WHEN MEDIA INDUSTRY veterans Ronnie and Zarina Screwvala launched the Swades Foundation in 2013, their intent was clear — to uplift the livelihoods of people living in the Raigad district of Maharashtra by giving them access to clean drinking water, building toilets, and providing education. Their dream was to make the region open-defecation free. They offered to invest ₹20,000 for each toilet and asked households to put in the remaining ₹5,000. But then, toilets hardly mattered to the villagers! They would rather use the money to buy cattle or fertilisers. People literally shut their doors the moment the Swades Foundation team entered their villages.

The duo decided to go back to the drawing board. They came up with an inclusive strategy where the onus would be on the people themselves to drive change. “We pushed every village to form a development committee. We came up with a village development plan for three years, and got villagers to identify the ‘need’ gaps (building toilets/health interventions/help with agriculture) and tell us the kind of support they needed from Swades. We made it compulsory for villagers to bear at least 10% of the project cost. We said we will leverage 60-70% government funds and bring in the rest,” remembers Mangesh Wange, CEO, Swades Foundation.

The switch from a push to pull strategy worked. By making sure the most important stakeholder, the community, had skin in the game, Swades Foundation managed to create 250 dream villages in the Raigad district. It is now replicating the model in Nashik and Thane as well.

The foundation also roped in relevant stakeholders. For instance, one of the village schools needed computer education. The state government provided the hardware and invested in the training of teachers, but the challenge was continuous power supply. Swades roped in Selco Foundation for making the school solar power-enabled.

In the eastern parts of the country, Gates Foundation, Piramal Foundation, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development came together to set up a tribal health collaborative in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha. Traditional healers, the most trusted and often the only point of care, are being upended, not by exclusion but inclusion. The usual playbook would have meant setting up parallel systems, bypassing local traditions. But, “instead of sidelining the healers, we worked to certify them through the Quality Council of India and brought them into the formal referral ecosystem,” says Arnav Kapur, deputy director, policy, communications & philanthropic partnerships, Gates Foundation.

“The shift, from parallel systems to integrated partnerships, has been transformative,” adds Kapur. “If you work in a collaborative manner, you can make a deeper impact. It also helps from a long-term perspective since there is domestic ownership of issues. For India to reach sustainable development, these are important geographies, and the best way for us to do it was through collaboration.”

Philanthropy today is all about coming together of multiple resources that help in driving systemic changes. Giving is no longer only about writing cheques once a year, or supporting a single NGO and forgetting about it for the rest of the year. It’s about investing in coalitions. From mental health to DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion), gender to climate action, a new breed of philanthropists is co-creating solutions by collaborating with governments, NGOs, academia, corporates and the communities themselves.

More than ever, India’s philanthropists are moving away from a project mindset to platform thinking.

“This is no longer just about funding a school or hospital,” says Naina Batra, CEO, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN). “It’s about asking— what will it take to shift the system? And who needs to be at the table to make that happen.”

Stakeholder ecosystem

Tata Trusts has long been recognised as one of India’s most influential philanthropic institutions, driving transformative change across sectors such as education, healthcare, and rural development. “Our approach centres on creating models and institutions that propel India’s scientific and creative progress — from laying the foundation for the Indian Institute of Science; Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and the National Centre for Performing Arts, to advancing innovation, research, and technology through initiatives such as the Tata Centre for Genetics and Society and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,” says Siddharth Sharma, CEO, Tata Trusts.

The Trusts focus on climate action through the India Climate Collaborative, a platform that unites philanthropists, government, business, and communities, with an aim to build a low-carbon future. Besides, the Trusts also drive innovation against infectious diseases, improve nutrition and education, conserve water and heritage, and strengthen state development through partnerships with global foundations, leading universities, and grassroots organisations.

They are working on various aspects of the problem such as stigma, community care, policy and public systems.

“We realised mental health isn’t just a service gap. It’s a societal blind spot,” says Harsh Mariwala, chairman, Marico, and founder, MHI. “So, we started investing in people, partners, and narratives.” Today, MHI supports over 80 organisations across 28 states and has helped bring mental health into state policies and recommendations of the Civil 20 Engagement Group under India’s G20 presidency.

For Neerja Birla, founder and chairperson, Aditya Birla Education Trust, philanthropy has always been about bringing to the forefront conversations that have long been overlooked, whether it’s inclusive education, mental health, or menstrual equity. “The need of the hour wasn’t just services, but a complete shift in how society thinks about mental well-being. At Mpower, we saw this as an opportunity for a systemic investment in public health and human potential.”

Her approach has been to build a layered, integrated ecosystem from early awareness and prevention to accessible clinical care and curative services. Mpower works across schools, colleges, communities, workplaces and even with state systems to embed mental health where it matters most. Birla’s favourite anecdote is Mpower’s partnership with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). “Our integrated mental health model contributed to a 40% reduction in suicide rates among CISF personnel. This success has sparked interest in adapting the model across other high-stress sectors.”

Collaborations matter

For the promoters of Odisha-headquartered Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys (IMFA), giving has been a way of life, but in the conservative way. “We built a CBSE school in the remote area of Rayagada in the Seventies,” recalls Shaifalika Panda, founder and CEO, Bansidhar and Ila Panda Foundation (BIPF).

The foundation narrowed its focus to three verticals — education, livelihood, and water sanitation, and decided to work across six districts in Odisha. Panda admits it is through effective collaborations with the state government and NGOs that the foundation has been able to impact over 2.4 million lives. It has also partnered with the state government on maternal and child health, and with the local district administration as well as international NGOs for its anaemia alleviation model, Kanya Express, which checks anaemia levels, and helps improve nutritional levels.

“Partnerships are key. We all bring our own expertise — sometimes it’s a partnership for knowledge, sometimes for a model they use, and sometimes for funding. That’s how we look to scale up different areas of the ecosystem we’re trying to strengthen,” says Panda.

Philanthropists across the board are co-creating with implementation partners, investing in leadership teams and often stepping back once the momentum builds. Batra of AVPN calls it the venture capital approach to giving. “Just like a VC bets on the founder, philanthropists today are betting on the change-maker,” she says. “It’s not about one perfect idea. It’s about backing the person who will figure it out.”

Dasra’s GivingPi network and other philanthropic collaboratives are trying to mainstream this mindset. While GivingPi — a network of 400 philanthropic families — patronises collaborative giving, there are other collaboratives working to uplift the health of adolescents that have brought together major funders, CSR arms and state governments. It has raised $57 million over the last 10 years.

“This is the direction we need to head in,” says Shailja Mehta, managing partner, Dasra. “Co-creation… multi-stakeholder alignment... Thinking in decades, not quarters.”

The narrative has moved towards building more balanced partnerships, says Batra of AVPN. “If we can create a more even-playing field, where funders bring in their perspectives and organisations their lived experiences, the outcomes will be far richer.”

The social impact funding organisation has facilitated pooled philanthropic funds that have disbursed over $53 million in the last four years, focussing not on short-term programmes, but long-term organisational strength. “We’ve supported groups like the Azad Foundation through flexible, multi-year funding to expand non-traditional livelihoods for women. Another example is ‘Waste Warriors’, which is working to reform how we manage waste by pushing for systemic change.”

Philanthropy meets business

With philanthropists increasingly looking to have skin in the cause they are supporting, classical business tenets of strategy, scale, and measurement of return on investment (RoI) are also coming into play. Mariwala says he treats his philanthropic venture (MHI) as seriously as he would treat any other business. “In business, you’re building value and brand over the long term. In philanthropy, you’re doing the same, but the value is social change.”

Both business and philanthropy require vision, strategy, resilience, and accountability, agrees Suri. “We focus on building capacity, not dependency. Whether it’s investing in education, funding queer-led businesses, supporting inclusive employment, or enabling access to mental health and healthcare, our aim is to create pathways that last and leadership that multiplies.”

Agrees Sharma of Tata Trusts. “Sustainability, long-term vision, and rigorous strategy are essential to both domains [philanthropy and business]... Both demand clarity of purpose, a relentless pursuit of excellence, and a robust way to assess outcomes — economic or social.”

Philanthropy needs a strategic approach, feels Omar Momin, head, Godrej Foundation. “It has the unique characteristic of being high-risk, patient-capital. It can go where markets and governments hesitate. But only if it’s strategic.”

How philanthropists measure success is also changing. The old metrics — number of beneficiaries, funds disbursed — are giving way to deeper questions: Are systems changing? Are communities leading? Are interventions sustainable?

Naghma Mulla, CEO, EdelGive Foundation, believes focussing on long-term measurable change requires a recalibration of expectations. “We ask funders to think of impact not just in terms of output, but in building institutional muscle. What does it mean when an NGO builds internal HR systems, or develops second-line leadership? That’s the invisible RoI that ensures continuity.”

Dasra’s youth mental health collaborative has reached 1.3 million adolescents in just over two years, while MHI’s community-based models have been adopted by four states. “You can’t always quantify trust or resilience, but you can track systems shifting. That’s our real RoI,” says Mariwala.

While measuring impact is important, it can’t be the only lens, says Kapur of Gates Foundation. “If you only do an RoI approach and are not passionate enough, it might not get you the full bang for the buck, and you may lose interest at some point.”

“Measurement is important. But if people have led with heart in certain areas, they may not get measurability in the first two to five years — but it will eventually come about,” he explains.

What holds us back?

There’s no denying gaps persist. DE&I, gender, climate, and mental health remain under-funded. “Earlier, when funders made decisions, it was easier to give to healthcare or education because you can measure it,” says Mulla.

According to AVPN’s Batra, while mental health narratives are gaining momentum, DE&I is where mental health was three years ago. “Not many people are talking about DE&I. What they like to talk about is women’s economic empowerment. But talking about things like LGBTQIA inclusion is still not as prevalent.”

The infrastructure to bridge those gaps is finally taking shape. Platforms, including the Social Stock Exchange, aim to bring in transparency and scale to public giving. Swades, claims CEO Wange, raised `10 crore through it last year. And with over 300 family offices now active in India, up from just 45 in 2018, the tools for more structured philanthropy are falling in place.

The next phase is about behaviour. Will funders stay in the room when things get messy? Will they trust partners over blueprints? Will they see philanthropy not as a charitable act, but as a responsibility to shift systems?

“The capital is there,” says Kapur. “But capital alone doesn’t change society. Collaboration does.”