and philanthropy, rural society and philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy in India in a global perspective, challenges of Indian philanthropy, development of science and technology and role of philanthropy, civil society and its challenges, community philanthropy and community foundations. Readers have widely acclaimed our newsletter as one of the best by international standards.
We also involve ourselves in the following a activities:
• Project design, monitoring and evaluation
• Feasibility studies and Impact Assessment
• Training and education development, convening
• Mentoring of organization development
• Innovating social interventions
• Report writing, publication
• Quantitative and qualitative research
• Convening and Coordination
