Different Types of Philanthropy in India and How to Choose the Right Approach
- Shrilaxmi Patil
- Sep 23
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 30
India’s tradition of giving is centuries old. Practices such as daan, dasvandh, zakat, and sadaqa continue to shape cultural and religious life. At the same time, modern philanthropy in India is being redefined by data, evidence, and strategy. The central question has shifted from “How much should we give?” to “How do we make every rupee count?”
This is where Effective Altruism (EA) offers a compelling framework. Instead of funding based on emotion or visibility, EA asks donors to focus on measurable outcomes and high-leverage opportunities. It challenges us to consider the scale of a solution (how many people can be helped), the neglectedness of the issue (how many funders are already working in the area), and the tractability of the solution (is there a proven or testable solution?). When applied rigorously, this mindset can help Indian philanthropists — whether everyday givers, high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), or institutions — achieve a vastly greater impact.
Direct Delivery and Systemic Change: Two Approaches, One Goal
At the heart of strategic philanthropy is a simple tension: should we deliver solutions directly, or should we change the system so those solutions sustain themselves?
Direct delivery means getting a proven solution straight to the people who need it. Examples include distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, running mobile vaccination clinics, or subsidising clean cookstoves. The advantages are clear: results are fast, measurable, and life-changing. But these efforts can stall once funding ends. If the programme does not integrate into markets or public systems, the gains risk disappearing.
Systemic change, by contrast, tackles the structures and incentives that shape access. Instead of directly handing out cookstoves, a systemic project might create supply chains of local entrepreneurs who sell them, or lobby for national subsidies that make clean cooking affordable. The impact is slower to appear, but far more durable. When the system itself changes, millions stand to benefit without ongoing philanthropic subsidy.
In practice, the two approaches are complementary. Direct programmes meet urgent needs today and generate evidence about what works. Systemic strategies ensure those solutions reach scale and last beyond the life of a grant. For India, where millions still lack basic services but markets and governance are dynamic, combining both is essential.
Case Study: D-Prize and the Power of Distribution
One example of direct delivery done strategically is D-Prize. This nonprofit exists on the premise that the world already has many proven, cost-effective solutions like bed nets, textbooks, fortified food, and solar lamps, but they are not reaching everyone who needs them. The problem is the distribution of these solutions to the people who need them.
D-Prize identifies talented local entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries and provides them with small seed grants, typically between US $10,000 - $20,000. Despite the modest size, these grants have seeded over 200 organisations across health, education, energy, and agriculture. Some striking results:
94 of the last 100 awardees were locally led organisations that had raised US$5,000 or less before D-Prize support.
23% of funded ventures have scaled to serve 100,000+ people within five years.
Collectively, D-Prize organisations have mobilised US$87 million in follow-on funding and provided 11 million people with life-enhancing products or services.
For India, the relevance is obvious. Projects like Read Imagine Grow Association (RIGA), which tackles learning gaps in rural schools with low resources, or Raitagyana, which equips smallholder farmers in Karnataka with resources, knowledge, and market access, show how small amounts of capital can unleash local problem-solvers. These ventures deliver immediate benefits while strengthening community institutions to sustain change.
D-Prize illustrates how direct delivery, when tied to entrepreneurship and evidence, can be both high-impact and scalable. It also shows the importance of “last mile” innovation in India, where geography, inequality, and fragmented supply chains often prevent proven solutions from reaching people.
Case Study: Market Shaping for Systemic Impact
What happens when the right product does not yet exist, or exists but is too expensive for Indian households? This is where market shaping becomes powerful. The idea is to create incentives that make it worthwhile for firms to innovate or scale products with high social value.
Several instruments have proven effective globally:
Advance Market Commitments (AMCs): Donors commit to buying a new product that meets agreed standards. A landmark AMC for pneumococcal vaccines immunised more than 150 million children and saved an estimated 700,000 lives. Importantly, the Serum Institute of India was a key supplier, showing how Indian industry can thrive under such models.
Advance Purchase Agreements (APAs): Similar to AMCs but often with a single buyer. During COVID-19, APAs allowed governments to reserve vaccines even before approval, giving firms the confidence to scale up manufacturing.
Milestone Payments: Innovators receive funding only after hitting verifiable milestones. NASA’s contract with SpaceX used this model, enabling launch capabilities at a fraction of traditional costs.
Prizes and Challenges: Cash rewards for achieving a specific technical or social goal, opening the field to non-traditional performers.
Volume Guarantees: Donors or governments promise to buy a minimum volume of an existing product, reducing risk for manufacturers and often lowering prices.
Market shaping has already expanded beyond health. The Frontier AMC, a US$1 billion commitment by companies like Stripe and Alphabet, is creating demand for carbon removal technologies that otherwise would have struggled to attract investment. This mechanism is relevant for India’s climate challenges too: commitments for climate-resistant seed varieties or green energy technologies could make future markets real today.
The attraction of market shaping is leverage. Donors pay only when success is achieved. Innovators are incentivised to put in their own capital. Consumers benefit as costs fall and products become available. For Indian philanthropists and policymakers, these tools can turn seemingly intractable problems into solvable ones.
Case Study: Mid-Scale Science as a Catalyst for Discovery
Not all innovation comes from billion-dollar “big science” projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, nor from small, individual PI-led grants. Some of the most transformative breakthroughs come from mid-scale science: focused projects requiring tens of millions of dollars that create enabling datasets, instruments, and platforms. These efforts sit in the “missing middle” of research funding, yet they can accelerate entire fields by providing public goods that everyone else can build upon.
Traditional funding structures are poorly suited for this. University centres spread money across dozens of labs, diluting focus and making it hard to recruit professional engineers or software developers. Meanwhile, big-science infrastructure is too rigid and slow-moving for agile projects like AI-ready datasets, low-cost measurement tools, or new platform technologies. Without mid-scale investment, progress can be bottlenecked.
Philanthropy is uniquely positioned to fill this gap. By funding Focused Research Organisations (FROs) or similar vehicles, donors can support teams of 10–30 scientists and engineers working full-time on a single mission for 5–7 years. These projects pursue concrete, measurable milestones—like creating a massive open dataset, building a novel instrument, or launching a robust open-source software platform—then hand them off to the broader ecosystem as public goods. The approach borrows startup discipline (tight milestones, autonomy, speed) but delivers outcomes for science rather than profits.
Here are some examples of Mid-Scale Science in action:
E11 Bio, a non-profit team mapping the structural wiring of the brain with new imaging technologies, is developing scalable methods to chart millions of neuronal connections. Their work could unlock insights into brain disorders and AI alike.
Cultivarium, another FRO, is building open-source protocols and tools for specific microorganisms, making thousands of previously inaccessible species available for synthetic biology. This could have applications in sustainable chemicals, food, and climate solutions.
Align Foundation is creating massive, open datasets and tournaments for protein engineering, providing benchmarks that the entire scientific community can use to test and improve AI models for biology.
This matters for India’s research ecosystem, which is rich in talent but is often constrained by infrastructure. Mid-scale science projects could transform this landscape by:
Creating national AI-ready datasets in health, agriculture, or air quality.
Building low-cost instruments suited to Indian conditions (rugged diagnostics, clean-cooking emissions sensors).
Establishing shared facilities like biofoundries or chip prototyping labs accessible to startups and universities.
By backing mid-scale science, Indian philanthropists can create multipliers for the entire innovation ecosystem. Mid-scale science is the bridge between bold ideas and scalable solutions.
How Donors Can Decide: From Individuals to Institutions
The question remains: how should Indian donors decide which approach to pursue? The answer depends on both the problem and the resources available.
For individual donors giving modest sums, direct delivery often makes sense. Funding proven interventions like deworming or immunisation drives provides immediate, measurable benefits. Supporting a local nonprofit improving vaccination rates or distributing fortified staple foods can stretch a small donation surprisingly far.
For HNIs and family foundations, the opportunities widen. Here, combining approaches is powerful. A foundation might support the distribution of fortified foods in one region while also joining a pooled fund for systemic efforts, such as advance market commitments in health or climate. Another might back a cohort of entrepreneurs distributing clean-cooking solutions while simultaneously investing in mid-scale science projects that build datasets or instruments needed for long-term innovation.
For institutions and policymakers, the role is to set the enabling environment. That means:
Using milestone contracts and challenge funds in procurement to pay for results.
Pooling with philanthropists and corporates to launch pull mechanisms like AMCs for vaccines, diagnostics, or climate technologies.
Seeding locally led distribution challenges so that proven interventions reach every community.
Supporting mid-scale science initiatives that produce datasets, instruments, and open-source platforms to catalyse discovery across sectors.
By combining these actions, institutions ensure that philanthropy and public funding do more than plug gaps—they build durable systems.
Why This Matters for India
India is at an inflexion point. Philanthropic capital is growing, but so are needs—in health, education, nutrition, air quality, and climate resilience. What India requires is philanthropy that acts immediately while reshaping tomorrow’s systems.
Direct delivery provides fast relief and proof of what works. Market shaping ensures the right products exist and become affordable. Target Product Profiles tell innovators exactly what to aim for. Together, these tools allow Indian donors to make every rupee count, multiplying its impact many times over.
The success of the pneumococcal AMC, the rise of D-Prize-backed entrepreneurs, and the billion-dollar Frontier commitment to carbon removal all show what is possible when philanthropy focuses on evidence, incentives, and scale. India, with its tradition of giving and its entrepreneurial energy, is uniquely placed to lead the next chapter: from immediate impact to systemic transformation.
At Impactful Giving, our role is to help you take that step with confidence. We connect donors with India’s most effective non-profits, recommend opportunities that deliver the highest impact per rupee, and provide personalised guidance for those considering larger commitments. Whether you are giving ₹1,000 or ₹1 crore, the choices you make matter.
If you are ready to move from generosity to measurable impact, explore our recommended charities or book a consultation with our team. Together, we can ensure that India’s philanthropic capital helps people right here and now while also building durable systems for tomorrow.
Sources:
D-Prize https://d-prize.org/impact
Mid-scale Science https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/playbooks/mid-scale-science