Matching Contributions in India
Background
Over the last decade, individual volunteering, societal awareness on development issues, and large-scale citizen engagement with social causes have grown rapidly in India. While giving has been largely informal in India, formal giving is slowly evolving on the back of innovations in digital giving, crowdfunding, e-commerce based giving, payroll giving, and online volunteering platforms. This growth in formal giving to NGOs, also known as everyday giving or retail giving, is likely to become a significant contributor to philanthropic efforts in India in the next 3-5 years.
Retail giving offers NGOs and donors innovative ways to fundraise, and one such innovation is the use of ‘matching contributions’. The concept of a matching contribution, in which a donor extends a grant as a match for the NGO to leverage it to fundraise from other sources, stands to further boost formal everyday giving in India.
About the Report and Toolkit
With the support of the A.T.E. Chandra Foundation, Sattva Research has endeavoured to create evidence, an actionable toolkit and document case studies that exemplify the practice of matching contributions in India.
The report and toolkit are structured into a 2-part publication that aims to drive the usage of matching contributions for the development sector in India. While the toolkit is an easy-to-follow guide for NGOs to kickstart or enhance their fundraising journey by leveraging matching contributions, the report strives to present a strong case for the current and potential impact of matching contributions on individual giving in India. Together, the report and toolkit aim to motivate platforms, funders, and NGOs alike to take up matching contributions significantly as part of their strategy and fundraising design.
Key Takeaways
1. For corporates: Employee matching programs can enable corporates to: a) create a vibrant culture of volunteering across levels b) encourage employees to give to causes of their choices and c) reinforce their commitment to the country’s development. By offering both structured matching programmes as well as one-off matching campaigns in times of need, corporates can multiply the impact of their funds towards social causes manifold. Moreover, the availability of multiple online platforms offers a great opportunity to automate systems and processes towards linking payroll giving, and employee volunteering.
2. For private donors: Donors across segments and motivations stand to accrue a range of benefits by strategically leveraging matching campaigns. These include a high social return on investment, an opportunity to build grantees’ fundraising capabilities and expand their donor base, and a tool to encourage retail giving Donors must explore the different use cases of matching campaigns, and look to include the same as part of their overall giving model.
3. For independent platforms: Platforms have an important role to play in promoting the potential of matching campaigns, supporting the fundraisers and enhancing the givers’ experience through the journey of the campaign. Platforms must consistently work to identify new ways to personalize the giving experience and celebrate giving. Platforms could also collaborate with NGOs to run pilots to increase ease of giving by working on documentations, engagement with givers, data analytics, and digital storytelling. Lastly, platforms must also look at piloting collaborations with mainstream businesses/ e-commerce/ digital wallets and other offline outlets to build a case for matching.
The full report and toolkit can be accessed below.
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On 18 April 2020, we launched the report and the toolkit with a webinar and a panel discussion among key stakeholders in the giving ecosystem. The presentation from the webinar can be accessed below.
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Sattva has been working with various non-profits and social organisations as well as corporate clients to help them define their social impact goals. Our focus is to solve critical problems and find scalable solutions. We assist organisations in formulating their long-term social impact strategy by strategically aligning with business to provide meaningful solutions to social issues.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this topic. Do write to us: research.advisory@sattva.co.in
