What funding grassroots organisations taught me about lasting social change

One of the harder issues for anyone interested in supporting the social sector to let go of is certainty. Quite reasonably, we want to know what our money will pay for, how long it will take to catalyse outcomes, and what outcomes will remain, after partial or full exits. However, supporting grassroots organisations for a while has changed my perception of what we should consider as outcomes.

Grant making to nonprofits has traditionally tended to favour what can be measured within a programme cycle: some of them being activities undertaken, people reached and expenditure against a predetermined plan. These measures tell us, in some manner, whether a project delivered what it promised. But they do not necessarily tell us what happens next: whether an organisation can retain its people and attract further talent, respond when circumstances change, or build the leadership and systems needed to sustain it.

This is particularly important when we think about grassroots organisations. The term is often used as shorthand for a small nonprofit, but what distinguishes these organisations is their proximity to the communities they serve. They are deeply embedded within them, building trust over years, understanding and responding to local ground realities, and then creating change that lasts.

Data reinforces this. Among the 438 nonprofits surveyed in the India Nonprofit Report 2026, 80% were micro or small, with annual budgets under ₹3 crore. Yet 72% had been operating for more than a decade, while 92% worked in rural or mixed geographies. Small, in other words, does not mean inexperienced. Nor does it necessarily mean that their impact is small.

Scale is often measured by reach and numbers. But the depth of work within a community matters too. An organisation that works in one community long enough to build relationships, connect people to public systems, and strengthen community responses to complex problems can create substantial meaningful change, without becoming a large national institution.

Their proximity also gives these organisations knowledge that a distant funder cannot easily acquire. Grassroots leaders often recognise shifts within their communities long before they appear in a report. They know when an intervention needs to change course, when a new need is emerging, and are able to quickly seize opportunities to work with local government.

If that proximity is one of the reasons we choose to support grassroots organisations, then the knowledge that comes from it must also have a place in how funding is used.

Support needs to respond to what grassroots leaders say would help them strengthen their organisations; whether that means building a team, strengthening systems, improving how they communicate their work or investing in growth and resilience.

Yet organisations closest to communities often have the least financial muscle to make those choices. The India Nonprofit Report found that 83% of micro-organisations faced a funding deficit in 2024-25. Across the sector, 73% reported having no reserves. A 2026 Bridgespan survey of 460 Indian nonprofits shows what this means on the ground: 85% said a lack of flexible or unrestricted funding limited their ability to innovate and improve programs, while 74% had been unable to make key organisational-development investments needed to deliver better outcomes.

Taken together, these findings suggest that we need to take a different approach to how funding is structured. Human resources, technology, accounting systems and leadership development are often treated as overheads. But a programme cannot be stronger than the organisation delivering it. These are not costs that sit outside impact; they are part of what makes impact possible.

Flexible, long-term funding can help address this by giving more decision-making space to the people closest to the work. It allows organisational leaders to respond when community needs evolve beyond the scope of an original program, or to invest in systems that may improve delivery over time. It also gives organisations the opportunity to build the resilience needed for the slow work of social change.

Our experience with the Rebuild India Fund has also shown me what this can look like in practice. Rebuild is a platform that helps unlock patient philanthropic capital for grassroots NGOs, to strengthen their organisations and the work they do.

The value of this approach becomes clearer when seen through the experience of several individual organizations. For example, an organisation working with young people from Nomadic and Denotified Tribes and other marginalised communities grew from four to 15 community centres and from a team of six to 16. With support from Rebuild and its funders, it also strengthened its staff welfare policies and moved into a larger office. These investments supported its expansion while also strengthening the organization behind that work.

In 2026, Forbes Foundation supported a seven-month capacity-building programme for 25 proximate women leaders, each from a different grassroots organisation. The programme combined sessions on leadership, donor engagement, narrative-building and strengthening teams with a trusted space for peer learning. By its conclusion, 95% of participants said the programme had strengthened their ability to communicate and influence stakeholders with confidence, while 79% reported that it helped them access a trusted peer network for learning and support. Outcomes on added funding and more are continuing to be assessed.

These leaders were able to draw on relevant expertise and practical tools, while learning from one another as they strengthened the institutions they already led. Experiences like these have also changed how I see the outcomes of philanthropy. Sometimes, it is not only what an organisation delivers through a grant, but what it is better able to do because of that support.

None of this means abandoning accountability. Careful diligence before making a grant remains important, as does a shared understanding of progress and periodic review. But these should leave room for organisations to respond when the context around their work changes.

A practical starting point, in my view, could be for HNI and philanthropic funders to consider placing at least 20% of their annual giving into multi-year, flexible institutional support, with capacity building available where organisations want it. For CSR funders, it could mean funding the true costs of an approved project, including the organisational capabilities required to deliver it, while giving the organisations they support meaningful discretion over how agreed outcomes are achieved.

This kind of funding also needs to be assessed differently. Alongside activities completed, we should ask whether an organisation has become more resilient, whether its leadership, teams and systems have become stronger, whether communities have gained greater agency, and whether the work can continue beyond the original capital.

Grassroots organisations are often closest to the communities they serve and therefore closest to understanding what needs to change. If we want to support lasting social change, our funding needs to leave enough room for that knowledge to shape decisions.

(The author is Director, Forbes Marshall Group & Head, Forbes Marshall Foundation. Views are personal.)