2 years in - Co-creating a chaotic, colorful but collaborative future for venture philanthropy in India.

As the child of a children’s book author, my childhood was nothing short of magical. Because of my passion for solving hard-ish problems ( I didn’t know they were hard at the time), my parents taught me how to innovate ( albeit accidentally). An innovation mindset is second nature to me but has also become pivotal to enabling me to take on complex problems and seek out collaborations, solutions and new problem statements. I think, seek, listen and deliver with an innovation mindset and my best tool so far has been my unvarnished imagination.

Today I work in the venture philanthropy space and I have the privilege of being on the frontlines of the evolution of the funding landscape in India. More and more funders are returning to their roots- deliberately reintroducing innovation into their philanthropic processes and portfolios. This means going beyond a ‘deal flow approach’, to hiring unconventional candidates and rethinking internal and external narratives- impact models, metrics and results.

"More importantly, this has meant a recognition of flexibility, iteration and failure acceptance required to create something remarkable."

Over the past two years, I have learned a great deal and from where I stand, I have noticed three key drivers to the venture philanthropy movement in India:

a.   Starting Early – Funders are getting younger and there is a recognition that starting out your philanthropic journey early gives you time to learn, test, fail and develop your own journey. Funders lose leverage if they wait until retirement because being a part of an active ongoing career, having a network of people and resources that you can tap into and even just having the prism of an active professional life that you can bring to it, adds significant advantage and leverage to philanthropic endeavors.

b.   The pursuit of Sustainability – This has become almost key to evaluating any investment or idea – the organization's ability to make the model sustainable at some point in the future. In my experience, not all problems have monetizable elements, but that is where innovation has the potential to seek out collaborations that enable some form of financial sustainability and transformation.

c.    Shedding of Risk – Funders are increasingly unconcerned about reputation and financial risk associated with their giving. This has given them significant leverage in seeking out and working with ‘unglamorous’ organizations. And unconventional teams. The focus has shifted dramatically to ‘probability for greater impact’ as the core impact.

Eventually, though, I have come to understand that today's philanthropists have a deep passion to see that their money, expertise, networks, and skills can have a compounding impact that reverberates far beyond the reaches of traditional giving.

The future of venture philanthropy in India is only getting brighter. #venturephilanthropy #socialsector