Aditya Natraj

Chief Executive Officer, Kaivalya Education Foundation & Piramal Foundation

Looking back: In the last decade the most positive development in my view is that Indian companies through CSR and Indian citizens through strategic philanthropy are beginning to fund Indian development much more versus international development aid. In the previous decades international organisations supported Indian development a lot more. Looking ahead: I would love to see this trend continue and for philanthropy and CSR to get more strategic and support improvement of government programmes through skills, innovations, audits and systems. The total CSR plus philanthropy amount is less than one percent of what government spends and so it must be used to leverage efficiency of government expenditure by 10-50 percent rather than creating parallel systems.

Jayant Rastogi

CEO, Magic Bus

Looking back: I would like to pick the following as the key shifts in the Indian development sector in the last 10 years:

1. People with domain experience are making cross-sector shifts into the development sector. This means good talent from the corporate and social sectors are moving to the other side, bringing in more diversity and understanding of each other.
2. Institutional funders, the government and corporates are now showing a greater interest and awareness around life skills and the potential of it.
3. The sector now understands the huge benefits technology can bring. NGOs, large and small, are trying to embrace technology and accept it.
4. Although still at an initial stage, we find that large funders now want to come together and work with multiple NGOs and the government to bring systemic change.

Looking ahead: Over the next 10 years, here is what I would like to see:

1. The development sector needs to move from an input-based programme to more of a results and outcome-based programme delivery approach.
2. It needs to bring in higher integrity in programme delivery and data-based decision making.
3. More unrestricted funding will help NGOs focus on building capacity and working in more needy areas. To achieve this, one would need to develop a balanced funding portfolio.
4. There is also a dire need for diverse skill sets amongst talent that can lead and manage the various aspects of growth for effective change management and creating the most appropriate infrastructure and technology to support growth.
5. I would also like to see more individual philanthropy to help open up more opportunities to create change.

Mekin Maheshwari

Founder, Udhyam Learning Foundation

Looking back: I believe there were three important things that happened in the sector in the last decade:

1. Stronger partnerships between governments and the development sector.
2. Founders and professionals in their ‘30s and ‘40s with strong professional experience joining the development sector. I think the sector is adding talent and skills, structures and tools to the passion that’s key to driving change.
3. Early signs of collaboration for some projects, though I still believe we have a long way to go.

Looking ahead: I hope we focus on the following, going into the 2020s:

1. More research and evaluation
2. More experimentation
3. More human centred design
4. More use of tech and data and in relevant ways (not just as panacea).

Mihir Mathur

Founder, DESTA Research LLP

Looking back: One positive trend I have seen in the last decade is the increase in formal opportunities for people to move to the development/social sector which provides them a context about what they are getting into and thereby helps them take an informed decision.

Looking ahead: There are two things I would like to see over the next 10 years:

1. Increased cooperation between agencies trying to solve common problems or creating a common future. This cooperation could be built through non-competing collaborations, which are increasingly becoming rare as the development/social sector sees more and more corporatisation.
2. People and institutions realising and sticking to their core identity and not mimicking the game of scaling up operations with an aim of scaling up impact. Realising impact can be scaled up without the need for scaling up operations would be a key shift.

R. Balasubramaniam

Founder, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and GRAAM

Looking back: One strong trend is the pressure on civil society organisations to perform. There has been an enormous need for organisations to become effective and efficient, both in the way we mobilise resources and the way we deploy them. Compliance and accountability requirements have grown considerably.

In order to become more efficient and effective, organisations in the social sector have started experimenting with technology and automation as well as with concepts such as systems thinking and design thinking. The sector has started getting access to more talent from the corporate sector, which did not previously engage with the social sector–this has brought in skills and knowledge that the sector can put to good use.

Lastly, we have seen a shift from being output driven to being more focused on outcomes.

Looking ahead: My hope is that the civil society sector disappears and enables the emergence of a new sector. The social sector emerged in response to the inability of governments and the private sector to solve social problems. Civil society organisations have been traditionally donation-dependent, with many of us over the last 20 years creating a model that combines donations with revenue generation to yield social benefit. But I don’t think even this is sustainable.

I’m looking at a fourth sector which will deliver social benefit exclusively through earnings rather than by donation. If you look at the narrative around the world, the current economic order is failing: for-profit behaviour has taken away everything that can be sustainable. Civil society alone cannot solve the world’s problems today. We have to metamorphose into a new economic order where we move from ‘for-profit’ to ‘for-benefit’. We need a new sector which draws the DNA from the government sector, the efficiencies of the corporate sector and the social conviction and commitment of the civil society sector. It will look at revenue generation not as evil but as necessary to ensure benefit to all stakeholders. Whether we like it or not, we will have to move towards this.

Seema Bansal

Director, Social Impact & Development Practice, BCG India

Looking back: The three positive shifts that I have seen in the development sector are:

1. A focus on outcomes. All development efforts and all organisations in the development space have started speaking the language of impact and outcomes. Today, it’s not enough just to be doing something; measurable impact has to be visible. Funding has become linked to impact and outcomes.
2. Development sector becoming a viable and compelling career across age groups and backgrounds. Ranging from fresh graduates to mid-career professional, the development sector makes for a compelling career value proposition that combines challenging problems, satisfying work environments and reasonable incomes.
3. A greater inclination towards collaboration. Today, I see far more instances of the public sector, private sector and the not-for-profit/development sector come together in meaningful partnership to leverage their respective strengths to address large systemic and complex issues. I do believe this is leading to new ways of looking at the same problems, innovative solutions and far greater impact than before.

Looking ahead: I think the biggest shift I would like to see is development becoming core to our being as individuals, communities and corporates. Equitable growth, equal opportunity, sustainable climate and environment should not be topics that we address on the side but should become core to how we live and how we take decisions every minute/every day. For corporates this means not thinking about development as CSR but thinking about how to maximise societal impact through core business. For individuals and communities, this means deep and constant self-reflection on our actions and choices and making fundamental changes therein to have positive impact on everything and everyone around us, thus constantly building a world that all of humanity wants to live in.

Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja

Managing Director, Central Square Foundation

Looking back: The last ten years saw three important shifts in the Indian development sector:

1. A positive shift in the culture of philanthropy, social good and giving back.
2. A degree of institutionalisation, be it in the form of formal engagement with donors and foundations, or senior leadership teams being built within NGOs.
3. Impact orientation for the long term, such that it’s no longer enough to say, ‘we are doing good and that’s the impact’. There is a growing focus on working with the system for longer term sustainable and sustained impact rather than on a high-touch NGO dependent model alone.

Looking ahead: Collaboration and system ownership is something I would really like to see more of. NGOs collectively coming together to build and offer an integrated solution (versus competing for mind space in transactional manner), that is designed with a transition/ handover plan, so that it can be adopted by the system for the new business as usual practice of how work is done by the system.

Srikanth Viswanathan

CEO, Janaagraha

Looking back: The most important positive development over the past decade has in my view been the gradual but definitive opening up of governments to partnering, resulting in a coming together of sorts, of government, civil society, philanthropy and business to a much greater degree than before. Twenty first century challenges require a partnering approach to problem solving, particularly in India where state capacities will only be built over the long-term.

Looking ahead: The development sector is presently smitten by linear problem solving, of carefully picking the problem that may be relatively easier to solve in the near term rather than solving for the system which in turn can solve the problem. This system is democracy, not just at the central and state levels, but more importantly at the local neighbourhood level. I would therefore like to see organisations in the development sector close ranks and strengthen democracy and citizenship at the grassroots.

Suparna Diwakar

Founder and former Dean, Indian School of Development Management - ISDM

Looking back: I consider the following as some of the most critical trends in the social sector in the last decade:

1. There has been a great deal of interest in the social sector. More and more people are interested in the social sector today.
2. There has also been a move of many people with backgrounds in the corporate sector to the social sector. The voices of some of the larger organisations in the sector is being heard in public spaces.
3. The types of funding that are becoming available for social purpose organisations is changing.
4. While there are a lot more organisations who are working in the areas of goods and services delivery, organisations working towards bringing social change, in the spaces of empowerment of the disadvantaged, etc., are falling in number.

Looking ahead: I would like to see the development discourse in the 2020s to focus on the following:

1. In the context of the huge inequities we have, the climate crisis, the issue of water and food scarcity, etc need to be looked at as systemic issues. Social sector organisations need to begin to make this the centre of their work.
2. Funders need to understand that systemic change takes time and begin to do a lot more patient funding.
3. There is a need to support the small and medium NGOs over longer periods of time.
4. Increasingly need social sector organisations to be systems thinkers, collaborate with each other and not work in silos, and also openly share the knowledge that gets created.
5. Emphasis on research and documentation to be able to abstract from experience.

 

Vinita Singh

Managing Trustee, We The People

Looking back: I can identify three positive shifts in the last decade:

1. The development sector seems to be regaining the focus on human empowerment and building agency. Away from an obsession with service delivery. Yes, the development sector can truly bring services effectively to people, possibly much better than the govt. But I feel that we had got limited by this. I am glad that in the last decade various models and methods of empowering people with knowledge and skills have been adopted. This will play a big role in unleashing human potential.
2. Human rights and the constitutional framework are being recognised as fundamental to development efforts. There is far more interest in recognising and building connections with Constitutional rights with the varied development issues we work on.
3. There are just so many more young people coming into this sector. Bright and committed people who may either join the sector full time or intern and spend some months in the sector. In both cases, these young people gain lifelong learning and insights. And we gain a wealth of new thinking and hands on the ground.

Looking ahead: Over the next 10 years, I would like to see a conversation on the matter of scale: what are the opportunities and limits of scale? Can we achieve deep impact and large scale? How? What kind of models respect and encourage diversity?

I would also like to have more conversations on how those with economic privilege could be sensitised and more involved in development efforts. And, in education, I would like more focus on building the ability of teachers and students to fully live our rights while respecting the rights of others.

Vivek Sharma

Program Director, Gandhi Fellowship Program

Looking back: Three eco-political shifts took place in the social sector in the last decade:

1. Scale: Scale has not been achieved but a perseverance for scale has been the leit motif of the last decade. The social change sector has seriously begun to investigate the barriers to scale and has made some attempts at solving for it, using more corporate practices, which has in fact succeeded at scaling success. Today organisations are more aligned to solving at scale rather than resisting apologetically that scaling up social change is highly impossible.
2. State relationship: The state’s relationship with NGOs has become less adversarial and there is at least a sporadic, if not systemic, attempt at collaborating and cooperating. The state has begun to acknowledge what it can’t achieve and where the social sector can deliver on best practices and replicable models. Similarly, the social sector has become less judgmental about state inefficiencies and has been reflective on the grammar and vocabulary of working with the government.
3. Funding: Impact funding has organised itself as some larger-hearted, newly rich have veered around causes. In fact, one experiences a new social peer pressure among the rich to share a portion of their success. The only problem here has been that social capital is becoming impatient. What needs to be kept in mind is that innovation requires patient capital, but that giving maturity hopefully will be coming over the coming decade.

Looking ahead: One hopes the above sporadic processes will be hard-coded and intelligible models of scale will emerge; the state and the social sector will converge to create models of operational excellence.

The One Big Thing that I expect to see in the coming decade is Tech-for-Good. Technology in the last decade did some lip service to the bottom of the pyramid, but didn’t arrive as a game-changer, which I would imagine the next decade will fuel with a deeper engagement between social dollars and thinker-implementers.