Tapasya was started in 2018 by Tapas Sutradhar and Mrinal Rao to support families from socio-economically vulnerable backgrounds in accessing government social welfare schemes. At its inception, the organisation began as a policy implementation agency. It had a small team of two founders, one project coordinator, and three helpline callers, along with a limited budget of INR 15 lakh per year for the first two years.

Since then, the organisation has burgeoned to a team of 30 and its budget has grown more than sixfold, totalling INR 1 crore as of FY 2023–24. One of the core reasons behind Tapasya’s growth was that the founders were motivated to put in place a strong M&E system right from the organisation’s inception. Having worked in the social sector prior to establishing their own nonprofit, they realised that an effective M&E system was necessary for two main reasons: assessing impact effectively and enabling the professional growth of the organisation’s employees. According to Mrinal and Tapas, “Even though we lacked the resources to build a strong system in Tapasya’s initial phase, the need for and importance of developing our M&E strategy was always clear in our minds.” This clarity pushed them to adopt key processes and systems that gave them leeway to expand their scope.

The importance of intermediaries

Since the co-founders realised that they had a lot to learn, they approached incubators at various stages in order to build key capacities and forge networks. Tapasya was soon successively incubated by Atma, UnLtd India, and the The/Nudge Institute, which accelerated its organisational development.

Mrinal and Tapas emphasised the impact of the knowledge and support that these incubators offered. “Atma hand-held us through the nascent stages and helped build key areas of the organisation as well as our theory of change. Eventually, we became confident enough to make growth decisions independently. UnLtd India (UnLtd) supported us in identifying our niche and helped us deepen and validate our programme design and M&E, and The/Nudge Institute helped us look at the problem and solution differently. We discovered how a programme addressing a local problem can be scaled through various strategies to address a national issue.”

When the organisation was being incubated by UnLtd, it received mentorship in developing M&E strategies to measure both qualitative and quantitative impact. While Tapasya had previously focused heavily on data-driven measurements, UnLtd emphasised the importance of understanding the broader impact on the lives of the families that it works with. This insight highlighted the importance of empowering families and building community resilience by fostering behavioural change. It also resulted in the organisation monitoring and evaluating its interventions more comprehensively.

Growing organisations need strong M&E

The scale of the organisation’s impact has grown significantly over the years as it gradually built capacity on various fronts. For instance, during its first three years, Tapasya focused solely on enabling access to the benefits of Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act, supporting 22,000 children over this period. Subsequently, it progressed to enabling access to the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana—a maternity benefit scheme for women—and supported 6,000 women as part of this initiative. The leadership realised that many schemes were underutilised, prompting them to shift their model towards implementing multiple schemes across low-income communities in areas ranging from urban slums to remote Adivasi villages. To expand effectively, however, they needed to have a well-oiled M&E system.

The M&E framework enables the nonprofit to set targets for field workers. 

Tapasya made sure its work was highly measurable. In order to do this, there were several stages involved: first, identifying families in need, then onboarding them into the system, followed by determining their eligibility criteria and verifying their documents. Next, the organisation tracks the number of applications it has completed and which schemes the households have successfully accessed.

An added benefit is that the M&E framework enables the nonprofit to set targets for field workers. Mrinal elaborated on why they set higher targets than required from the beginning. She states, “In cases where families migrate or withdraw from the process, we may not be able to assist them throughout the entire procedure of receiving their social entitlements. Therefore, we always set higher targets to ensure that we have sufficient margins to be able to help the expected number of families. For example, if we wish to support 300 families, we reach out to 500 eligible families.” This approach ensures that M&E efforts align with the organisation’s overall strategy, allowing for effective tracking and evaluation of their impact.

Adopting a tech-driven M&E strategy

Tapasya’s programmes and outcomes have been measured by recording data through tech-driven strategies—each individual’s data plays a crucial role in monitoring the progress and delivery of welfare schemes. Technology serves as a cornerstone in this process, facilitating the mapping of individuals with eligible schemes and monitoring their progress until they benefit from them. Also, the daily work of each field worker can be tracked, building more accountability, and thereby enhancing the efficiency and credibility of the work.

The adoption of technology has made data collection much less complicated.

But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. There was a time when Tapasya’s impact was faltering as it struggled to implement a robust M&E system. The organisation was unable to accurately track the work done by team members. The community mobilisers used to visit families in the community, but there wasn’t an effective way of tracking information such as how much time they spent in each household, or how many visits they needed before a family received their entitlements. Even the leadership team were not able to prioritise the stage-wise progress of the work that they had to do.

In Tapas’ view, the adoption of technology has made data collection much less complicated. “Imagine if one field worker is working with 300–500 families—it is not possible to remember all the families’ information. A family ID number is generated every time a new family is entered into our database. The next time, they [the field worker] just have to type in the ID number, and all the previously entered data about the family will pop up.” Through the family ID database, the organisation is able to log visits to each household and thereby track the aforementioned parameters that had previously remained unmonitored.  

The automation of most of its data collection tools made Tapasya’s tracking system watertight. Witnessing a larger number of families receive their entitlements year on year (via the data they collected) helped generate greater accountability and better performance, as the team members felt a greater sense of ownership over their work. 

Both tangible and intangible impact

All partners seek concrete evidence of impact, whether through quantitative data, case studies, or success stories. With relevant data readily available for all projects, the organisation’s partners were able to view the real-time progress of its programmes, which was vital to ensuring trust and transparency. Systematic data collection enables the nonprofit to conduct research studies, validating its work and informing stakeholders within the ecosystem. This data can be shared with government departments to inform intervention strategies, caters to emerging partner needs, and can be used to design projects that directly support communities on the ground.

Tapas indicated that sometimes impact may take forms that cannot necessarily be quantified. Such forms of impact cannot be accounted for as easily as data-driven measures in an M&E framework but are just as meaningful for evaluating impact.

For Tapasya, one such outcome has been the changes in the lives of the sakhis (field workers). These women belong to the communities that they work in and were previously not engaged in any formal employment due to family responsibilities or a lack of opportunities. Once they were provided with the opportunity to work within their community and trained, they witnessed a remarkable transformation. The sakhis reported feeling more aware and informed, noting that they feel valued by their community as integral resources. Even after the organisation moved on to working in other geographies, sakhis have continued to serve as agents of change within their communities. Therefore, the organisation’s impact has stretched beyond just the families captured in their database.

Drawing on their sectoral experience and learnings over their six-year journey at Tapasya, Tapas and Mrinal offered the following advice for other grassroots nonprofits and funders.

Advice for nonprofits

1. Engage in continuous experimentation

According to Mrinal, it’s vital to engage in ongoing experimentation and embrace failure as a means of gaining insights. This allows for informed decisions regarding which strategies to retain and which to discard. At Tapasya, through comprehensive M&E processes and programme design, a wealth of data points has been collected to inform decision-making. This has helped external stakeholders gain confidence in the organisation, as evidenced by its being incubated for six successive years and a sevenfold increase in funding since inception.

2. Never stop learning

The process of learning never stops because the challenges faced by an organisation change as it grows. Stagnation in knowledge indicates a halt in progress.

For instance, when Tapasya conducted a survey of the penetration of 12 welfare schemes in Janta Vasahat, Maharashtra’s second biggest slum, they discovered that the locals were largely only accessing rations under the Public Distribution System, and approximately 80 percent of these schemes were not being availed of by eligible families. They realised that the poor coverage of welfare schemes resulted from a variety of factors, including the government system being overburdened, the lack of support systems, and challenges with service delivery. When Tapasya extended their work to other communities, it found similar patterns, validating the need for the organisation’s interventions.

As the organisation expands, both M&E practices and programme designs must adapt accordingly. Mrinal states, “When Tapasya grew from implementing one scheme to multiple schemes, our entire strategy and M&E had to change with this decision. The funnel to work around one scheme versus multiple schemes is completely different. When working towards implementing a single scheme, the eligibility criteria, necessary documents, and application process were straightforward. However, when you start working on multiple schemes, the complexities increase.”

3. Stand by your ethos

Amid suggestions to transition to a for-profit model, the idea of monetising services arose, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when funding was scarce. Tapasya conducted a small-scale experiment with 100 families, offering a subscription-based service at a nominal fee of INR 100. Within three months, it became clear that while half of the families were willing to pay and appreciated the service, the other half faced financial constraints and hesitated to enrol. The organisation introspected its core purpose, and it became evident to the team that prioritising profit over their mission of empowering communities would undermine the organisation’s fundamental principles.

Advice to funders

1. Build in the freedom to experiment  

Mrinal highlights that funders must recognise the potential for impact when nonprofit partners are granted the freedom to experiment and evolve. In her opinion, “Donors should not fear failure and should support new ideas or issues emerging in the new [nonprofit] ecosystem. For example, our financial partner Indus Action gave us this freedom right from when they started funding us. They have always encouraged us to experiment, be it around working to implement new schemes, redesigning the project, making M&E changes, building tech, or other aspects of the programme. When your partners trust you, you don’t fear failure.”

2. Engage closely and equitably with nonprofit personnel

Donors should deepen their engagement with their partner nonprofits to better understand one another and build a co-learning system for all. This fosters a collaborative learning environment, benefiting everyone involved. Given the positive influence of the sustained and meaningful engagement with funding partners such as Azim Premji Foundation and SVP India, Tapas believes that, “When the donor does not limit themselves to only seeing through the utilisation of the funds but instead engages with the nonprofits in designing the processes and programmes, it always turns out to be valuable.”

According to Tapas and Mrinal, nonprofits also benefit greatly when funders view them as equal partners. They emphasise that engaging as equal partners contributes to the emergence of better ideas, support, and collaboration, and creates a healthy relationship between funders and their nonprofit partners. This approach enables organisations to grow while expanding funders’ portfolios, thereby enhancing the understanding of how to secure and utilise funds effectively.

Blended models are the future

Tapasya’s M&E is among the key anchors that facilitated its growth. And as a result of this growth, Tapasya has already supported 35,000 eligible families in accessing the benefits of various social welfare schemes. They aspire to support 1 million eligible families across India to access government benefits by 2030.

Tapas spoke with confidence about the organisation’s sustainability. He says, “We have a blended model where we work simultaneously with both the government and the community. When the government is supportive, particularly in specific departments and schemes, we can assist a vast number of households. Apart from government collaboration, we also directly engage with communities to provide support, albeit to a lesser extent. However, our operations never halt. These adjustments have evolved over time and are now part of our strategy. Our team continually learns, unlearns, and relearns, maintaining an ongoing cycle. We’re still evolving, and future discussions will likely bring further changes based on our experiences.” By centering M&E throughout its programme design, providing the flexibility to experiment, fail, and innovate, Tapasya is in a strong position to scale and create further impact at the grassroots and national level.

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About Tapas and Mrinal

Tapas Sutradhar, co-founder and CEO of Tapasya, has 13 years of work experience in the development sector. He manages partnerships, compliance, and technology at Tapasya. Tapas has a master’s degree in social work.

Mrinal Rao, co-founder and COO of Tapasya, has 13 years of work experience in the development sector. She oversees operations, people management, and research at Tapasya. Mrinal has a master’s degree in social work.

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Know more

• Read this article to to learn whether M&E should be entrusted to an external or internal team.
• Read this article to learn how to build expertise in the M&E field.

Most commentary on that awkward reality has come, perhaps inevitably, from the generators and purveyors of evidence. More attention needs to be given now to what others say about this conundrum, especially the intended main recipients of the evidence—the decision-makers and managers in the world of action, including government officials and managers.  What is their take on the problem of weak policy uptake of evidence? If both sides of the market for evidence—the suppliers and the users—understood each other’s perspectives better, both could benefit, getting more of what they want with less waste of effort.

Getting that to happen will not be easy. The suppliers are mostly researchers. They have views on what users think and want but rarely know firsthand what it is really like to be in the hotseat of policymaking and program delivery day after day. The users, similarly, often have only hazy notions of the finer points of the evidence available—how it was derived, how reliable it is, and what its limitations are. The two camps speak different languages, reside in different universes.

One impediment to bridging that gap is that there is no simple way to pin down users’ perspectives.  Doing surveys or using other scientific tools to try to lock down a precise parsing of what policymakers and program implementers think about evidence and why, when, and how they use it or not will never be sufficient. The only dependable way to assess evidence users’ thinking and behavior in relation to evidence uptake is to spend considerable time being a policymaker or program implementer or working closely with them, experiencing the rough and tumble of advising, or supporting or negotiating with them. Not everyone has the time, opportunity, or inclination to do that. But a lot can be learned from talking with—and listening carefully to—people who have.

As someone who has worked as a policymaker and worked at 3ie—a supplier of evidence and an advocate for its use in decision-making—I care deeply about and understand all the complex aspects of these challenges. In my current role, as a 3ie senior fellow, I am focusing on how to improve the evidence-supplier to evidence-user interface at all levels, and working closely with the organization’s Evidence for Policy and Learning Team.

Presuming that practical policymaking and implementational realities are “someone else’s business” that evidence producers can stay apart from is a sure ticket to irrelevance.

Drawing from my own experience and networks, I had the privilege to complete an in-depth examination of five examples of particularly interesting policymakers (see Reformers in International Development:  Five Remarkable Lives, published by Routledge).

Conversations with these individuals have helped highlight some fundamental principles important for facilitating and enhancing evidence uptake in policymaking.  Seemingly obvious at first look, these principles reveal, on closer inspection, challenging complexities, along with practical steps that can help.

First, if the creators, providers, and advocates of evidence truly want to promote more and better uptake of it that results in improved policy and programs, they need to approach that task by putting themselves more in the shoes of the people who decide policy and oversee programs. Data people need to learn to think the way doer people do. This means learning their language and meeting them on their turf—not just figuratively but also literally—by spending time with doer people whenever, and as much as, possible. Evidence producers need to own the fact that the constraints that policymakers face, the barriers they must overcome, and the gauntlet they have to traverse in order to get anything adopted are fully a part of what a good researcher must take into account. Presuming that those practical policymaking and implementational realities are ‘someone else’s business’ that evidence producers can stay apart from is a sure ticket to irrelevance. As examples of doers, the five decisionmakers in my Reformers book were hungry for evidence that settled key pragmatic questions, not distant general propositions. Ela Bhatt, when helping millions of impoverished working women in India to build better lives for themselves, needed to know what would work for them and what not. When the women needed to create their own bank, she needed to know how it should be designed to be sustainably viable. When another of the five— Dzingai Mutumbuka (now a 3ie Board Member)—was a cabinet minister charged with creating a new education system in a newly independent African country where 97 percent of its population had never had the chance to go to school before, he needed to know what his initial top priority should be. When donors pursued him with what they thought he should do—but failed to provide convincing evidentiary support for them—he had to work hard to find better answers on his own, tailored better to the context he had to deal with.

Second, researchers need to recognize that an essential aspect of putting oneself in the shoes of policymakers is helping them explain evidence compellingly to their many and diverse stakeholders. If decisionmakers are going to stick their neck out to act upon some crucial piece of evidence, they will need to present and defend it well—across the whole trajectory of the decisionmaking journey, from floating a new policy initially among close colleagues, to sharing it widely with parliamentarians and voters, to coping with attacks from critics, to commenting on how it has turned out when implemented.  To be good at all that, decisionmakers need to understand the evidence thoroughly themselves and be comfortable walking others through it. Researchers need to help with that.

If politics is the art of compromise, policymaking is the science of choosing better when best is out of reach.

Everything about a piece of evidence—where it came from, how it was developed, what it means, and how reliable it is—must be totally transparent in the sense of being understandable by those who might want to know. When Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala—another of the five main characters in Reformers—was the Nigerian cabinet minister responsible for bringing government spending back from the chaos left by the military regime that preceded the democratically elected government she came in with, she needed evidence that was incontrovertible. Shrewdly disarming critics, she had all the details of her proposed new budget published publicly—in a book that immediately became a bestseller across the country. When Adolfo Figueroa, still another of the five, was working out his proposals for tackling the extreme poverty among the large indigenous populations in the Andean high areas of his native Peru, he insisted on finding arguments that could be understood even by any ordinary “shoeshine boy.”

Third, putting oneself in the shoes of policymakers may require researchers to add tasks in their research that go beyond what would be necessary from a research perspective alone. For example, in the real world, first-best solutions are often not feasible, whether because of political impasses, administrative limitations, or other reasons. So, policymakers need evidence showing not only the best course of action but also second- and third-best alternatives that may be more attainable in their specific context. If politics is the art of compromise, policymaking is the science of choosing better when best is out of reach. Evidence generators and disseminators can do themselves—and policymakers—a favor by providing guidance on what to do, in various circumstances, when optimal solutions cannot be achieved.  In addition, evidence producers should have a sensitive ear for the exact nature—including degree of precision—of the information that decision-makers require. Sometimes policymakers need most to know if a certain value is at least above a certain threshold—for instance, that the rate of return for some program will be at least greater than, say, 10 percent. In that case, trying to determine a good point estimate—say that the rate of return is 16 percent with a confidence interval of +/- 4 percentage points is of secondary interest for the policymaker. Simply knowing that the answer is almost assuredly more than a critical threshold (10% in this example) is enough. When Domingo Cavallo, the fifth of the five in Reformers, was deciding how best to ratchet down the hyperinflation that was ravaging his country, Argentina, in the early 1990s, he could not wait for finely calibrated point estimates of the reforms he was considering; he just needed to know whether their impact would, grosso modo (roughly speaking), be large or small.

Drawing lessons from the evidence on how to make evidence most useful will continue to be a key factor in driving the change.

This article was originally published on 3ie.

The findings, which were collected from 35,000 children across 28 districts in 26 Indian states, were based on these four domains. Additionally, the study included a series of qualitative interviews conducted in Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh), Solan (Himachal Pradesh), and Dhamtari (Chhattisgarh), which delved deeper into the aspirations of the youth.

Education doesn’t automatically translate into increased ability

The report shows that overall, approximately 87 percent of the surveyed youth are enrolled in some kind of educational institution. The ratio of school and college dropouts has reduced over the years, with more young people completing senior secondary school than ever before. But when those who are not enrolled were asked why they discontinued their studies, the most commonly cited reason at 18.9 percent was ‘lack of interest’. Financial concerns, family constraints, failing to pass exams, and other challenges fell lower on the scale. Interestingly, 26 percent of those not enrolled in any educational institution reported that they used their smartphones regularly for some educational activity, such as watching online videos, exchanging notes, and resolving doubts.

“We can learn how to manage a household, how to talk to others, how to present ourselves, and how to respect the people around us,” a girl in class 10 from Sitapur responded when asked about the benefits of education.

For an age group that is expected to learn trigonometry and calculus as per the curriculum, only 43 percent could solve basic division problems.

However, it appears that years of schooling do not necessarily translate into proportional levels of learning. Approximately 75 percent could read a class 2 level text in their regional language and 57 percent could read simple texts in English. For an age group that is expected to learn trigonometry and calculus as per the curriculum, only 43 percent could solve basic division problems, and 10 percent could calculate simple interest on loans.

The current system doesn’t appear to account for the socio-economic background of a learner. Many of the youngsters reported that they have to work while pursuing education. Approximately 77 percent of the youth surveyed do some form of household work. Of the 34 percent who reported engaging in some form of paid work for more than 15 days in a month, 85 percent participate in agricultural work. The education system doesn’t reward children who work—rather, there’s a higher probability that their performance at school declines due to the increased workload that comes in secondary school.

Most of these findings align with those observed in ASER 2017. However, since digital access was increasingly incorporated in education during and post the pandemic, ASER 2023 added a digital skills assessment component, wherein youth were asked to attempt basic tasks using a smartphone. The test offers a clearer insight into the way technology has fundamentally changed the way youth are learning and thinking about their future.

Digital literacy is not the problem

Over the past few years, there has been a steady increase in smartphone penetration in India. True to this trend, ASER 2023 observed that 90 percent of the adolescents surveyed had access to a smartphone and 67.1 percent of the total sample were able to produce a smartphone during the survey itself (others indicated that the smartphone was with a parent/sibling who wasn’t present at home during the survey). Approximately 92 percent of those who were able to produce a smartphone during the survey were able to complete the digital tasks successfully on the following aspects.  

1. Ease of usability

Approximately 80 percent of young people who possess smartphones are capable of locating a particular video on YouTube, and of this group, 90 percent know how to share it with a friend. In addition, 70 percent can navigate the internet to seek answers to inquiries, while close to two-thirds are able to set an alarm for specific times. A little more than one-third can use Google Maps to ascertain the duration of travel between two destinations.

During these digital assessments, boys tended to perform better than girls in most tasks. However, the primary factor in this case appeared to be smartphone ownership. Among those who knew how to use smartphones, 43.7 percent boys and 19.8 percent girls actually owned the smartphone. When the differences in ownership disappear, so does the difference in digital skills between boys and girls. Computer ownership was found to be far lower than smartphones (less than 10 percent), but there were similar trends in digital skill patterns. Digital literacy is directly proportional to increased access to devices.

2. Tech for creativity and life skills

The survey clearly indicated that young people look at technology as a pathway for creative expression. Approximately 78 percent use their smartphones for entertainment-related activities such as watching movies or listening to music, 57 percent play games regularly, and 90 percent had used some form of social media in the previous week.

“With a phone in our hands, we can learn anything without having to spend money or ask anyone [for permission],” Shristhi Sandhil, an 18-year-old from Jharkhand, said as she talked about how she uses YouTube for learning new creative skills. This sentiment was echoed by many, who highlighted that it was the freedom afforded by the smartphone that made them turn to it.

The smartphone has enabled wider skill acquisition by cutting across barriers of access and opportunity. More than 35 percent of the youth reported using their smartphone to engage in dance, music, photography, and other hobbies.

Given the increased use of technology, including for creative expression, it is important to acknowledge that what was once an extra-curricular might have to become a part of the core of the curriculum. While creativity has a significant place in the cultural context of Indian communities and despite its recognition as a key twenty-first century skill, it is yet to be brought to life in a tangible manner by the education system. Through games, projects, activities, and other forms of interactive learning approaches enabled by technology, creativity needs to become a core facet of academic learning.

Young peoples’ aspirations tell a story

When asked about their aspirations, there were clear patterns across states and genders. For instance, in terms of career aspirations, while ‘nursing’ was the top voted choice in Kerala for girls, it was ‘teaching’ in Rajasthan, ‘doctor’ in Jammu and Kashmir, and ‘police’ in Maharashtra. Similarly, boys in Assam chose ‘army’, those in Tamil Nadu chose ‘engineering’, and in Chhattisgarh it was ‘agriculture’. While girls indicate a stronger aspiration for higher education, boys appeared to prioritise income generation as they plan their careers.

A boy studying in class 10 in Dhamtari told us, “I will become famous and gain respect in the community—there’s a boy from the village went into the army. My father had failed high school, but because of this [his son joining the army] he will also gain recognition. I will get money as well. And I will be able to protect the country.”

Both boys and girls indicated that social responsibilities would ultimately shape their decisions.

But what was concerning is that approximately 1 in 5 youth surveyed said that they did not know what they wished to pursue. Of the ones who indicated preference for a particular kind of work, 45 percent indicated that they didn’t know anyone engaged in that line of work. While more than 40 percent reported using a smartphone to search for information related to their future career, the availability of a role model in their community appears to play a strong role in determining if youth are able to make choices related to their career.

Both boys and girls also indicated how social responsibilities would ultimately shape their decisions. A class 10 girl from Sitapur said to the survey team, “My father says he will let me complete my BA  before I am to be married, although my brother says that they can arrange my married once I get admitted. I can’t say anything in such matters; it is up to them.” This experience was similar for many girls, who indicated that marriage will play a strong role in determining their future, while boys felt they were expected to earn enough to pay for all household expenses. These reasons also lead to a lack of aspirations around vocational work and agriculture, as they are not seen as socially acceptable or lucrative futures.

The influence of socio-economic contexts on career choices is undeniable. This underscores the need to establish a system that recognises the role that social milestones play in determining the career choices of young people. At the same time, the education system should provide pathways that enable youth to overcome the barriers imposed by these conventions.

What next?

Rather than inspiring lifelong learning, it appears that the consequence of the current model is burnout before adulthood. When the education system acts as sieve, and we see masses of youth who are unskilled and unemployable, we must ask ourselves: Why are we still trying to filter our adolescents based on their ability to clear exams that might not be relevant for the current job market? There are some clear learnings from ASER 2023 that educators need to apply:

• As access to smart devices increases, it is probable that digital literacy will automatically grow. This needs to be leveraged to help youth acquire skills that are going to be relevant for the future of work.
• Increased access to smartphones offers us the opportunity to develop open learning models that includes focus on twenty-first century skills like creativity without worrying about the restrictions typically faced by the school system.
• Young people need accessible role models in order to be able to break social conventions and make meaningful decisions to pursue their dreams.

We need to shift towards a model that incentivises learners to learn more, well after they leave the confines of a formal system.

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Know more

• Read this article to learn potential ways of solving India’s digital divide.
• Learn more about empowering the youth to build sustainable futures.
• Read this article to learn why reliable data on learning outcomes is crucial.

Rekha Koita is the director and co-founder of Koita Foundation, an organisation that works on digitally transforming nonprofit operations to optimise processes and use data and analytics to drive performance and growth.

She was previously a management consultant at Accenture where she conducted corporate training for several Indian and multinational organisations and nonprofits. Since starting her philanthropic journey in 2016, Rekha has been focused on leveraging technology for positive change within the nonprofit sector.

In this interview, Rekha Koita reflects on the potential of the current philanthropic landscape in India and her role in it as a donor. She also talks about visionary founders, many of whom are young and driven, spearheading initiatives that promise to reshape communities for the better.

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Know More

• Read this article about how Indian philanthropies need to fill the funding gap.
• Read this article about Prashanth Prakash’s philanthropic journey.

Kranti was set up in 2010 by Sunita Bhosale to work on various issues related to violence, land rights, education, health, and skill development faced by the Pardhi tribe, an Adivasi community that is discriminated against on grounds of social identity and cultural practices. Initially, Kranti only worked with the Pardhi community, to which Sunita belongs as well. Over time, they also started working with other groups living in remote areas, including Adivasi and DNT/NT communities. The core areas of focus for the organisation include education, gender and caste-based discrimination and violence, health, police brutality, women’s empowerment, atrocities, entitlements, social welfare schemes, and citizenship.

As an organisation led by a woman belonging to a De-notified tribe, Kranti had limited access to resources. As a result, Kranti was able to do very little in the way of organisational development in its first decade. Sunita had registered it as a nonprofit but did not know much about accounting, budgeting, programming, and other governance-related work. During this time, they had an organisational strength of four—of which two people were working in the field—and they faced great difficulty in raising funds. “We had no sustained sources of funding,” says Sunita, “so we had to rely on individual donations of up to INR 5,000 to cover costs.” Later on, Sunita also learned about fellowships provided by Dalit Foundation, CORO, ECONET, ActionAid, and SWISSAID and began to use this fellowship money to pay the staff.

This state of affairs continued until 2019. By this time, they were working in 10 villages in two blocks of Pune and had realised that to scale their work, they needed more staff, including accountants and documentation and fundraising officers. Then, a person who was familiar with Kranti’s work put them in touch with the nonprofit Jan Sahas. This led to Kranti receiving organisational development support through Jan Sahas’ Grassroots Resilience Institute (GRI), which has had a significant impact on Kranti’s fundraising abilities, operations, and reach.

The organisation’s annual budget during its first decade was INR 1–1.5 lakh. This has increased by almost 9x—their budget for the current 1.5-year period is INR 13 lakh. In addition, its organisational strength has grown approximately 8x, from four to 31. All these changes have also broadened their impact, which has more than doubled. Up until 2019, Kranti worked with approximately 1,200 families, but as of 2024, its work covers 3,000 households across 15 villages in Pune district and five villages in Ahmednagar district.

Behind these quantifiable changes are a host of transformations resulting from extensive organisational development efforts.

What changed?

1. Capacity building and connecting with other nonprofits

Kranti had several needs that required attention, but one of their most critical requirements was staff capacity development. The organisation operates in remote areas where skilled professionals are scarce, but with the opportunity for organisational development, Kranti was able to enhance its staff’s work efficiency, skills, knowledge, and leadership qualities.

Priyanka Jadhav, who handles documentation and fundraising at Kranti, says, “GRI’s intervention also involved monitoring and evaluation (M&E) exercises, fostering connections between Kranti and other organisations for funds, mentorship, and Kranti’s capacity development. For example, they put us in touch with other organisations such as Bridgespan that could help us make a 10–15-year plan. They also introduced us to SEWA, where we were assigned a mentor who works with us on skill development and identifying challenges.”

Kranti was thus able to tap into a network of nonprofits where they can start a dialogue on how to approach social issues, as well as certain aspects related to capacity building such as writing proposals and maintaining financial records.

2. Hiring more people

Funding also helped them hire more people. One of the first people Kranti hired was Priyanka. Sunita says, “Priyanka and I have known each other for a long time, almost 15 years. When she was getting her PhD, she expressed interest in serving the community rather than in getting a regular job.” After receiving the grant money, Kranti was able to hire Priyanka as well as an accountant.

Sunita says that having people who were university-educated and could communicate in English helped broaden Kranti’s donor outreach.  “Through Priyanka, we got the kind of know-how we needed for proposals or English translation.” Having all these new skill sets on board has helped them reach a level where they are able to fundraise effectively with other organisations, such as Forbes Foundation and Azim Premji Foundation.

Their work is also happening in a more streamlined manner now. “At first, a lot of our programming was haphazard. In addition, while equal opportunity and non-discrimination are organisational values at Kranti, we only instituted policies for them after receiving support for organisational development.” Kranti has formulated 12 policies, including POSH, finance, equal opportunity, and code of conduct. Although the policies are still being iterated on, the institution of a basic framework has helped bring transparency and a clearer sense of the organisation’s stance on certain issues.

3. Enhanced financial control

With improved financial management and the utilisation of accounting software, Kranti now has better control and visibility over their finances. Sunita reflects on the previous state of financing, “We didn’t know about the rules and regulations around how much money we could keep with us as cash or in cheques.” There were also no established procedures or due processes in place concerning the purchase of items by staff.

Hiring an accountant and instituting a finance policy has paid off and helped in improving resource allocation. Priyanka says, “Earlier, everyone would just go out in the field and buy whatever they thought was needed without obtaining quotations first or doing price comparisons. Now that the finance policy has been implemented, there is greater thought put into how and where money is spent.”  

4. Improved programme planning

The financial stability and enhanced record-keeping have enabled Kranti to engage in more thorough programme planning. Sunita says, “Now, we are able to allocate resources strategically, set clear objectives, and measure impact more effectively.” In addition, there is a structured plan for which programmes are to be conducted when, ensuring the intended outcome of the organisation’s work is measurable. Last year, for instance, Kranti succeeded in registering 1,000 DNT/NT and Adivasi people to the voter list and enabled more than 500 people to acquire caste certificates.

Having an office has also been useful for planning, holding meetings, and inculcating the atmosphere of an institution. For many years, before they had an office, Kranti operated out of Sunita’s home, and so this has been one of the most positive changes for her. “Besides being a place where we can all gather to discuss programme implementation, the office is where we do our monthly meeting in which we discuss what’s going on currently and our plans for the future.” Since the office space is where the entire team—including volunteers, ground teams, and management—meets, it lends to the feeling of being part of an institution. Kranti also has a website and a logo now, which have contributed to instilling a sense of organisational identity.

Challenges along the way

“Breaking old habits and forming new ones is always hard,” says Priyanka. This holds true for both the permanent staff as well as the resource persons that Kranti is associated with. For instance, although the new finance policy has helped account for any money being spent, Priyanka acknowledges that the processes have been an additional burden on the staff.  

Since there are hiring policies in place, the resource persons being engaged for a specific training programme are being asked for a CV. In addition, they are required to produce a plan for the activities they wish to undertake, as well as a report once the activities are completed. “This is jarring for the people we have engaged before, as they don’t understand why we are suddenly asking them for all this extra documentation,” Priyanka adds.  Since resource persons are hired based on educational experience and qualifications, it means more vetting work for the staff. 

To mitigate these challenges, Kranti conducted training sessions with the staff, explaining the importance of these policies and how they contribute to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of organisational programmes. Alongside clear communication and training, which helped them understand the rationale behind the policies, regular monitoring and feedback mechanisms were put in place to ensure that the staff were adhering to the policies and to help address any challenges that arose during implementation.

Advice to grassroots nonprofits

1. Understand the importance of formal processes

Organisations can often fall into the trap of believing that only the work being carried out on the ground is important, thus glossing over the importance of organisational structures, policies, and documentation. Sunita says, “We know 10–15 nonprofits in Maharashtra that do great work on the ground with Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi (DBA) or DNT/NT communities but do not know the first thing about the importance of filing taxes, having your 80(G) certificate, and audit reports.” This hinders their ability to tap into funding since some degree of documentation is a prerequisite to applying for and receiving grants.

On the flip side, however, such information is hard to come by for grassroots organisations, especially those that are operating in remote areas. “No one told us either about certifications, legal compliances, plans and reports, and having a vision/mission,” remarks Sunita. This is why developing as an organisation was so fundamental to Kranti’s work progressing to the next stage.

2. Learn how to separate and take due credit for your organisation’s work

Sunita and Priyanka relate something that happened with Kranti a few times in their initial years. Sunita says, “We were partnering with organisations that would award us fellowships of INR 5,000, INR 8,000, and so on. Over time, however, I realised that some of these nonprofits were passing off our work as theirs and making us out to be an implementing organisation. So, they were being awarded grants in crores of rupees while only a fraction of that amount made it to us.”

Thus, Priyanka and Sunita believe that grassroots nonprofits should be mindful of how their work is being represented, especially since representation impacts the perception of the organisation among stakeholders, including potential donors and partners as well as the community. Ensuring the organisation’s work is well represented can also aid in recruiting volunteers and staff members.  

Advice to funders

1. Fund grassroots organisations directly

Sunita says that in their first 12 years, even direct appeals to support channels bore little fruit. In part, this is because of well-established funding patterns followed by other players in the ecosystem, such as funders and grantmaking organisations. Big funders usually give money to grantmaking organisations that distribute funds to grassroots and implementing organisations. Since fundraising requires skill, resources, and networking—all of which grassroots organisations cannot always tap into—it is challenging for most organisations working on the ground to connect with funders.

Since funders have resources at their disposal, they may be better positioned to seek information on grassroots nonprofits working in the thematic areas they are interested in supporting. This is a complex exercise, but one that can potentially add value to existing funding models.

2. Focus on commitment and potential

According to Priyanka, many funders have mandates that prevent them from funding smaller organisations—for example, funding only those organisations that have a turnover of INR 50 lakh to INR 1 crore. “However, grassroots organisations sometimes do very impactful work even within budgets as low as INR 2 lakh. So, instead of assessing parameters such as annual budgets, a fairer method would be to look at how invested an organisation is in the work they do and how much better they could get once organisational structures are in place.” Funding developing organisations is always crucial, she adds. “Bigger nonprofits can survive because they already have resources at their disposal, but that is not the case for grassroots nonprofits.”

Grassroots organisations work directly with communities and the outcomes of this work are often clear. However, there are several barriers between nonprofits and funders, not least of which is a lack of exchange of information.  

What’s next for Kranti?

Kranti’s efforts towards developing as an organisation—by hiring personnel who could fundraise, building team members’ capabilities, and improving on reporting practices—had a ripple on their visibility to funders, as evidenced by the 9x increase in their budget. The organisation’s future plans, which involves extending their work to the entirety of Pune and Ahmednagar districts, would require them to continue on this path. “Right now, we work in 20 villages and cover 3,000 households. To expand the same work that we’re doing to 100–150 villages, we will need to secure five to six grants over the next two years,” says Sunita.

Ultimately, Kranti’s vision is also to make the villages that they work in independent. Sunita elaborates, “We want the situation to be such that when we’ve worked in a village for five years, we never have to work in it again and the communities themselves are capable of identifying and resolving any challenges that come up in the future.” This would help serve Kranti’s mission of ending the historical exclusion and stigmatisation of de-notified tribes, preventing violence against women, and ensuring the upliftment of marginalised groups.

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About Priyanka and Sunita

Priyanka Jadhav is a social activist and scholar currently working with Kranti as a documentation and fundraising officer. Priyanka has a PhD from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and is the first woman from the Kaikadi tribe (a de-notified tribe) to have completed a PhD in Maharashtra. Priyanka’s MPhil and PhD research projects looked into the changing livelihood practices of the Masanjogi community and the lives of Pardhi women respectively. Through her research, she gained insights into the complexities of marginalised communities’ lives and the urgent need for their inclusion in policy frameworks.

Sunita Bhosale is an activist and a social worker who belongs to the Pardhi tribe of Maharashtra. After working with various organisations at the grassroots level, she realised the need to establish an organisation that would serve marginalised communities in her area. In 2010, she founded Kranti to work on issues related to education, violence, entitlement, and social welfare schemes. Sunita recently returned to and successfully graduated from college, fulfilling a goal she was unable to earlier due to various challenges.

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An earlier version of this article stated that grassroots organisations are started to fill a perceived gap or in response to social issues. This was updated on March 22, 2024, to reflect that all organisations in the development sector are started with this aim and face similar challenges in the absence of organisational development.

This article was updated on April 5, 2024, to reflect that as an organisation led by a woman belonging to a De-notified tribe, Kranti had limited access to resources.

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Know more

• Read this case study to learn how a grassroots nonprofit can approach scale.
• Read this report to learn how a shift in funding practices could contribute to resilient nonprofits.

Amit Chandra is the co-founder of ATE Chandra Foundation, one of India’s largest philanthropic foundations that focuses on social sector capacity building and sustainable rural development.

He has been a trustee of the Tata Trusts, a founder/board member of Ashoka University, a board member of Give India and The Akanksha Foundation. He also is the chairperson and founder of Bain Capital, India, and has served as a board member at Tata Sons, Genpact, L&T Finance, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Piramal Enterprises, and Tata Investment Corporation.

In this wide-ranging conversation with India Development Review, Amit talks about the philanthropic values that matter to him, the challenges that donors face, the need for a community-centric approach to giving, and the lessons that failures teach.

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Know more

• Read this interview to learn more about the rise in strategic philanthropy.
• Read this article to find out more about philanthropy with an LGBTQIA+ lens.
• Read this article to understand why philanthropy must focus on systemic causes of exclusion.

Codification is not new. If we look at social sector organisations that have done this successfully in India, we can find great examples in the education and health sectors. For instance, Pratham Education Foundation codified the teaching module used to bridge learning gaps in students. It can be accessed by full-time, part-time, or remedial teachers to help students who are lagging behind. This method is now being used in other countries as well.

In the case of childbirth and prenatal and postnatal care, the health sector now has checklists and protocols that have led to drastic improvements in infant and maternal mortality rates. What these sectors have done is to codify the requirements for delivering results.

Codification can result in much-needed advantages for water conservation as well. For instance, frontline cadres are critical in driving behaviour change when it comes to better water use and agricultural practices. These cadres need not just technical know-how but also soft skills in leading by example. Similarly, when working with flagship government programmes to enhance water supply, nonprofits need to understand the state’s system, with its cycle of planning, approval, and budget allocation, as well as whom to engage with and when.

Typically, each new partner develops this knowledge for themselves. However, if they could refer to a ‘playbook’ based on the experiences and learnings of another organisation, the time for trial and error is reduced and they can become effective faster.

Funders should make the first move

As it turns out, nonprofits are busy doing what they need to do—executing programmes on the ground, working with communities, and driving social change. Their plates are full, and they often have limited resources to share their learnings with stakeholders beyond the programme.

As donors, we collaborate with diverse organisations implementing various programmes and can identify commonalities across them. We may be better positioned to see the ‘principles’ driving success and the challenges programmes and partners face. Over time, we amass substantial learnings on what works and what doesn’t in different contexts. For instance, at HUF, approximately 1,200 frontline workers drive behaviour change on water use across programmes. Thus, for us, codifying the most effective principles and orchestrating cross-learning between partners makes limited resources go a long way.

Communication design is crucial

It is not that the sector lacks knowledge or best practices. Almost all organisations we work with profile learnings in manuals, guidebooks, and programme documentation. However, accessing and using this wealth of information can be daunting. The material lacks navigability and often sits in documents or simply in the minds of people across the organisation.

Nonprofits do not always have the time, resources, or specialised communications expertise to compile and disseminate this knowledge effectively. This is why the development sector needs codification, led by expert communications partners who can design guides and do-it-yourself playbooks with specific building blocks in mind:

1. Multimedia and modular

For a codification playbook to be of real utility, it must be easy for end users to access, navigate, and understand. The format should be succinct, engaging, and user-friendly. A playbook can be made available online and can use a combination of multimedia tools—video, audio, text, and printable copies where required. Users should also be able to choose whether they want the entire module or just some parts. It should be possible for them to skip steps and dive into more material when needed. The material should be available as snippets as well as in detail. Similarly, these guides should be modular and offer opportunistic learning. People at different learning stages can use them to get updated on a specific theme or skill they need to know more about.

2. A strategic how-to guide

An impactful programme would typically have many moving parts. To ensure the replication of success, these parts would have to be unbundled so the core or essential component that accounts for most of the impact can be isolated. It could be a process, a routine, a principle, or a cultural mindset. Breaking it down into bite-sized sections or steps others can learn from becomes critical.

3. Descriptive, not prescriptive

A prototype being scaled to different contexts cannot resort to standardisation. Codification is not meant to tell our partners that there is only one way to achieve an objective. Instead, it is intended to be a directional guide. The idea is to take the learnings of an organisation that has done something well and share it with others who may need this learning. While the playbook acts as a guide, each person or team using it should also be able to customise and localise it after taking their cultural and regional nuances into account. It should allow different organisations to tweak it to serve their needs.

4. Iterative

All processes, toolkits, and playbooks risk becoming static and losing relevance over time. A good playbook should allow for the incorporation of new learnings from organisations or funders who test and use it. If something doesn’t work for them or if they’ve tried a different approach that does work, they should be able to add that learning into the playbook. The idea that there can be different ways of achieving similar impact is fundamental to scalability. A willingness to learn from success and failure is also vital for effective scaling.

We work in a dynamic ecosystem, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Therefore, codification cannot be a one-time effort and should keep getting updated collaboratively.

HUF’s vision is to use these codified playbooks as a platform where more and more partners add their own experiences or resources. The playbook should encourage transparency and openness and act as a document for the public good, ensuring funders and civil society organisations aggregate resources and combine capabilities while keeping solutions relevant to local contexts. These diverse layers, levels, and perspectives can help the development sector scale impact successfully.

Know more

• Dip into this playbook to learn how to build an effective frontline cadre.
• Read about what the social sector needs to do to scale scaling up.
• Read about whether an organisation’s size is the right metric to measure impact

Service design—the process of optimizing both a service provider and user’s experience—has a particularly important role to play in solving complex social challenges, given its co-creative and human-centered approach. 

At Noora Health, we continuously use service design to revamp, redesign, or create entirely new services in order to deepen our impact and engagement with the caregivers, patients, and healthcare providers we collaborate with. Often, the different touchpoints between a service provider and user are designed by separate teams or verticals. Think of an app designed by a software engineer and a takeaway pamphlet conceptualized by a communications designer. Both are part of the same health education service for new mothers and their families, but developed deliberately in silos, which can ultimately lead to less intuitive offerings or support for the end user.

As service designers, we cut through the silos and glue the pieces together. Once the end-to-end service is in place, it’s important to communicate it to the relevant stakeholders, especially those implementing and delivering the work in practice. This helps build a shared understanding and collect feedback.

A service prototype is a great way of achieving these objectives. Typically done in the early stages of design, one can do this by creating a quick video, roleplaying or enacting the service from beginning to end, or even using Lego sets to create a model of the service that people can ‘walk through’ with their hands. This helps the end-users understand or experience the service as a whole, while also gathering their feedback.

Walkthroughs: Simulating a service experience

Although service prototypes are the best way of testing the strengths and weaknesses of a service, they can often be time and resource intensive. Much of our work at Noora Health is in collaboration with partners across the public health system who have their own (often constrained) timelines. This often leaves us with limited time to prototype and test the end-to-end service in sequence with health staff and end-users.

However, to ensure the quality of our service and its uptake across healthcare facilities, we still need to gather feedback and explain it to teams implementing it in hospitals on a day-to-day basis. 

Back in November 2022, this need led to the creation of our first ever ‘service walkthrough’—an interactive, live service that allowed internal stakeholders to experience the key, near-final tools and components in the same sequence as the intended experience of the end-user, whilst being guided by a facilitator. While this may sound similar to a service prototype in many ways, the walkthrough has three core elements that set it apart: the intended audiences (internal stakeholders), stage of completion of tools (final), and the use of a facilitator (who helps the audience understand the nuances and details of each touchpoint and tool, as well as content and communication strategies).

How did we make it happen? 

First, we set out to recreate the hospital environment within the four walls of our office. To do this we allocated spaces and rooms to mirror the touchpoints in the hospital, such as the pharmacy or the inpatient ward. To make it feel more realistic, we took pictures of the facilities, printed and stuck them up in each location. Additionally, we played four short videos on loop on a projector to give people the experience of being in a noisy and crowded hospital. We also placed all of the tools and components designed by the program design and development team, such as danglers and flipcharts, in their intended locations. 

Next, we printed signs explaining the different hospital staff who would be present in each room, the various interactions between staff and patients that would take place, and the amount of time the staff, patients, and caregivers are expected to spend at each touchpoint.  

Finally, we sequentially took various team members through the service explaining each point of contact in detail from start to finish. We explained what the patients and families already experience at the hospitals, and what additional artifacts and interactions we are placing in front of them, and how that would impact their experience.

What were some of the key outcomes of the walkthrough?

Teams across the organization found value in the walkthrough. For instance, the implementation teams responsible for setting the program up in public health facilities understood it well, asked pointed questions, and provided valuable feedback that helped us either iterate quickly or plan for feedback and validation post-launch. The research team—who were planning to test some of our artifacts in hospitals—were able to better understand the artifacts, as well as the context of the service they sit in. While observing the walkthrough unfold, the team that designed the program tools and flow were able to spot gaps and plan for quick iteration. 

In an unexpected win, the training team was also inspired to set up the space for their sessions in a similar manner, so that participating nurses could experience firsthand what the program will look and feel like.

What did we learn?

Like any well-designed prototyping exercise, the walkthrough showed us both what we were doing well, and what we could do better. A few of our takeaways were:

1. Conduct a version of the walkthrough sooner: While it is extremely important for teams to go through the final version of the experience, we found that it didn’t give us enough leeway to incorporate and iterate on their feedback. Having a walkthrough of the semi-complete service and tools would allow us to do so.
2. Get feedback on the walkthrough from health staff, patients, and caregivers: While we conduct intensive needs assessments to understand what patients, their caregivers, and health staff really need, test individual touchpoints and tools with them, and co-create as much as possible—we don’t always have time to test our entire service with them sequentially. Feedback on the end-to-end service walkthrough from people with lived experiences of working in and navigating healthcare settings would help us catch any gaps and make our service more comprehensive—aspects that would otherwise ideally get covered in the prototyping stage. 
3. Make it self-explanatory: Rather than depending on facilitators, we realized that allowing people to walk through it at their own pace would help them focus on the parts they care more about. For example, the training team would need to understand the session in the wards over any other part of the service. Doing it at their own pace could have helped them dive deeper into that section, and provide more nuanced feedback.
4. Document, document, document: Though we created a video recording of the walkthrough, it was too long and too focused on the facilitation rather than the tools and signage. To make sure that people can refer back to service at any point in the future, we understood that it needed to be documented in multiple formats that would make it easier to access.
5. Create a virtual version: Our original walkthrough had the option to be hybrid, but we observed that the experience was notably better for people who experienced it in person.

Taking these insights onboard, nearly a year later, we experimented with a completely virtual walkthrough when testing out a new service.

Bringing the virtual walkthrough to life

Similar to the in-person experience, our starting point for the virtual walkthrough was creating a three dimensional model that represented the various points of engagement. This was then uploaded into a virtual world on spatial.io.

By creating avatars in the virtual world, anyone could join the experience and interact with the service touchpoints and tools.

We conducted the walkthrough by roleplaying healthcare workers, patients, and caregivers and acted out real-life scenarios that we imagined would exist within our intervention.

The pros and cons of going virtual

Like its physical counterpart, the virtual walkthrough was also successful in explaining the service and generating actionable feedback for us. It was also extremely useful to bridge the disconnect with team members working remotely across geographies.

We also found a few areas for improvement. First, due to the limitations of the virtual platform used, actual interaction with the touchpoints was more restricted than we had predicted. For instance, many key stakeholders were unable to hold, touch, and feel the artifacts and tools that they would eventually implement and deliver, limiting their engagement and leading to some confusion around the actual size of the tools and how they were to be placed in the facilities.

Both the in-person walkthrough and the 3D, virtual walkthrough proved invaluable in enhancing communication and understanding for our internal stakeholders, as well as getting feedback from them.

Refining, adapting, growing

Recently, we have designed yet another version of the service walkthrough for our newly-launched program in Indonesia. Here, we used storyboards on a Miro to try out another way of communicating services virtually. Similarly, the team in Bangladesh is gearing up to do both early-stage, low fidelity service prototyping and a high fidelity, more final service walkthrough soon after. As we continue scaling and expanding across countries, internal walkthroughs have become the norm, and rightly so. They help get people on the same page, get feedback, and test more, in order to ensure high quality service delivery. What’s more, now that internal stakeholders are used to walkthroughs and are seeing more value in them, we have been able to advocate for longer duration, low fidelity service prototyping more easily.

From each iteration, we are consistently learning and generating ideas to make the service more user-friendly and holistic. Social change is complex, but service walkthroughs (or any other form of service prototyping) can help keep people at the heart of it. We hope that sharing our insights and observations will help build more thoughtful and intuitive public healthcare services, allowing us to learn from each other’s experiences and strengthen the system as a whole. 

This article was originally published on Noora Health.

A health survey conducted by McKinsey Health Institute in 2023 found that Indians had the highest rate of burnout symptoms (59 percent) from a surveyed pool of more than 30,000 workers across 30 countries. The global average was 22 percent. The statistics for India were telling: Indians reported the highest levels of exhaustion (62 percent), cognitive impairment (67 percent), emotional impairment (58 percent), and mental distance (59 percent).

Burnout does no one good, and if we want to eliminate the word from our work vocabulary, we may need to give that other word—sabbatical—more play. A sabbatical denotes paid or unpaid leave for a period, from a few weeks to several months.

The need for sabbaticals is especially important in the development sector where resources are perpetually stretched. Leaders feel the pressure more keenly as they often bear the weight of the organisation. When they burn out, it isn’t the organisation alone that caves in; the people they serve are also adversely affected. And yet, social sector leaders find it difficult to step away from their responsibilities and take a sabbatical.

Vishal Talreja knows this well. The co-founder and trustee of Dream a Dream grappled with burnout and was compelled to take sabbaticals to deal with it. Discovering first-hand the life-changing benefits of extended time off, and alert to the reasons that keep people from it, he designed The Cocoon Initiative—a programme that funds sabbaticals in the social sector. The initiative, which is supported by the Chintu Gudiya Foundation, offers financial assistance to leaders so they can take a minimum of three months off work. Time away is expected to help them reflect on their mission and return to work with renewed stamina and purpose.

In this interview, Vishal and Donald Lobo, executive director of the Chintu Gudiya Foundation, talk to Smarinita Shetty and Joeanna Rebello Fernandes about the value sabbaticals can bring to the social sector; why more funders should put their weight behind the policy; and what organisations can do to bridge policy and practice.

Why are sabbaticals important?

Vishal: I have two perspectives on this. The first is from my own experience as a social entrepreneur and leader. For the first 10 years of running Dream a Dream, I didn’t believe I would ever get exhausted or burned out. But then I did. A day came when I just didn’t want to go to work. I packed a few clothes, got into a bus and, eight hours later, landed in Coorg. I switched my phone off, slept, and went on long walks, all the while seeking answers to the question: Why did I not want to go to work?

In the nonprofit world, especially in India, the pace of work only keeps increasing.

Many entrepreneurs are feeling burdened quicker and reaching burnout faster.

In the pursuit of creating transformative change in the lives of young people, I had run myself aground physically, mentally, and emotionally. Time away from work helped me see the blind spots in my leadership; the way I was building the organisation, its culture, systems, and processes; and the way I was showing up for my team. This week-long self-enforced break and the subsequent year-long investment in honest self-reflection led to a fundamental shift in my approach to work and leadership.

This is the power of a sabbatical. It helped me rebuild the organisation into the high-impact, thriving nonprofit it is today. But it wouldn’t have happened had I not been forced to take that break. Stepping away gives you a different lens on the work, the organisation, and your own leadership style.

My second perspective has been framed by entrepreneurs I have met and mentored. The regulatory and governance environment in India has become very difficult for nonprofits over the last decade. At the same time, there has been a big push towards new ideas, innovations, and scaling big and fast. Many entrepreneurs are feeling burdened quicker and reaching burnout faster. But their organisations lack the support systems to bolster them; they recognise that they need to take time off and rest and recalibrate, yet they’re unable to do it because the organisation has not reached a level of stability to allow them to take that kind of break.

Donald: The importance of long breaks from work has been established for a while. It’s common for tech companies to give employees a paid sabbatical of three to six months after they’ve worked for five to seven years. In the nonprofit world, especially in India, the pace of work only keeps increasing. I’ve seen leaders struggling with it, but neither they nor their organisations had the capacity or the structure to allow them to take a break. In the few cases that people did take one, they also took a financial hit. So, getting funders to promote sabbaticals is also one of the key objectives of The Cocoon Initiative.

How can leaders identify and deal with early signs of burnout?

Vishal: Ideally, we shouldn’t reach the stage of burnout at all; that’s too late already. A sabbatical is something leaders should look forward to, rather than something they’re forced to take because they’re burned out. It should be an intentional, conscious break they take every few years to thrive, flourish, recalibrate, and rest.

Having said that, we don’t have the systems and mechanisms to support sabbaticals yet. I’ve taken three sabbaticals over 23 years. I was forced to take two of those because I fell extremely ill. My body reacted to the exhaustion and burnout. I had gut issues; I was dealing with depression. When your body starts responding adversely, that’s a clear sign you need a break.

I also took a sabbatical when I sensed I needed to play a different role in the organisation. I had done what I could as a leader, but if I had to leapfrog to the next level of personal and professional growth, I had to do something fundamentally different, either by upskilling or adopting a very different lens to the work and my approach to leadership. It was this realisation that pushed me to take the sabbatical.

You could also be driven to it when you realise you don’t find joy or purpose in your work anymore. Planned sabbaticals can give us the time and space for authentic reflections.

Donald: Once you burn out, the recovery period is much longer. We should instead treat sabbaticals as part and parcel of life. But people aren’t even taking enough holidays. I think the board and senior leadership should nudge people to take breaks on a continuous basis, rather than just when they’re burned out.

What support systems are needed to encourage sabbaticals, both within the organisation and in the larger social sector ecosystem?

Donald: A positive culture of approval should be built around breaks and vacations. Such a culture would also strengthen the organisation by creating a system where other people can step in and take the organisation forward when the leader takes a break. However, this is hard to achieve without the help of a funding ecosystem.

With initiatives like Cocoon, we’re saying here’s something to get it started, and hopefully, over time, more and more funders—perhaps even your existing funders—can help you establish a sabbatical policy. Ultimately, provisions like this should fall within a normal funding cycle. It should be part of your regular HR policy and organisation budget. You shouldn’t need a third funder. Programmes like ours should not exist forever. 

Vishal: From my own experience, in the early years of this work, there was a lot of guilt attached to taking a break, even a weekend off. This is due, in part, to the social and cultural norms in India, where we are constantly told we need to work hard because hard work will pay off in the long run. We are told to keep busy, so we won’t be depressed; to keep our minds occupied, because having free time is wrong.

The lack of financial stability that many leaders at the grassroots struggle with impacts their ability to take a break.

Now, that was probably true for a different generation. But in the fast-paced and complex world we live and work in today, hard work doesn’t necessarily lead to thriving; it could potentially lead to burnout and mental health challenges. It took me a while to understand this. There were months when I felt stuck at work, but I told myself, “Just keep doing the work, and you’ll get out of this phase. It’s just a phase.”

At the organisation level, as Lobo said, policies and budgets that can contribute to a culture of rest and rejuvenation are absent. And funders don’t necessarily take that approach to investment in leadership.

When I took my sabbaticals, I didn’t get a salary from the organisation. This meant that I didn’t have the funds to take care of a lot of my personal expenses. And I couldn’t support my parents with some of their expenses or medical emergencies. Our salaries are not high, and many of us do not have the savings to take care of anything unexpected that crops up. The lack of financial stability that many leaders at the grassroots struggle with impacts their ability to take a break, and they continue to function month on month because that monthly salary is critical for them.

What also holds leaders back from taking sabbaticals is the lack of second-line leadership. If there’s no one to take over in the leader’s absence, or if the organisation does not have the systems and processes needed to run the organisation and handle crises, the leader will keep getting pulled back to tackle urgent issues, and even mundane ones like sharing OTPs. All this brings the leader back into the organisation when what they need is a clean break.

The third problem is, in India, governance boards are typically advisory boards. This means they’re there to support the leader or the entrepreneur, but they don’t necessarily know what to do if the entrepreneur is not around. So, again, we need to build the leadership capacity of the board to take care of the organisation in the leader’s absence.  

How do you put these support systems in place?

Donald: Most organisations won’t get it right the first time around, or even the second or third time, but their approach could be, “OK, this person is going to be away for the next three months; let’s make sure that we can continue at 80 percent capacity and have systems in place so that we’re not compelled to get in touch with them. Setting up processes and improving systems to make this happen will build much stronger organisations.

How can organisations bridge the gap between policy and practice to enable employees to take breaks?

Vishal: At Dream a Dream, we had a policy called Learning Leave where any team member could take 10 days off every year and do whatever they wanted—a no-agenda leave. We realised that only approximately 25 percent of the team was availing it. This led us to wonder if there was something in our culture that was preventing people from taking this leave. One reason was the guilt attached to taking leave for personal growth, which comes from social conditioning. The second was that even though people wanted to take leave, they were worried that managers or team members might not appreciate it.

We had to work with our team for a couple of years to make the shift from eyebrow-raising to celebrating when someone takes a break. This meant that we, at the leadership level, had to role-model it and start taking that leave ourselves. Simply having a policy on paper does not help; it needs to be built into the culture of the organisation.

How can funders help?  

Vishal: Funders can proactively allocate funds for sabbaticals. If you’ve been funding an organisation for three to five years and have built a great relationship with the leaders and the team, why not extend an additional fund to help them create a sabbatical policy? In an ideal scenario, 5–7 percent of a funder’s allocation should go towards the team’s well-being, which could include sabbaticals.

Donald: What I tell nonprofits is, when you are given unrestricted funds, use them to invest in people, to make them happier at work, to increase salaries and benefits. Funders need to explicitly tell their grantees to spend 10–20 percent on their people, and paid sabbaticals and breaks could be a part of their allocation. We don’t do a very good job at that in the sector. That’s what our pitch to funders should be—give the nonprofit the flexibility to invest in what would make their workplace more fun and a lot safer and allow employees to experiment and learn for themselves. 

What will it take to convince funders to come on board this initiative and, over time, build sabbaticals into their normal funding cycles?

Vishal: My sense is, it’s too early to start talking to other funders. We need to have a few stories out there of senior leaders who have taken sabbaticals and been impacted by them. We can then use that to go to other funders and say, this is the kind of impact it can have on the leader and on the organisation and its work, so it makes good business sense to invest in the well-being of the senior leadership. It means that they can come back with more growth, ideas, and innovations and create a bigger impact. We’ll have to show that connection.

We’re not going to be able to change everyone’s minds immediately.

We don’t want The Cocoon Initiative to exist in perpetuity. What we’re hoping is that organisations themselves will start seeing the impact of this and put policies in place, and then ask their funders to invest in it. The initiative will give them the evidence and stories to help them talk to funders.

Donald: We’re not going to be able to change everyone’s minds immediately. There’ll always be the early adopters, the midterm adopters, and the large percentage who will come on board slowly. In addition to demonstrating how useful this is, we must also talk about it extensively with other funders.  

What kind of impact would you like to see this initiative have on the sector five years from now?  

Vishal: For me, it’s about creating an attitudinal shift in the sector. It’s about moving away from the mindset of scarcity—of guilt about investing in yourself and having to sacrifice and work till your last breath to create change—and towards a mindset of abundance. The work we’re trying to do in the sector is complex; we’re dealing with very difficult issues, and we witness more failure than success. So, it’s important that we operate from a space of abundance and celebrate the breaks along the way. One of the things social sector leaders struggle with is, as soon as we climb a summit, we’re looking at the next summit. We don’t pause to acknowledge past victories. We should celebrate milestones, celebrate rest, because it’s a necessary step to be able to do better.  

Donald: Even if we have 10–20 nonprofits instituting these policies, encouraging people to take time off, and investing in people much more than what we are doing today, and if we have three to five large funders supporting those nonprofits, that would be success to me. Having the sector take care of its own people proactively is essential, because you want them to recharge long before they come anywhere close to burnout, and in a way that’s financially, morally, ethically, and culturally acceptable to everyone.

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Know more

• Dive into this series for a panoramic perspective on the impact of well-being on social change work.
• Listen to this podcast to understand why more companies should design a sabbatical policy. 
• Read this first-person account to learn how a founder sabbatical can benefit an organisation.

The members of the Constituent Assembly considered these values as central to addressing entrenched issues of poverty, illiteracy, and systemic social discrimination along caste, class, gender, and religious lines. When put into practice by people and institutions, these values, rights, principles, and duties sustain our secular, democratic republic. Therefore, it is important for all citizens and organisations—but especially those working against rights violations and discrimination—to closely understand the Constitution.

Despite being progressive and forward-thinking, how much of the Constitution have we internalised and put into action? Two nonprofit organisations and a government institution explain how they use the Constitution in their work with people and communities. They speak of the various ways in which they instil constitutional values into the collective consciousness to bring about an ideological shift, and how they connect rights and laws to realities on the ground so that all sections of society are able to access legal tools.

Understanding the Constitution is a journey, not an event

CIVICACT Foundation, an organisation that works at the grassroots in Madhya Pradesh, highlights how understanding and applying these values and principles is a continuous journey, not a one-time event. Developing a lens informed by constitutional values is a gradual process that unfolds over months or even years. Consistently creating a space to experience fraternity, equality, and freedom as well as to reflect and discuss deep-set ideologies and beliefs is crucial to fostering change. CIVICACT achieves this through workshops that extend over several months, facilitating discussions among people from diverse caste, gender, and class backgrounds. These workshops also promote holistic thinking and empathy. For example, in one of the first workshops, participants are given a question to debate, such as “Is violence justifiable in some cases?”. The nuances raised in these workshops are connected to the values of equality, justice, fraternity, liberty, and rights while bringing in the participants’ contexts and ground realities.

Samvada, a Karnataka-based organisation dedicated to youth rights and empowerment, forms ongoing relationships with the young people it works with. Many of the youth it trains continue to actively work for change in their colleges by conducting fact-finding exercises on issues faced by their community. For example, they recently demanded the creation of internal complaints committees (under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act, 2013) in their colleges. However, this point is reached after a two-year training programme divided into three phases. During the first phase of their engagement with youth, Samvada concentrates on sensitising participants to themes such as caste, gender, class, religion, and the intersectionality of these structures of inequality. This approach allows them to lay a foundation for unpacking and understanding structural discrimination before connecting it to constitutional principles. In the second phase, they conduct workshops to build leadership skills as well as cover topics such as the Preamble and Fundamental Rights and Duties—these are taught by referencing real-life experiences. In the third phase, they connect the learnings of the first two years and act on issues faced by their communities.

Balancing tradition with the Constitution

In India, various traditions and beliefs often run counter to the principles and rights enshrined in our Constitution. These contradictions can be seen in practices such as Karva Chauth, where only women observe fasts for the longevity of their husbands, or in instances where women are barred from entering certain mosques. Recognising the deeply ingrained nature of these societal norms and people’s strong attachments to their beliefs is crucial to navigating the balance between upholding constitutional values and respecting traditions that may be at odds with constitutional principles.

Ram Narayan Syag from CIVICACT emphasises how the transformative power of change can start within one’s own family. He recounts the journey of Rekha*, a woman from a scheduled caste background, who challenged age-old casteist practices in her village in Jaipur district. Previously in this village, following local tradition, if a person considered ‘upper-caste’ visited the home of a Dalit, the latter would ceremoniously vacate their chair and offer it to the visitor, choosing to sit on the floor even if other chairs were available. Because of various constitutional literacy workshops, Rekha recognised the discriminatory nature of this custom and began speaking about it within her family. After members of her family started unfollowing this tradition, many other households in the village followed suit.

Connecting one’s local cultural heritage to the values in the Preamble is another way of nurturing acceptance of the Constitution.

Initiating this change, however, was not without challenges. The family, initially resistant, required many months of open discussions before they could be persuaded. She actively listened to the concerns of her grandfather and father, seeking to understand their perspectives and feelings of fear and ostracisation, before managing to convince them of the need to abandon this discriminatory tradition.

Connecting one’s local cultural heritage to the values in the Preamble is another way of trying to spread awareness and nurture acceptance of the Constitution. When facilitators at Samvada have to contend with the assertion that B R Ambedkar and others copied the Indian Constitution from the West, they find a way to connect the teachings of local social reformers to the ideals in the document. For example, they bring in the teachings of Basava and Kabir, poets and social reformers from the Bhakti movement period who rejected gender and social discrimination, or Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, who fought against societal evils to provide girls and Dalit castes access to education in the 1800s.

In order to make the Constitution accessible to all, the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) started a programme called The Citizen in February 2022, employing volunteers known as ‘senators’. Several volunteers who had previously believed in inherently unequal local superstitions such as women should not be allowed in the Sabarimala temple changed their minds after engaging in trainings related to constitutional literacy. They told KILA that they just weren’t aware of the rights and principles in the Constitution and how these provisions applied to them.

Creating systems to mobilise people

Even though India’s Constitution is considered one of the most liberal and progressive globally, many people in the country aren’t familiar with its contents. Since gaining independence, successive governments have failed to prioritise widespread awareness. As a result, civil society organisations (CSOs) working on this have had to come up with new and creative ways to impart constitutional principles and rights.

Before starting The Citizen programme in Kollam district, KILA created an environment conducive to learning across the state. They did so by mobilising gram panchayats, bureaucrats, and political parties to learn about constitutional rights and responsibilities and educate communities they had influence in. According to V Sudesan, senior faculty at KILA, because of Kerala’s historical precursors—high literacy and a history of people’s participation in governance—there was no opposition to educating citizens on the Constitution. The plan was discussed with the many stakeholders—college students, teachers, youth organisations, and even religious organisations—who played a pivotal role in rallying people to attend constitutional literacy classes and workshops.

Additionally, the gram panchayats selected approximately 4000 ‘senators’ or volunteers, who were paid an honorarium of INR 1000 per month and trained by KILA about the Constitution and its relevance in day-to-day life. These volunteers in turn engaged with their families and the schools, local public offices, and religious institutions in their neighbourhood. KILA intentionally trained youngsters from the community—more than 80 percent of whom were women—instead of government teachers to prevent the facilitators from falling back to conventional teaching methods. Kollam is the first district in India that is 100 percent constitutionally literate. One of the challenges that the Kerala state machinery faced was that though ‘ordinary’ people—MGNREGA workers, women, students from rural and marginalised backgrounds, and even some heads of religious institutions—were open to the process, those with formal education and from an upper-class background tended to be resistant. This is because they felt like they already knew about the Constitution, and that the programme would be a waste of their time.

What will it take to instil constitutional values on ground?

Over the course of their work, here’s what KILA, Samvada, and CIVICACT Foundation have learned about instilling constitutional values on ground:

1. Fostering a sense of ownership can help connect people with the Constitution

All three organisations demonstrate that empowering the youth, disadvantaged sections, and women, along with encouraging leadership roles, plays a pivotal role in spreading awareness about and enabling action on constitutional values, rights, and duties. This approach creates a sense of ownership among people. Also, establishing a connection between injustices or rights violations and the corresponding constitutional remedies makes the Constitution more tangible.

2. Various tools can be employed to create dialogues about constitutional values 

KILA spreads constitutional literacy through YouTube and social media platforms. Displaying the Preamble in schools, colleges, and public spaces is another effective and simple tool to disseminate information about the Constitution. The Karnataka government has established libraries with youth clubs for regular discussions on community issues and values. Holding such discussions in open spaces, where there are individuals from diverse backgrounds, encourages people to learn from one another’s lived experiences, sensitising them to rights violations that may be happening with someone else. Incorporating positive aspects of local cultures and traditions—often through theatre, music, and games—is also important.

3. Connecting the Constitution to other programmes can help highlight its relevance in addressing social challenges

Samvada integrates the Constitution into every programme it runs, ensuring a connection between core themes such as gender and caste with constitutional principles. In this way, CSOs can apply the lens of the Constitution on issues they work on. By bridging the gap between societal issues, lived experiences, and constitutional principles, organisations can contribute to an understanding and appreciation of the Constitution’s relevance in addressing social challenges.

In addition to these, citizen’s movements, CSOs, and nonprofits that are working to promote values of equality, liberty, justice, and fraternity, and/or work on rights, should come together and share ideas and methods to create a more constitutionally literate India. 

*Name changed to maintain confidentiality.

Bipin Kumar, Ram Narayan Syag, V Sudesan, Poornima Kumar, and Ramakka R contributed their valuable insights to the article.

CIVICACT Foundation and KILA are part of Har Dil Mein Samvidhan, a campaign to create awareness about Constitutional values.

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Know more

• Watch this explainer on the Constitution of India.
• Read this to learn more about preserving constitutional values.
• Read this article to learn how the Constitution can be used in classrooms.