TOWARDS ASYMMETRIC RETURNS
The Indian development sector is a vast landscape with a large number of causes and NGOs to support. While there are many organizations eager to invest, they struggle with the dearth of information, time, and experience needed, to fully immerse themselves in philanthropy. This was evident even through the last year, as organizations grappled with connecting to NGOs who were in the need for support through the COVID-19 crisis. This leaves a large gap between funders and NGO partners.
As a grant-making organization, EdelGive pools together the knowhow and agency, to build an ecosystem of funding and implementation partners who join hands in tackling some of our society’s toughest problems. In doing so, today EdelGive has transitioned from a grant-making foundation to a philanthropic asset management platform.
Customized Philanthropic Solutions
EdelGive Foundation funds and supports promising grassroots non-profits around the country – from community organizations to grassroots level initiatives – through a thorough due diligence process. We also have multiple partnerships with international and national donor communities. As an asset management platform, we help funding partners, which include corporates, HNIs, family offices, and Foundations, define their strategy of philanthropy – from advice on CSR policy/ strategy to identifying causes and the communities in need, to mapping innovative funding models. We facilitate the exchange of resources and information and work strategically as an effective intermediary between the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
EdelGive's Collaborative Approach
EdelGive has been known for its extensive experience and understanding of funding grassroots and ability to advise and manage philanthropic funds for a range of donors. Over the last five years, EdelGive has created or supported five collaboratives in education, women empowerment, capacity building, climate, and migration.
The Collaborators for Transforming Education
EdelGive launched The Collaborators in 2016 to support the Government of Maharashtra in addressing persistent gaps in the learning outcomes of children in government schools. With a modest beginning in four out of 36 districts in Maharashtra, the programme has expanded to 7 districts, with 7 funders and three non-profit organizations (NPOs), reaching over 1.4 million children in five years. Furthermore, the Government of Maharashtra signed an MoU with EdelGive Foundation for the next five years with the provision to expand to all districts of Maharashtra.
The Collaborators has also been recognized as one of the most important Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Maharashtra. The coalition has earned the Government of India’s recognition for being among the best practices in CSR and has been presented by the Government of Maharashtra to the Government of India, World Bank, and UNICEF.
The Coalition for Women Empowerment (CWE)
Driven by its conviction in the systems thinking approach, The Coalition for Women Empowerment (CWE) was initiated by EdelGive in 2019, bringing together funding organizations and grassroots organizations as stakeholders, united by a common mission of facilitating social and economic empowerment of women and girls in India. The coalition is currently supported by Ford Foundation, Chintu Gudiya Foundation, and Forbes Marshall, and a group of prominent leaders from philanthropy, business, media, and public service called The Influencers who contribute resources, visibility, and voice to the cause, in their work and network. The coalition focuses on providing 360-degree support to grassroots organizations through enabling funding for critical rights-based programmes that are often under-invested, and by investing additionally in institution building for improved effectiveness and efficiency.
India Climate Collaborative
The learnings from both our ongoing coalitions encouraged and enabled EdelGive Foundation to become a core partner to the India Climate Collaborative, a first of its kind initiative bringing together India’s top philanthropies to address the increasing and pressing climate crisis in India. EdelGive Foundation brings years of rich experience of working with organizations with a deep penetration at the grassroots to ICC’s enriching technical expertise. With the combined holistic understanding of the development space from a climate lens, the partnership aims to work towards promoting ecological balance through a co-benefits approach. Eminent global philanthropies like MacArthur Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Oak Foundation, to name a few, have extended their support to this alliance.
Migrants Resilience Collaborative (MRC)
In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, EdelGive also became strategic partners to the Migrants Resilience Collaborative (an initiative of one of our partners in our investee portfolio, Jan Sahas), which is a multistakeholder collaborative of non-profit, philanthropic, and private sector actors focused on ensuring safe and responsible recovery of migrant families and their livelihoods in India post COVID-19. The Collaborative will support 10 million workers and their families in 100 districts and cities (across source and destination) over the next 5 years.
Pay-What-It-Takes
Last year, EdelGive also joined the Pay-What-It-Takes initiative, a multi-year initiative working towards awareness building, strategic guidance, and engaging NGOs to get their inputs on building a resilient non-profit sector. The initiative is led by The Bridgespan Group and the five anchor partners in addition to EdelGive: A.T.E. Chandra Foundation (ATECF), Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the Ford Foundation, and the Omidyar Network India. Each partner believes strongly in the importance of better understanding true costs and approached the initiative from a different perspective.
Udyam Stree – A National Campaign to promote Women Entrepreneurship
Despite progress in promoting gender equality and enabling the economic empowerment of women, women’s economic conditions remain largely rhetoric. EdelGive believes that entrepreneurship is an area which, will be a crucial tool for women as it gives them social stead and much-needed confidence to drive changes in her life, and in that of their families. Owing to various structural and societal barriers, India is missing out on significant innovation, economic development, and job creation by not enabling its women to realize their complete potential. Given this context, EdelGive Foundation has launched the #UdyamStree Campaign in October 2020 as an initiative to boost the entrepreneurial spirit in women and gradually create a conducive ecosystem for women to thrive.
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