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ImpactMojo 101 Series · Free Forever

Fundraising
Basics
101

Resource Mobilisation, Donors, Proposals, CSR & Compliance — a Foundational Course for NGO & Nonprofit Staff in India & South Asia

Practitioner GuideIndia & South Asia100 SlidesFree Access

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Agenda

What We Cover

What Fundraising Really Is

Slides 3–11

The Funding Landscape

Slides 12–20

Knowing Your Donors

Slides 21–29

Strategy & the Fundraising Cycle

Slides 30–38

Writing a Winning Proposal

Slides 39–47

Budgeting & Financial Basics

Slides 48–56

Individual Giving & Relationships

Slides 57–64

CSR in India

Slides 65–73

Compliance & Accountability

Slides 74–82

Diversification & Sustainability

Slides 83–91

Ethics, Practice & Further Reading

Slides 92–99

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Section One

What Fundraising Really Is

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Definition

Fundraising is resource mobilisation

Fundraising is not begging for money. It is resource mobilisation — the disciplined work of securing the money, goods, skills and goodwill an organisation needs to deliver its mission. Money is one resource among several, and never the point in itself.

Resource mobilisation

The full set of activities an organisation undertakes to acquire and sustain the financial and non-financial resources it needs to pursue its mission — from grants and individual gifts to volunteers, in-kind support and assets.

You are not raising money for its own sake. You are raising the means to a mission. Keep that order straight and everything else follows.

Framing fundraising as	Produces
Begging	Apologetic asks; underselling the budget
Sales	Overpromising; donor churn
Resource mobilisation	A plan, a pipeline and a case

The framing decides the ask. A fundraiser who feels they are begging asks for less than the work costs, which is the single most common self-inflicted wound in NGO finance.

It also decides who does it. Begging is delegated to one uncomfortable person; resource mobilisation is a function the whole organisation feeds.

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Mission First

Mission first, money second

MISSION: the change you exist to create

→

STRATEGY: how you will create it

→

RESOURCES: what that strategy needs

→

FUNDRAISING: how you secure those resources

Fundraising sits at the end of this chain, not the start. When money leads, organisations chase grants that pull them away from their mission — the classic 'mission drift'.

Order	What happens when reversed
Mission → strategy → resources → fundraising	The healthy sequence
Fundraising → strategy	You do whatever is fundable this year
Funding available → mission adjusted	Mission drift, one grant at a time

Mission drift never announces itself. It arrives as a series of individually reasonable decisions to take grants slightly outside your focus, and is visible only three years later.

The test is whether you would still do this work if a different funder offered the same money for something else. If the answer is no, the strategy is being written by whoever is paying.

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Relationships

Relationships, not transactions

Transactional thinking

Ask only when you need cash
Treat the donor as an ATM
Disappear after the cheque clears
One-off, anxious, extractive

Relational thinking

Build trust before the ask
Treat the donor as a partner
Report, thank, involve, repeat
Long-term, mutual, dignified

People give to people, and to causes they trust. The strongest fundraising is a relationship that happens to involve money.

Transactional	Relational	Cost difference
Ask when short of cash	Cultivate before asking	Relational wins over years
Report because required	Report because they care	Same effort, different result
Silence between gifts	Contact between asks	Retention roughly doubles
One-off gift	Renewed and grown	Lifetime value, not first gift

Retention is where the money is, and it is invisible in a fundraising target. A target expressed as rupees raised this year rewards acquisition and penalises nothing about losing last year’s donors.

Track retention rate alongside income. An organisation raising the same amount from entirely different donors each year is not growing — it is running to stand still, at rising cost.

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What You Mobilise

Money is only one resource

Money

Grants, donations, CSR, earned income

In-kind

Goods, equipment, space, pro-bono services

People

Volunteers, skills, board networks, advocates

A volunteer doctor, a donated server, a lawyer's pro-bono hours and a board member's introduction are all 'funds raised' in every sense that matters. Count them, value them, thank for them.

Resource	Example	Often uncounted
Money	Grants, CSR, donations	No
In-kind goods	Equipment, space, medicines	Yes
Pro-bono services	Legal, audit, design, IT	Yes
Volunteer time	Doctors, teachers, board members	Almost always
Networks and access	Introductions, credibility	Never

Value and record the non-cash resources. An organisation running on donated space and volunteer professionals is far larger than its accounts show, and cannot tell a funder so.

It matters for co-funding too: many funders accept valued in-kind contribution as your match, and organisations that never counted theirs end up finding cash they did not need to find.

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Who Does It

Fundraising is everyone's job

Fundraising is not a back-office function owned by one person. The programme officer who documents impact, the field worker who tells a story well, the finance lead who reports cleanly — all are part of the fundraising machine.

The best 'fundraising department' is an organisation that delivers real impact and can prove it. Everything you raise rests on what you actually do.

Role	Fundraising contribution
Programme officer	Documents what actually changed
Field worker	Holds the relationships stories come from
Finance lead	Clean accounts and on-time reports
Director	Major donors and CSR relationships
Board	Networks, credibility, introductions

The finance lead is the most under-recognised fundraiser in most NGOs. A late utilisation certificate ends renewals that no amount of good programme work will recover.

Where fundraising is treated as one person’s job, that person spends most of their time chasing colleagues for information the proposal needs. Build the reporting habit and the proposals write themselves.

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The Exchange

What the donor gets in return

A gift is not charity flowing one way. The donor receives something real: a share in the change, a sense of meaning, public recognition, tax benefit, or alignment with their values. Good fundraising names that value honestly.

Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching people the joy of giving.

— Hank Rosso, founder of The Fund Raising School

The donor receives	Which means
A share in the change	Report on the change, not on your activity
Meaning and identity	Their giving is part of who they are
Recognition, where wanted	Ask — some want none
Tax benefit	Your 80G is worth real money to them
Confidence it was used well	This is what stewardship buys

The last row is the one that decides renewal. A donor who cannot tell whether their gift achieved anything does not usually complain — they simply do not give again.

Naming the exchange is not cynical. It is what lets you make an honest case rather than an appeal to guilt, and honest cases renew.

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Myths

Three myths to unlearn early

'Good work funds itself.' It does not. Impact without communication stays invisible — and invisible work goes unfunded.
'Overheads are waste.' Salaries, systems and audits are what make impact possible, not a deduction from it.
'One big donor will save us.' Dependence on a single funder is the fastest route to an organisational crisis.

Myth	Reality
"Good work funds itself"	Invisible work goes unfunded, however good
"Overheads are waste"	They are what make the work deliverable and auditable
"Fundraising is one person’s job"	Every function feeds the case or undermines it
"Asking is undignified"	Underselling the budget is what damages the work

The overhead myth is the most expensive of the four, because donors believe it too. It produces the starvation cycle covered later in this deck, and NGOs reinforce it by competing on low overhead ratios.

The counter is specific rather than defensive: name what the overhead buys — the audit that satisfies the funder, the finance officer who files the utilisation certificate on time.

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The Goal

Sustainable funding, not just this year's gap

Beginners fundraise to plug the current shortfall. Mature organisations fundraise to build a resilient, diversified resource base — so the mission survives the loss of any single donor.

The question is never just 'how do we cover this year?' It is 'how do we build a funding base that lasts?' This course works toward that answer.

Fundraising to	Produces
Plug this year’s gap	Permanent crisis; whatever is fundable now
Fund the strategy	Coherence; still funder-dependent
Build a resilient base	Survives losing any single funder

Most organisations never leave the first row, because the gap is always urgent and the base takes years. The move to the third row has to be a deliberate decision that costs something this year.

The measurable difference is the concentration ratio and the unrestricted share. An organisation improving both is building a base; one whose income grew and whose ratios did not is still plugging gaps.

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Section Two

The Funding Landscape

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The Map

Where development money comes from

Before you ask anyone for anything, map the terrain. NGO income in South Asia flows from a handful of distinct sources, each with its own logic, paperwork and relationship style.

Grants from foundations & trusts (domestic and international)
Government schemes, contracts and grants-in-aid
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds
Individual giving — small donors and major donors
Crowdfunding and digital campaigns
Earned income — fees, products, social enterprise

Source	Typically restricted?	Cycle	Relationship style
Grants and foundations	Yes	Slow, formal	Proposal and report
CSR	Schedule VII only	Annual, March-driven	Partnership
Individuals, earned income	Usually not	Continuous	Personal or commercial

Read the "restricted" column and the diversification argument makes itself. An organisation funded entirely from the first three rows has almost no money it can decide how to spend.

CSR’s March deadline is a real operational fact. Companies under-spent for three quarters release funds in the fourth, so proposals landing in January face a different reception from those landing in June.

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Funding Mix

A healthy, diversified funding mix

Illustrative diversified funding mix for a mid-size NGO

Illustrative — not a real organisation

Illustrative only — there is no 'correct' split. The point is that no single slice dominates. Diversification is resilience.

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Grants

Grants & foundations

Grants are funds given by foundations, trusts, bilateral and multilateral agencies for a defined purpose, usually against a proposal and a reporting schedule. They are the backbone of many NGOs — large, but competitive and often restricted.

Watch for

Restricted to specific activities
Heavy reporting burden
Time-limited — cliffs at project end

Grant funding	Advantage	Cost
Size	Large enough to fund real programmes	Concentration risk
Duration	Multi-year in the best cases	Cliff at the end
Restriction	Clear purpose	No overheads beyond the allowed cap
Process	Transparent criteria	Months from proposal to money

Plan the cliff from day one. A three-year grant that funds five staff creates a decision in month thirty about whether those people still have jobs, and that decision is easier if it was expected.

The application lead time is why prospect research matters. Six months of work on a funder whose cycle closed last month is six months you cannot recover.

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Government

Government funding

Governments fund NGOs through grants-in-aid, scheme implementation and service contracts. The scale can be large and the alignment with public goals strong — but cycles are slow, paperwork is heavy, and payments can be delayed.

Government money rewards compliance and reach. Strong systems, clean accounts and patience matter more here than a polished pitch.

Government funding	Advantage	Cost
Grants-in-aid	Scale	Slow release; payment arrears
Scheme implementation	Alignment with public goals	Rates set by government, often below cost
Service contracts	Predictable volume	Cash-flow risk carried by you

Payment delay is the structural risk, not the rate. An NGO delivering a government scheme frequently funds it from its own reserves for months, which is why reserves matter more here than anywhere else.

Never take government work you cannot pre-finance. Organisations have closed while owed money they were certain to eventually receive.

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CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Since the Companies Act, 2013, large Indian companies must spend on social causes — making CSR one of the most significant domestic funding streams for Indian NGOs. We devote a full section to it later.

CSR is partnership funding: companies seek credible delivery partners with the legal registrations and the track record to spend their money well and report it cleanly.

CSR compared with grants	Difference
Source	A legal obligation, not philanthropy
Constraint	Schedule VII, not the funder’s own priorities
Cycle	Financial year, with a March pressure point
Decision-maker	A committee accountable to a board and public disclosure
Eligibility	CSR-1 registration, absolutely required

Treating CSR as a variety of grant funding is the commonest mistake NGOs make with it. The constraints come from statute rather than preference, so they are not negotiable however good the relationship.

Section 8 of this deck covers the rules in detail. The short version: get CSR-1, read the current Schedule VII, and understand the March deadline.

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Individuals

Individual giving

Why it matters

Usually unrestricted — spend where needed
Loyal, renewable, recession-resilient
Builds a base that belongs to you

The catch

Slow to build — years, not weeks
Needs investment up front
Many small gifts to manage well

Individual giving is the hardest to start and the most valuable to own. It is the foundation of true independence.

Individual giving	Timeline
First donors acquired	Months
Acquisition cost recovered	Often the second or third gift
A base large enough to matter	Years
Unrestricted, renewable income	The payoff

Individual giving is an investment with a delayed return, which is why most Indian NGOs never start. The cost lands in year one and the benefit in year three, and grant budgets rarely fund year one.

That is exactly what unrestricted income is for, and the circularity is the trap: you need unrestricted money to build the stream that produces unrestricted money.

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Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding & digital giving

Platforms such as Ketto, Milaap, GiveIndia and DonateKart let organisations raise many small gifts online around a specific, urgent, shareable story. Powerful for acquisition and visibility — less so for steady core funding.

Crowdfunding rewards a sharp story and a clear, time-bound goal. It works best for a concrete need, not for 'general running costs'.

Crowdfunding	Good for	Not good for
A specific, urgent, shareable need	Acquisition and visibility	Core costs
Platform reach	Finding first-time donors	Owning the relationship
Speed	A time-bound appeal	Predictable income
Platform fees	—	Margins on small gifts

The relationship usually belongs to the platform, not to you. Unless you capture donor contact details and permission to use them, a successful campaign leaves you with money and no base.

Treat crowdfunding as the top of the individual-giving funnel rather than as a funding source. Its value is the donors it introduces, if you convert them to regular giving.

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Earned Income

Earned income & social enterprise

Some organisations earn income directly — training fees, consultancy, sale of products made by beneficiaries, or a social-enterprise arm. Earned income is typically unrestricted and can grow with the organisation.

But it carries commercial risk and can pull focus from the mission. Treat it as one stream in the mix, not a rescue plan, and check the tax and regulatory implications first.

Earned income	Watch for
Training and consultancy fees	Staff time diverted from programmes
Sale of products	Whether it actually covers its costs
Certified services	Mission drift toward what sells
Any earned income	Tax treatment — check 12A/12AB implications

Check the tax position before scaling earned income. Commercial activity by a charitable organisation is treated differently from grant income, and getting it wrong can put 12A registration at risk.

The honest test is whether the activity would exist if it made no money. If it would, it is programme work that happens to earn; if not, you have started a business inside a charity.

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Section Three

Knowing Your Donors

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Two Worlds

Institutional vs individual donors

	Institutional	Individual
Who	Foundations, CSR, government	People who give from their own pocket
Decision	Committees, proposals, criteria	Emotion, trust, personal connection
Funds	Usually restricted	Often unrestricted
Cycle	Formal, slow, scheduled	Flexible, relationship-paced
Win them with	Evidence & alignment	Story & relationship

The two require different skills. Confusing them — pitching a foundation like a friend, or a friend like a logframe — is a common, costly error.

	Institutional	Individual
Decided by	A committee against criteria	One person, largely on feeling
Moved by	Evidence and track record	Story and trust
Gift size	Large, restricted	Small, unrestricted
Effort per rupee	Low	High
Renewal	Cycle-dependent	Habit-dependent

The last two rows are why organisations default to institutional funding and why that default is dangerous. It is cheaper per rupee and it hands your agenda to whoever is funding.

The skills do not transfer. A team excellent at proposals is often poor at individual giving, because one rewards rigour and the other rewards warmth and frequency.

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Motivations

Why donors actually give

People and institutions give for reasons that are rarely only altruistic. Understanding the real motive lets you make an honest, resonant case.

Belief in the cause and its urgency
Trust in this organisation to deliver
Identity — 'this is the kind of person/company I am'
Connection — a personal link to the issue
Recognition, legacy, faith, or tax benefit

Motivation	What to do with it
Belief in the cause	Lead with the problem
Trust in you specifically	Track record and transparency
Personal connection to the issue	Ask, and listen
Recognition and standing	Offer it — some want it, some do not
Tax benefit	Make the 80G position obvious
Being asked by someone they trust	Often the real reason

The last row explains more giving than any other. It is why board introductions outperform cold approaches by a wide margin, and why who makes the ask often matters more than how it is worded.

Ask donors why they gave. Most organisations never do, and the answers reliably differ from what the fundraising material assumes.

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Donor's View

See the gift through the donor's eyes

Every donor is asking, often silently: Why this cause? Why this organisation? Why now? Why me? What difference will my gift make, and how will I know?

If your case for support answers those five questions clearly, you have done most of the work. If it cannot, no amount of asking will fix it.

Donor question	Answered by
Why this cause?	The problem statement, with evidence
Why this organisation?	Track record they can verify
Why now?	The window, the deadline, the urgency
Why me?	What their specific gift unlocks
How will I know it worked?	The reporting you commit to

"Why now" is the question most cases for support cannot answer, and it is what converts a sympathetic donor into a giving one. Without it, agreeing to give costs nothing and can be deferred indefinitely.

Write the case so a reader can answer all five without asking you. If they have to ask, the proposal has already lost the committee members who will not.

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Fund Types

Restricted vs unrestricted funds

Restricted

Tied to a specific project, activity or line item. You must spend it as agreed and report against it. Most grants and CSR are restricted.

Unrestricted

Yours to allocate where the mission needs it — including salaries, systems and the gaps grants won't cover. Gold dust for an NGO.

Chase unrestricted funding deliberately. It is what keeps the lights on and lets you respond to what the work actually requires.

	Restricted	Unrestricted
Who decides the spend	The funder	You
Covers overheads?	Only what the funder allows	Yes
Builds reserves?	No	Yes
Typical sources	Grants, CSR, government	Individuals, earned income, some trusts
Share in most Indian NGOs	The large majority	The gap that hurts

An organisation with plenty of restricted income and no unrestricted income can be fully funded and unable to pay for an audit. That is not a hypothetical — it is the standard NGO cash-flow crisis.

Track the two separately in every board report. A single income figure conceals whether the organisation has any money it can actually decide about.

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Power

The funder–grantee power imbalance

Money carries power. The funder sets the agenda, the format, the timeline and the definition of success — while the grantee, closest to the community, often has the least say. This imbalance shapes the whole sector.

Whoever holds the purse strings tends to hold the pen that writes the theory of change.

— a recurring critique in development practice

The funder sets	The grantee knows
The theme and priorities	What the community actually needs
The reporting format	What is worth measuring
The timeline	How long change takes
The definition of success	What success looks like locally

Every row pairs the party with the power against the party with the knowledge. That mismatch is the structural fact of grant funding, not a failure of any particular funder.

Some of it is negotiable and grantees rarely test which. Asking for a different indicator, a longer timeline or a different reporting rhythm succeeds more often than the asymmetry suggests.

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Naming It

How the imbalance distorts the work

Grantees chase fashionable themes rather than real local need
Energy drains into donor reports instead of community work
Short grant cycles block the long-term work that actually matters
NGOs stay silent on problems for fear of losing funding

Naming the imbalance is the first step to negotiating within it — for trust-based, flexible, multi-year funding that shifts power back toward the community.

Distortion	What it looks like on the ground
Chasing fashionable themes	A livelihoods NGO suddenly doing climate work
Reporting crowding out delivery	Field staff filling formats, not visiting
Short cycles blocking long work	Three-year answers to twenty-year problems
Indicators shaping the programme	Doing what is countable

Every distortion is a rational response to the incentive. Nobody decides to abandon their focus; they take one adjacent grant, then another, and the drift is only visible in aggregate.

Some of this is negotiable and grantees rarely test it. Proposing your own indicator, or a longer timeline, succeeds more often than the power imbalance suggests — but only if asked.

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Due Diligence

Vet the donor, too

Fundraising due diligence runs both ways. Before accepting money, ask whether the donor's values, sources of wealth and conditions are compatible with your mission and your community's dignity.

Some money costs too much — gifts that demand silence, distort the mission, or come from sources that harm the very people you serve. It is legitimate to say no.

Ask before accepting	Why
Where does the money come from?	Reputational risk transfers to you
What conditions come with it?	Some cost more than the grant is worth
Does it require naming beneficiaries?	May endanger them
Does it constrain what you may say?	Advocacy work is the usual casualty
Would the community object?	They bear the consequence

Decide your red lines before an offer exists. Refusing money in the abstract is easy; refusing a specific offer that would fund three salaries is not, and that is when the decision gets made badly.

The fourth row is the one that matters for advocacy organisations. A grant that quietly rules out criticising the funder’s sector has bought your silence at a price you did not negotiate.

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Segment

Not all donors are the same

Treat donors as distinct groups, not one undifferentiated crowd. A first-time ₹500 online giver, a loyal monthly donor and a CSR head each need a different message, channel and ask.

Segmentation — grouping donors by giving level, channel, loyalty and interest — is the foundation of every relationship that follows.

Segment	Needs	Channel
First-time small giver	A warm thank-you and proof of use	Email, WhatsApp
Monthly donor	Regular contact, rarely an ask	Email, occasional call
Major donor	Personal attention from leadership	In person
CSR head	Compliance evidence and a site visit	Meeting
Institutional funder	Proposal and rigorous reporting	Formal

Sending the same appeal to all five is the default and it under-performs on every segment. A major donor receiving a mass email learns their gift was not noticed.

Segmentation costs almost nothing at small scale — five lists and five messages. The cost is remembering to do it, which is why it should be built into the calendar rather than decided each time.

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Section Four

Strategy & the Fundraising Cycle

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Start Here

A strategy, not a scramble

Most NGOs fundraise reactively — chasing whatever deadline appears. A fundraising strategy turns that scramble into a plan: how much you need, from whom, by when, and who is responsible.

NEED: what the plan costs

→

SOURCES: who could fund it

→

TARGETS: how much from each

→

ACTIONS: who does what, by when

A strategy states	A scramble has
How much you need	Whatever the gap is this month
From which sources	Whichever deadline appeared
By when	Urgently, always
Who is responsible	The director, plus guilt
What you will not chase	Nothing ruled out

The last row is what makes it a strategy. A plan that rules nothing out cannot direct effort, and the reactive scramble continues underneath the document.

Write down the funders and grant types you will decline. It converts a hundred half-considered opportunities into a short list you can actually pursue properly.

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Case for Support

The case for support

Case for support

The core document that answers why your cause deserves funding — the problem, your solution, the evidence it works, and the difference a gift will make. Every proposal and pitch draws from it.

Write it once, well, and adapt it everywhere — for a grant, a CSR deck, a website page or a one-minute conversation. It is your single most reusable fundraising asset.

Case for support answers	In how much space
The problem, with evidence	A paragraph
Your solution and why it works	A paragraph
Why you are credible	A few lines
What a gift makes possible	Concrete, with numbers
What happens if nobody acts	One line

One case document, adapted per audience. Writing a fresh case for every proposal produces inconsistency across submissions and wastes the work that went into the last one.

Test it on someone outside the sector. If they cannot repeat back what the problem is and what you would do about it, the case is not doing its job, however accurate it is.

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Prospect Research

Prospect research: find the right fit

Prospect research is finding donors whose interests, geography, giving size and values match your work — before you spend effort asking. A perfect proposal to the wrong funder is wasted.

What does the funder already fund? (Read their past grants.)
Do your theme, region and budget size fit theirs?
How do they prefer to be approached — and when?
Is there a warm introduction available?

Check before approaching	Where to look
Do they fund this theme?	Their published priorities
Do they fund this geography?	Past grants list
Is your ask their typical size?	Median past grant
Do they fund organisations like you?	Grantee profiles
Are they open, or invitation-only?	Application page — many are not open

A perfect proposal to the wrong funder fails, and it fails slowly — consuming weeks that could have gone to a funder whose criteria you actually meet.

The size question is the most useful filter. A funder whose median grant is ₹5 lakh will not give you ₹50 lakh however good the fit, and asking reveals you did not check.

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The Cycle

Cultivation → ask → stewardship

IDENTIFY: who could give

→

CULTIVATE: build the relationship & trust

→

ASK: make a clear, specific request

→

STEWARD: thank, report, involve

→

RENEW: ask again, for more

The 'ask' is one moment in a long cycle. Organisations that rush to it — or stop after it — leave most of the money on the table.

Stage	Typical duration	Most often skipped
Identify	Weeks	No — but done badly
Cultivate	Months to years	Yes — straight to the ask
Ask	One conversation	No
Steward	Continuous	Yes — the biggest loss
Renew	The next cycle	Follows from stewardship

The two skipped stages are the two that cost nothing and determine everything. Cultivation decides whether the ask succeeds; stewardship decides whether it happens again.

An organisation that only does identify-and-ask is running a cold-approach operation at the worst possible conversion rate, and calling the result bad luck.

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Cultivation

Cultivation: trust before the ask

Cultivation is the patient work of building a relationship before any request: sharing updates, inviting site visits, listening to the donor's interests, demonstrating credibility over time.

You do not propose marriage on a first meeting. The bigger the gift you hope for, the more cultivation it deserves.

Cultivation activity	Signals
Sharing updates with no ask attached	You are not only after money
A site visit	Confidence in your own work
Asking about their priorities	This is a fit question, not a pitch
Introducing them to the community	The work is real
Being honest about a setback	Your reporting can be trusted

The last row buys more credibility than any success story. A funder who has seen you report a failure honestly will believe your results; one who has only heard successes has no reason to.

Cultivation has no fixed length and it does have a failure mode: cultivating indefinitely because asking is uncomfortable. Set the date you will ask by.

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The Ask

Making the ask

Be specific: a clear amount, for a clear purpose
Ask for what the work needs — do not undersell from fear
Make it easy to say yes: define the next step
Then stop talking and let the donor respond

The commonest fundraising failure is simply never making a clear ask. People rarely give what they are not directly invited to give.

Ask element	Weak version	Strong version
Amount	"Whatever you can"	₹12 lakh over two years
Purpose	"Support our work"	Named project, named outcome
Next step	None	"Can I send the full proposal by Friday?"
After asking	Keep talking	Stop and let them answer

Stopping is the hardest part and it decides the outcome. Filling the silence after an ask almost always means negotiating against yourself before the donor has said anything.

Ask for what the work costs, including a fair share of overheads. An undersold budget wins the grant and then quietly drains the organisation delivering it.

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Stewardship

Stewardship: the relationship after the gift

Stewardship is everything you do after the gift arrives: a prompt, genuine thank-you; honest reporting on what the money achieved; and keeping the donor connected to the impact they made possible.

Stewardship is where the next gift is earned. A donor thanked well and shown real impact is your warmest prospect.

Stewardship step	Timeline	Skipped when
Thank you	Within days	Always the first casualty
Confirmation of use	On schedule	Reporting is late
Honest report on results	As agreed	Results were mixed
Contact with no ask	Between gifts	Nobody owns it
The next ask	When earned	Too soon, or never

The third row is where organisations lose funders permanently. A mixed result reported honestly is survivable; a mixed result discovered by the funder later is not.

Stewardship is cheap and unowned. Assign it to a named person with a calendar, or it will be done by whoever has time, which is nobody in the month a report is due.

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The Pyramid

The fundraising / donor pyramid

Move donors up the pyramid over time: acquire many at the base, retain them, and deepen a few into major givers. Illustrative structure — the exact levels vary by organisation.

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Section Five

Writing a Winning Proposal

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Anatomy

What a proposal must contain

Section	Answers	Common pitfall
Problem statement	Why does this matter?	Vague, unevidenced
Objectives	What will change?	Activities mistaken for outcomes
Theory of change	How does change happen?	Missing logic
Activities & plan	What will you do?	Unrealistic timeline
M&E	How will you know?	No indicators
Budget	What will it cost?	Under-budgeted overheads
Sustainability	What after the grant?	Ignored entirely

Proposal section	Fails when
Problem statement	It opens with your organisation instead
Objectives	They describe activities, not change
Theory of change	The link from activity to outcome is assumed
Budget	It does not match the activities described
M&E	Indicators invented after the project began
Sustainability	"We will seek further funding"

The budget mismatch is the one reviewers spot fastest. A narrative promising 40 villages and a budget costing 12 tells the committee that one of the two was not thought through.

Read the proposal backwards before submitting — budget first, then activities, then objectives. Inconsistencies that are invisible reading forwards are obvious in reverse.

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Problem Statement

The problem statement

Open with the problem, not your organisation. State who is affected, how badly, and why it persists — backed by credible evidence (Census, NFHS, NSS, your own baseline). Make the funder feel the problem before you offer the solution.

Weak: 'We are an NGO that does good work.' Strong: 'In these 40 villages, X% of children are out of school because Y — and here is what changes that.'

Problem statement contains	Source
Who is affected, and how many	Census, NFHS, NSS, your baseline
How badly	Evidence, not adjectives
Why it persists	Your analysis — the part only you can write
Why existing efforts fall short	Honest, and it earns credibility
One human illustration	With consent

The third row is where proposals distinguish themselves. Any competent organisation can cite the prevalence; the analysis of why it persists locally is what shows you know the place.

Open with the problem, not your organisation. A reviewer reading twelve proposals has decided how interested they are before reaching paragraph three.

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Objectives

Objectives: specific and measurable

Good objectives describe change, not busyness. 'Train 200 teachers' is an activity; 'improve Grade 3 reading levels in 40 schools by one grade-level within two years' is an objective.

A useful test: SMART — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. If you cannot say how you would measure it, it is not yet an objective.

Statement	Activity or outcome?
Train 200 teachers	Activity
200 teachers trained	Output
Teachers using the method in class	Outcome
Grade 3 reading up one level in 40 schools	Outcome, measurable
Children learn better	Aspiration — not measurable as written

Most rejected proposals fail between rows two and three. They promise outputs and describe them as outcomes, which a reviewer reads as not knowing the difference.

Every objective needs a baseline, or the target means nothing. "Up one grade level" requires knowing where they started, and that measurement has to be budgeted.

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The Logic

Logframe & theory of change

INPUTS: money, staff, materials

→

ACTIVITIES: what you do

→

OUTPUTS: what you produce

→

OUTCOMES: what changes

→

IMPACT: the lasting difference

A logframe lays this out in a grid with indicators and assumptions; a theory of change explains why each arrow should hold. Funders want to see the logic, not just the list.

Level	You control it?	Funders judge you on
Inputs	Yes	Efficiency
Activities	Yes	Delivery
Outputs	Yes	Delivery
Outcomes	Partly	This one
Impact	Barely	Aspiration

You are judged on the level you control least. That is the structural tension in results-based funding, and it is why a credible theory of change — showing why the outcome should follow — matters.

Do not promise impact in a three-year proposal. Promise the outcome, state the impact it contributes toward, and be explicit that other factors decide the rest.

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Outputs vs Outcomes

Outputs are not outcomes

Output

What you produce: 500 women trained, 30 wells built, 2,000 kits distributed. Countable, but not yet the point.

Outcome

What changes as a result: incomes rise, disease falls, girls stay in school. This is what the funder is really buying.

Weak proposals count outputs and call it impact. Strong ones connect every output to the outcome it is meant to produce.

Output	Outcome it is meant to produce	Can fail because
500 women trained	Incomes rise	No market for the skill
30 wells built	Waterborne disease falls	Wells break; nobody maintains them
2,000 kits distributed	Practice changes	Kits unused or resold

Each row is a real programme failure mode, not a hypothetical. The output was delivered exactly as promised and the outcome did not follow, which is why funders increasingly ask for the second column.

Reporting outputs alone is honest only if you say so. Reporting outputs and calling them impact is the most common overstatement in NGO reporting.

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M&E

Monitoring & evaluation

M&E is how you and the funder will know whether the change happened. Each objective needs an indicator, a baseline, a target and a way to measure it — planned before the project starts, not bolted on at the end.

Budget for M&E and a baseline survey explicitly. A project with no way to measure success is a project the funder cannot trust.

Each objective needs	Decided when
An indicator	Before the project starts
A baseline	Before any activity — or it is unrecoverable
A target	At proposal stage
A measurement method	At proposal stage
A budget line for measuring it	The one always forgotten

The baseline is the one you cannot retrofit. A project six months in with no baseline has permanently lost the ability to show what changed, whatever it achieves.

Budget M&E explicitly, usually a few per cent of project cost. Unbudgeted M&E is done badly at the end by whoever is free, which is how reports get written from memory.

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Sustainability

What happens when the grant ends?

Funders increasingly ask how the benefit will last beyond their money: community ownership, government adoption, earned income, or follow-on funding. A credible exit plan signals a serious organisation.

Be honest. A vague promise that 'the community will continue it' convinces no one. Name the specific mechanism that carries the work forward.

Sustainability claim	Credible?
"We will seek further funding"	No — this is the default non-answer
Community owns and maintains it	Yes, if the mechanism is named
Government adopts the model	Yes, if there is evidence of interest
Earned income covers running costs	Yes, if the numbers are shown
The benefit does not need maintaining	Yes — say so plainly

The last row is legitimate and rarely used. Some benefits are permanent once delivered — a child immunised, a document secured — and saying so is a better answer than inventing a continuation plan.

Reviewers read the first row as an admission there is no plan. If further funding genuinely is the plan, name the funder and the stage of that conversation.

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Craft

Writing that lands

Follow the funder's format and word limits exactly
Lead with the problem and the change, not your history
Use evidence and one or two human stories — not a flood of jargon
Make the budget match the narrative, line for line
Have someone outside the project read it before you submit

Craft rule	Why
Follow the format and word limits exactly	Non-compliance is the cheapest reason to reject you
Lead with the problem	The reviewer is deciding whether to care
Evidence plus one or two stories	Not a flood of either
Budget matching the narrative	The fastest inconsistency to spot
Plain language	Committees include non-specialists

Exceeding the word limit gets proposals rejected unread. It is the most avoidable failure in the whole process and it happens constantly, usually from wanting to include everything.

Have someone outside the sector read it. Jargon is invisible to the person who wrote it, and a committee member from finance or law will not decode it for you.

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Section Six

Budgeting & Financial Basics

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The Budget

The budget is a plan in numbers

A project budget is your theory of change expressed in money — what each activity will cost and when. Funders read it closely: an unrealistic budget undermines an otherwise strong proposal.

Two failures are equally damaging: padding the budget (loses trust) and under-budgeting (you cannot deliver, and you absorb the loss). Aim for honest and complete.

Budget signal	What a reviewer reads
Round numbers throughout	Estimated, not costed
No inflation over a three-year budget	Not thought through
Overheads at 3%	Either subsidised elsewhere or unsustainable
Staff costs below local market	Attrition risk
Line items matching activities exactly	Costed properly

An unrealistic budget undermines an otherwise strong proposal, and it does so quietly: the committee does not usually say the budget was why.

Under-budgeting to look competitive is the classic error. You win the grant and then deliver it at a loss, funded by whatever unrestricted money you had.

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Cost Types

Direct vs indirect costs

Direct costs

Tied to the project: field staff salaries, training materials, travel, beneficiary supplies. Easy to attribute and to fund.

Indirect / overhead

Shared running costs: rent, finance and admin staff, audit, IT, electricity. Real and essential — but often resisted by funders.

Indirect costs are not waste. They are the infrastructure that makes every direct activity possible.

	Direct	Indirect / overhead
Examples	Field staff, materials, travel, supplies	Rent, finance, audit, IT, management
Attribution	To one project	Shared across all
Funder attitude	Willingly funded	Capped, questioned, or refused
Without them	No delivery	No organisation

Calculate your true overhead rate once a year and use it everywhere. Organisations that invent a rate per proposal end up with a portfolio of grants none of which cover their actual costs.

State the basis you used. "Overheads at 12%, calculated as shared costs over total direct costs, audited" is defensible; an unexplained percentage invites negotiation downward.

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Overheads

Why overheads are real costs

Without finance staff, no clean accounts. Without an audit, no compliance. Without rent and IT, no office. Overheads are the skeleton that holds programmes up — yet many funders cap or refuse them.

You cannot run a serious organisation on a budget that pretends it has no running costs.

— a widely shared frustration in the sector

Overhead	Without it
Finance staff	No clean accounts; no utilisation certificate
Audit	No compliance; ineligible for the next grant
Rent and utilities	No office
IT and systems	No data, no reporting
Management time	Nobody accountable for delivery

Every item on this list is something the funder requires and several will not pay for. That contradiction is the whole overhead argument, stated plainly.

Name the overhead concretely in conversations rather than defending a percentage. "The audit your grant requires costs ₹1.2 lakh" is harder to refuse than "we need 15% overhead".

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Starvation Cycle

The nonprofit starvation cycle

Funders pressure NGOs to show low overheads

→

NGOs under-report and under-invest in core systems

→

Weak systems — staff, finance, IT — underperform

→

Funders see weakness, demand even leaner overheads

→

The cycle repeats, hollowing out the organisation

The 'starvation cycle' starves NGOs of the very capacity they need to deliver. Breaking it starts with honestly costing — and defending — your overheads.

Starvation cycle step	Who reinforces it
Funders pressure for low overheads	Funders
NGOs under-report true costs	NGOs, competing on the ratio
Systems weaken; delivery suffers	Nobody intends this
Funders conclude NGOs are inefficient	Funders
Pressure increases	Both

The cycle needs both parties, which is why funders alone cannot break it. NGOs sustain it by reporting overhead figures they know are understated, because the competitor who reports honestly loses the grant.

Collective action helps where it exists: sector bodies agreeing a common definition of true cost make honest reporting survivable. Individually, honesty costs you grants.

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Cost of Fundraising

Fundraising itself costs money

Illustrative cost to raise ₹100 by channel (₹ spent)

Illustrative ranges — vary widely by organisation

Illustrative only. Acquiring new donors is expensive; keeping them is cheap. The first gift rarely pays for itself — the second and tenth do.

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Cost Recovery

Full cost recovery

Pricing each project to recover both its direct costs and a fair share of the organisation's overheads — so delivering the project does not quietly drain the organisation's reserves.

Calculate your true overhead rate and apply it to every budget. Winning a grant that loses you money is not a win.

Full cost recovery requires	Practical step
Knowing your true overhead rate	Calculate it once, annually
Applying it to every project	Including the ones you badly want
A defensible basis	Share of direct cost, or staff time
Willingness to decline	Some grants cost more than they bring

The last row is what makes the first three real. An organisation that will accept any grant at any overhead rate does not have a cost-recovery policy, it has a calculation nobody applies.

Some strategic projects are worth taking at a loss — entering a new geography, a relationship worth building. Decide that deliberately and record it, rather than discovering it in the annual accounts.

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Co-funding

Co-funding & matching

Many funders require co-funding — a share of the budget from other sources — to share risk and confirm wider support. Others offer matching, doubling each rupee you raise elsewhere.

Co-funding is leverage: one committed funder makes it easier to win the next. Sequence your asks so early wins unlock later ones.

	Co-funding	Matching
What it is	You bring a share of the budget	They multiply what you raise
Purpose	Share risk; confirm wider support	Incentivise your fundraising
Can in-kind count?	Often yes — ask	Usually no
Risk	Committing money you have not raised	Deadline pressure

Never commit co-funding you have not already secured. A grant contingent on money you expect to raise turns a funding win into a deadline you may not meet, with the programme committed either way.

Valued in-kind contribution frequently satisfies a co-funding requirement, and organisations that never counted volunteer time or donated space go looking for cash they did not need.

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Financial Health

Numbers funders check

Reserves: can you survive a few months with no new money?
Audited accounts: clean, timely, externally verified
Programme-to-cost ratio: how much reaches the mission
Cash flow: can you bridge delayed grant payments?

Strong, transparent finances are themselves a fundraising asset. Funders give to organisations that can clearly account for every rupee.

What funders check	What good looks like
Reserves	Enough to run for a few months with no new income
Audited accounts	Clean, and filed on time
Programme-to-cost ratio	Reasonable — not implausibly high
Cash flow	Ability to pre-finance a delayed tranche
Registrations current	12A/12AB, 80G, CSR-1, FCRA if applicable

An implausibly high programme ratio is a red flag to an experienced funder, not a selling point. Ninety-five per cent to programmes usually means overheads are hidden in programme lines.

Registrations lapse quietly. A renewal missed makes you ineligible overnight for funding you were already receiving, and the discovery usually comes from the funder rather than from you.

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Section Seven

Individual Giving & Relationships

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Why Individuals

The case for individual giving

Individual donors give the funding NGOs prize most: unrestricted, loyal and renewable. A base of committed individual givers is the closest an NGO comes to true financial independence.

Grants and CSR come and go with priorities and budgets. A loyal individual donor base is yours — built slowly, but uniquely resilient.

Individual giving delivers	Which no institutional funder does
Unrestricted income	Covers overheads and reserves
Renewal by habit	Not by cycle
Independence	No agenda attached
Resilience in downturns	Small gifts prove durable
A constituency	People with a stake in your survival

The last row is worth more than the money in a crisis. An organisation with ten thousand individual donors has ten thousand people who notice if it is threatened; one with three funders has three.

It is the closest an NGO comes to financial independence, and the slowest thing on this list to build. Starting late is the norm; not starting is the failure.

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Acquire vs Retain

Acquisition vs retention

Illustrative: cost to acquire a new donor vs retain an existing one

Illustrative — relative costs, not real figures

Illustrative. Acquiring a donor costs far more than keeping one. Organisations that pour everything into acquisition and neglect retention run to stand still.

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Lifetime Value

Donor lifetime value

Donor lifetime value (LTV)

The total amount a donor is likely to give across the whole span of their relationship with you — not just their first gift. It reframes a small first donation as the start of a long, valuable partnership.

A ₹500 first-time donor who gives monthly for ten years is worth far more than a one-off ₹5,000 gift. Invest in the relationship, not just the transaction.

Donor	First gift	Lifetime value if retained
Monthly giver, ₹500	₹500	Tens of thousands over years
Annual giver, ₹5,000	₹5,000	Multiples, plus referrals
One-off, never contacted again	₹5,000	₹5,000

Lifetime value is what justifies acquisition spend. Judging a ₹500 first gift against the cost of acquiring it makes individual giving look irrational; judging it against years of renewal does not.

It also reframes retention as the highest-return activity available, which is the opposite of how most fundraising teams allocate their time.

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Stewardship

The thank-you is the next ask

Thank promptly — within days, warmly and personally
Show the donor the impact of their specific gift
Communicate between asks, not only when you need money
Make them feel like an insider, not a wallet

Retention is built on gratitude and transparency. A donor who feels seen and informed gives again — and brings others.

Stewardship action	Timing	Effect on renewal
Thank you	Within days	Large
Show impact of their specific gift	Within weeks	Largest
Contact with no ask attached	Between gifts	Large
Treat them as an insider	Continuously	Compounds
Ask again	When earned	—

"Their specific gift" is the phrase doing the work. A general impact report tells a donor what the organisation did; naming what their ₹5,000 paid for tells them why they should do it again.

The thank-you is the next ask, arriving early and in disguise. Organisations that treat it as an administrative task are spending the acquisition cost and forfeiting the return.

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Monthly Giving

Monthly giving: the steady engine

Monthly (recurring) donors are the most valuable individual givers: predictable income, low servicing cost, and high lifetime value. A growing monthly base smooths the cash-flow shocks that plague grant-dependent NGOs.

Convert one-off donors into monthly ones, and keep churn low. A stable recurring base is the single most stabilising thing individual fundraising can build.

Monthly giving	Effect
Predictable income	Cash flow you can plan against
Low servicing cost	One setup, many gifts
Highest retention	The default is to continue
Usually unrestricted	Covers what grants will not
Grows slowly	The only drawback

A monthly base is the closest an NGO gets to financial independence, and its slow growth is exactly why organisations under pressure never start building one.

Make cancelling easy and visible. Hard-to-cancel recurring gifts produce complaints, chargebacks and reputational damage worth more than the retained donations.

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Major Donors

Major donors: depth over breadth

A small number of major donors can provide a large share of individual income. They need personal cultivation, tailored proposals, direct access to leadership, and bespoke stewardship — closer to institutional fundraising than to a mass appeal.

Major-donor work is high-touch and patient. One strong relationship, carefully built over years, can transform an organisation's finances.

Major donors need	Not
Personal cultivation by leadership	A newsletter
A tailored proposal	The standard case
Direct access when they want it	A ticketing system
Bespoke reporting	The annual report
To be asked properly, once	Repeated small asks

Major-donor work is leadership time, not fundraising-staff time, which is why organisations without a committed director or board rarely build this stream however much they want to.

The concentration risk is real: an individual-giving base where three donors provide most of the income has the same fragility as single-funder dependence, in a different costume.

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Storytelling

Story moves the individual gift

Institutions respond to evidence; individuals respond to story. One real, specific human story — told with dignity and consent — moves more individual gifts than a page of statistics.

But story has limits and ethics. We return to the duty of dignity — never 'poverty porn' — in the final section.

Audience	Moved by	Evidence role
Institutional committee	Evidence	Primary
CSR head	Alignment and verifiability	Primary
Individual donor	One specific story	Supporting
Everyone	Both, in the right order	—

One story with consent, told with dignity, moves more individual gifts than a page of statistics. The reverse is true for a grant committee, and using the wrong register for either loses the room.

The ethical constraint applies equally to both: consent, accuracy, and the person as an agent in their own life rather than an illustration of need. Section 11 of this deck is where that gets specific.

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Section Eight

CSR in India

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The Law

Mandatory CSR: the Companies Act, 2013

India was among the first countries to make corporate giving a legal duty. Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 requires qualifying companies to spend on social causes — creating a major, distinctly Indian funding stream for NGOs.

For Indian NGOs, CSR is often the largest domestic institutional source. Understanding the rules is essential to accessing it well.

Before Section 135	After
Corporate giving discretionary	A legal duty for qualifying companies
No defined purposes	Schedule VII only
No public disclosure	Reported in the annual report
Ad hoc relationships	Board-approved policy and committee

The shift from discretion to duty is what makes CSR predictable. A qualifying company must spend, every year, which is a fundamentally different negotiating position from asking for a favour.

It also means the company needs you as much as you need them — they have an obligation to discharge and need eligible, credible partners to discharge it through.

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Section 135

The ~2% rule

Companies meeting prescribed thresholds of net worth, turnover or net profit must spend at least 2% of their average net profits of the preceding three financial years on CSR activities.

~2%

of average net profit (preceding 3 years) to be spent

Companies Act 2013, Sec. 135

3 years

the averaging window for net profit

Confirm current thresholds and rules in the Act and CSR Rules before advising a company — the figures define who must spend and how much.

Section 135 element	Detail
Spend requirement	At least 2% of average net profits of the preceding three financial years
Applies when	Prescribed thresholds of net worth, turnover or net profit are crossed
Where it may go	Schedule VII activities only
Unspent funds	Must be transferred or accounted for under the Rules
Board oversight	A CSR committee and a board-approved policy

India was among the first countries to make corporate social spending a legal duty. The consequence for NGOs is a large, domestic, annually recurring pool — and a set of rules that decide eligibility absolutely.

The unspent-funds rules matter for timing. Companies facing a deadline to transfer unspent CSR money are more receptive in the final quarter than in the first.

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Who Must Spend

Which companies the rule covers

Section 135 applies to companies that cross any of the prescribed thresholds of net worth, turnover or net profit in a financial year. Companies below all thresholds are not bound by the mandate.

In practice this captures large companies. When prospecting CSR, target firms clearly above the thresholds — they have a legal obligation to spend and a board committee to direct it.

Question about a company	Where to check
Does Section 135 apply to them?	Their annual report; the thresholds
What did they spend last year?	CSR disclosure in the annual report
On which Schedule VII heads?	Same disclosure
In which geographies?	Same — local-area preference is common
Did they under-spend?	The most useful signal of all

Under-spend is public information and almost nobody uses it. A company that failed to spend its obligation last year is under pressure to place funds this year, and is the most receptive prospect you will find.

Local-area preference is written into the law’s intent and most companies follow it. A company with operations in your district is a far better prospect than a larger one elsewhere.

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Schedule VII

Schedule VII: permitted activities

CSR funds may only be spent on activities listed in Schedule VII of the Act — a defined menu of permitted social purposes.

Eradicating hunger, poverty & malnutrition; healthcare; sanitation
Promoting education and vocational skills
Gender equality and empowering women
Environmental sustainability and conservation
Rural development and other listed purposes

If your project does not map to a Schedule VII head, a company cannot fund it from CSR. Frame proposals to fit the schedule explicitly.

Schedule VII permits	It does not permit
Hunger, poverty, malnutrition, health	Activities benefiting only employees
Education, skills, livelihoods	Political contributions
Gender equality, women’s empowerment	Normal course of business
Environment, water, sanitation	Anything outside the listed heads
Rural development, disaster relief	General core funding for your organisation

CSR cannot fund your organisation, only listed activities. That is the single most consequential fact about CSR for an NGO used to grant funding, and it is why CSR does not solve the unrestricted-income problem.

Read the current Schedule VII rather than a summary. It has been amended several times, and the permitted heads are the boundary of what a company can lawfully route to you.

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CSR-1

CSR-1 registration

To receive CSR funds, an implementing NGO must register with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and obtain a CSR-1 registration number (Form CSR-1). Without it, a company generally cannot route CSR money to your organisation.

Treat CSR-1 as a basic eligibility credential — alongside 12A and 80G. Get it in place before you approach companies, not after they say yes.

Registration	Needed for	Where
CSR-1	Receiving CSR funds at all	Ministry of Corporate Affairs
12A / 12AB	The NGO’s own tax exemption	Income-tax
80G	The donor’s tax deduction	Income-tax
FCRA	Any foreign contribution	Ministry of Home Affairs

Without CSR-1, a company generally cannot route CSR funds to you, however willing they are and however good the fit. It is an eligibility gate, not a preference.

Get all four in place before you need them. Registration takes time, and the conversation where a company discovers you lack CSR-1 is usually the end of that conversation.

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Illustrative Mix

Where CSR money tends to go

Illustrative split of CSR spend by sector

Illustrative pattern — not official figures

Illustrative only. Education and health consistently attract large shares of CSR — useful to know, but confirm current patterns from published CSR data before relying on them.

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Winning CSR

What companies look for in a partner

Valid registrations — CSR-1, 12A, 80G
A track record they can verify and visit
Clean finances, audits and the ability to report rigorously
Alignment with the company's chosen Schedule VII theme and geography
Measurable outcomes the company can showcase to its board

Companies are accountable to their boards for CSR spend. Make it easy for them to choose you — and to defend that choice.

Companies look for	Because
Valid CSR-1, 12A, 80G	Eligibility — non-negotiable
A verifiable track record	Their board carries the risk
Clean audits and rigorous reporting	CSR spend is disclosed publicly
Alignment with their chosen theme	The committee approved a theme, not a cause
Something visible	Reported in the annual report

CSR decisions are made by people accountable to a board and a public disclosure. Understanding that explains the preference for verifiable, visible, short-cycle work far better than cynicism does.

Offer a site visit early. Companies fund what they have seen, and a visit does more than any amount of documentation to move a CSR head from interested to committed.

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Cautions

CSR is not a blank cheque

CSR is restricted to Schedule VII — not general core funding
Activities benefiting only employees do not count as CSR
Companies often want visible, brandable, short-cycle projects
Reporting and utilisation rules are strict — comply precisely

Manage the relationship as a true partnership — not a transaction — while protecting your mission from being reshaped purely for corporate visibility.

CSR constraint	Consequence for you
Schedule VII only	No core funding
Annual cycle, March-driven	Timing matters more than usual
Preference for visible projects	Long, quiet work is harder to fund
Brand association expected	Decide what you will and will not co-brand
Heavy reporting	Budget for the reporting effort

Decide your co-branding position before the first CSR conversation. A community-based organisation associating publicly with a company operating locally can carry consequences the grant does not cover.

The March deadline cuts both ways: money must be spent, and rushed spending produces projects designed for the deadline rather than the need. Being ready with a good proposal in January is an advantage.

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Section Nine

Compliance & Accountability

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Why It Matters

Compliance is fundraising infrastructure

The right legal registrations are not bureaucratic box-ticking — they are eligibility. Without them you cannot offer donors tax benefits, receive CSR, or accept foreign funds. Compliance unlocks fundraising.

Disclaimer: this is an orientation, not legal advice. Rules change and details matter — always confirm with a qualified professional and the current statute.

Registration	Without it you cannot
12A / 12AB	Keep your income untaxed
80G	Offer donors a deduction
CSR-1	Receive CSR funds at all
FCRA	Accept any foreign contribution
Timely filings	Renew any of the above

These are eligibility gates, not paperwork. An organisation without CSR-1 is not a weaker candidate for CSR funding — it is not a candidate.

The last row is what catches established organisations. Registrations lapse because a filing was missed, and the discovery usually comes from a funder rather than from your own calendar.

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12A

12A: income-tax exemption for the NGO

12A registration

Registration under Section 12A (now 12AB) of the Income-tax Act that gives a charitable organisation exemption from income tax on its income, provided that income is applied to its charitable objects.

12A protects your money: without it, your grants and donations could be taxed as income. It is a foundational registration for any NGO.

12A / 12AB	Effect
What it does	Exempts the NGO’s income from tax
Condition	Income applied to charitable purposes
Without it	Your income may be taxable
Renewal	Periodic under the 12AB regime — not permanent

The move from 12A to 12AB made registration renewable rather than perpetual. Organisations registered decades ago under the old regime had to re-register, and some discovered the requirement late.

Keep the renewal dates in the compliance calendar with a reminder months ahead. A lapsed 12AB is not a paperwork problem, it is a tax liability.

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80G

80G: tax deduction for the donor

80G registration

Registration under Section 80G of the Income-tax Act that lets donors claim a deduction on their taxable income for gifts made to your organisation.

80G benefits the donor, not you — but that benefit is a powerful incentive to give. Display your 80G status clearly in every individual appeal.

80G in practice	Detail
Who benefits	The donor, through a deduction
Your fundraising value	Reduces the real cost of giving
Where to state it	Donation page, receipt, appeal
Receipt requirement	Must carry the prescribed details
Renewal	Periodic — diarise it

Donors who cannot tell whether a gift is deductible generally assume it is not. Stating the 80G position plainly on the donation page is free and measurably improves conversion.

Issue receipts promptly and correctly. A donor who cannot claim their deduction because the receipt was wrong has been given a specific reason not to give again.

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12A vs 80G

Two registrations, two beneficiaries

	12A / 12AB	80G
Benefits	The NGO	The donor
Effect	NGO income exempt from tax	Donor gets a deduction
Why fundraise without it?	Income may be taxed	Donors lose an incentive
Needed for CSR / FCRA	Yes, typically	Strengthens individual appeals

Most NGOs pursue both together. 12A keeps your income untaxed; 80G makes giving more attractive to donors.

	12A / 12AB	80G
Benefits	The NGO	The donor
Effect	NGO income exempt	Donor claims a deduction
Fundraising value	Keeps your money	Makes giving cheaper for them
If missing	Income may be taxed	You lose an incentive competitors have

80G is a fundraising asset, not just a compliance item. For an individual donor it reduces the real cost of giving, and organisations without it are competing at a disadvantage they often do not notice.

State the 80G status plainly on every donation page and receipt. Donors who cannot tell whether a gift is deductible frequently assume it is not.

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FCRA

FCRA: foreign contributions

FCRA

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act — the law governing the receipt and use of foreign donations by organisations in India. An organisation must hold valid FCRA registration (or prior permission) to accept foreign funds.

Accepting foreign money without valid FCRA status is a serious offence. If any of your funding originates abroad, FCRA compliance is non-negotiable.

FCRA requirement	Consequence of getting it wrong
Valid registration or prior permission	Receipt itself is unlawful
Designated SBI New Delhi account	Funds cannot be received
No sub-granting of foreign funds	A whole funding model becomes unlawful
Administrative-expense cap	Overheads under-covered
Annual return and quarterly disclosure	Renewal at risk

FCRA is the one area where getting it wrong is not a compliance inconvenience. Receiving foreign contribution without valid registration is a legal problem, not a filing problem.

If foreign funding is material to your income, name it as a risk in the diversification plan. Eligibility can end by administrative decision, independent of anything you did.

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FCRA 2020

The FCRA amendment of 2020

The 2020 amendment tightened the regime significantly. Two changes matter most for fundraisers:

No sub-granting: an FCRA holder can no longer transfer foreign funds to another organisation
Designated account: foreign contributions must first be received in a designated SBI New Delhi (Main Branch) FCRA account

The no-sub-granting rule reshaped many partnership and intermediary models. If your model relied on passing on foreign funds, rethink it — with legal advice.

FCRA change (2020)	Effect on fundraising
No sub-granting of foreign funds	Breaks the intermediary model many networks used
Designated SBI New Delhi account required	An operational step, strictly enforced
Tighter administrative-expense cap	Less of a foreign grant can cover overheads
Registration and renewal scrutiny	Eligibility can end administratively

The sub-granting ban restructured the sector. Larger organisations that received foreign funds and passed them to grassroots partners could no longer do so, and many small organisations lost their funding route overnight.

If foreign funding is a material share of your income, treat that as a named risk in the diversification plan rather than an assumption. It can be removed by administrative decision.

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Transparency

Accountability is a two-way street

Compliance satisfies the regulator; transparency earns trust. Beyond statutory filings, accountable NGOs publish what they raise, how they spend it, and what it achieved — to donors and to communities.

Audited annual accounts and an annual report
Honest reporting of both successes and failures
Accountability to communities, not only to funders

Compliance satisfies	Transparency earns
The regulator	Public trust
A filing deadline	Donor confidence
A minimum standard	A reason to choose you
What is required	What is not required — and noticed

Publishing what you raise, how you spend it and what it achieved is voluntary and rare, which is exactly what makes it a differentiator with donors comparing options.

Start with the audited accounts and the annual report on your own website. Organisations that publish nothing are frequently compliant and indistinguishable from those that are not.

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Compliance Calendar

Keep a compliance calendar

Annual audit and filing of returns on time
FCRA annual return and quarterly disclosures, where applicable
Renewals of FCRA, 80G and 12A before they lapse
CSR utilisation reports to corporate partners

A lapsed registration can freeze your funding overnight. Track every deadline — in fundraising, compliance and income are inseparable.

Calendar item	Miss it and
Annual audit and returns	Registrations come under scrutiny
FCRA annual return, quarterly disclosure	Renewal at risk
Renewals: FCRA, 80G, 12AB	Eligibility ends overnight
CSR utilisation certificates	The company cannot close its own reporting
Grant reports	Renewal quietly does not happen

Put every date in one calendar with a named owner and a reminder months ahead. Almost every compliance failure in the sector is a missed date rather than a disagreement about the rules.

The fourth row costs you the relationship rather than the regulator’s attention. A company that cannot close its CSR reporting because of you does not fund you again.

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Section Ten

Diversification & Sustainability

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The Risk

Single-donor dependence is fragile

An organisation that draws most of its income from one funder is one decision away from crisis. When that funder changes priorities, the programme — and the people it serves — collapse with it.

A useful warning sign: if any single donor provides a large share of your income, you have a concentration risk that needs a deliberate plan to reduce.

Share of income from largest funder	Position
Over 70%	One decision away from crisis
40–70%	Vulnerable; plan the reduction
Under 30%	Losing them hurts and does not threaten the mission
Under 10% each	Possibly too scattered — see the next slide

Calculate this figure and put it in every board pack. Concentration is the single most predictive number about an NGO’s fragility, and most organisations do not track it.

The risk is not that the funder is unreliable. It is that priorities change for reasons unconnected to your performance, and a strategy shift at their end ends your programme.

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The Fix

Diversification is resilience

Diversification spreads income across several sources — grants, CSR, individuals, government, earned income — so that losing any one does not threaten the mission. It is the single most important sustainability strategy.

Diversification trades a little efficiency for a lot of resilience. A messier funding mix is a safer one.

Diversification step	Realistic timeline
Add a second institutional funder	A year
Start individual giving	Two to three years to matter
Build a monthly base	Three years and continuing
Establish earned income	Two to five years
Build reserves	Only from the above

Every timeline here is longer than the crisis that prompts the decision. Diversification cannot rescue an organisation already losing its main funder, which is why it has to start while things are fine.

It is the single most protective thing an NGO can do, and it is always the thing deferred to next year because this year’s gap is urgent.

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Balance

Two failure modes of the funding mix

Too concentrated

One or two funders dominate. Efficient today, catastrophic the day they leave. The classic NGO failure.

Too scattered

Dozens of tiny grants, each with its own rules and reports. Resilient, but the reporting burden can swallow the organisation.

Aim for the middle: several meaningful sources, none dominant, each worth the cost of servicing it.

Failure mode	Symptom	Cost
Too concentrated	One or two funders dominate	Catastrophic the day they leave
Too scattered	Dozens of tiny restricted grants	Compliance overhead exceeds the income

The scattered failure is under-recognised because it looks like diversification. Thirty grants of ₹2 lakh each carry thirty reporting cycles, thirty audits and thirty relationships, and consume more staff time than they fund.

Set a floor on grant size relative to its administrative burden. A grant too small to cover the cost of managing it is a net loss, however welcome it feels.

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Reserves

Reserves: the cushion that buys time

Reserves — unrestricted funds set aside — let an organisation survive a delayed grant, a lost funder or an emergency without laying off staff or abandoning communities mid-project.

Many advise building reserves covering several months of core costs. Reserves are not hoarding — they are the difference between a setback and a shutdown.

Reserves buy	When
Survival through a delayed tranche	Government and large-grant work
Time to replace a lost funder	Without emergency redundancies
Ability to pre-finance	Reimbursement-based contracts
The ability to decline bad money	The most underrated benefit

The last row is why reserves are a mission asset rather than a finance one. An organisation with no reserves cannot refuse a grant with conditions it dislikes, and knows it.

Reserves can only be built from unrestricted income, which most Indian NGOs have very little of. That is the circularity that makes the individual-giving investment worth starting despite its slow return.

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Unrestricted

Chase unrestricted income deliberately

Sustainability depends on unrestricted income — the money that builds reserves, covers overheads and funds the gaps grants ignore. Individual giving and earned income are its main sources.

Set an explicit target for the share of income that is unrestricted, and grow it year on year. It is the truest measure of financial freedom.

Unrestricted income comes from	Effort required
Individual giving	High, sustained, over years
Earned income	High; needs a real market
Unrestricted grants	Rare; usually relationship-based
Reserves already built	Compounds from the above

Nothing on this list is easy, which is why unrestricted income is scarce. Restricted money is available to any competent proposal writer; unrestricted money has to be built.

Ask existing funders for a share unrestricted. Some will say yes, more will than you expect, and almost no organisation asks — because the proposal template does not have a box for it.

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Earned Income

Earned income for stability

Fees for training, consultancy, certified services or the sale of products can give an NGO income it controls — reducing dependence on any external funder and growing with the organisation.

But earned income carries commercial risk and tax and regulatory implications. Build it carefully, as one diversified stream — never as a substitute for mission discipline.

Earned income stream	Requires	Risk
Training fees	A curriculum and a reputation	Staff time diverted
Consultancy	Senior people with spare capacity	The best staff pulled off programmes
Product sales	Real market demand	Cross-subsidy hidden in programme costs
Certified services	Accreditation	Slow to establish

The common failure is not the market, it is the accounting. Earned-income arms frequently look profitable because programme staff time is never charged to them.

Cost the stream honestly, including the staff time it consumes at full rate. An activity that would lose money if properly costed is being subsidised by the grants it was supposed to reduce dependence on.

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Plan

Building a diversification plan

MAP: your current income by source & concentration

→

TARGET: a healthier future mix

→

INVEST: in the streams you lack (e.g. individuals)

→

SEQUENCE: realistic year-by-year shifts

→

REVIEW: track the mix every year

Diversification is a multi-year project, not a campaign. Building an individual-donor base or an earned-income line takes patience and upfront investment.

Step	Output
Map current income by source	Concentration ratio; restricted/unrestricted split
Set a target mix	A number per stream, with a date
Invest in what you lack	Usually individual giving — and it costs upfront
Sequence realistically	One new stream at a time
Review annually	Against the concentration ratio, not just total income

One new stream at a time. Organisations that decide to build individual giving, earned income and CSR simultaneously usually build none of them, because each needs sustained attention for years.

Fund the investment explicitly. Diversification that has to happen in the gaps of existing workloads does not happen, and the plan becomes an annual document nobody acts on.

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Sustainability

Sustainability is bigger than money

True sustainability is not only a stable budget. It is capable staff, strong systems, community ownership and a clear mission — the things that let impact outlast any single grant or leader.

Fundraising serves sustainability; it is not the same as it. Build the organisation, not just the next year's income.

Sustainability includes	Not only
Capable staff who stay	A balanced budget
Systems that work without heroics	This year’s income
Community ownership	Donor confidence
A clear mission	A funding pipeline

An organisation with money and no institutional capacity is not sustainable, it is temporarily funded. The two are routinely conflated because only one of them appears in the accounts.

The test is what survives your departure. If the relationships, the knowledge and the systems live in individuals, the organisation is one resignation from a crisis no grant will fix.

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Section Eleven

Ethics, Practice & Further Reading

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Dignity

Dignity in storytelling

Fundraising runs on stories — and stories carry power over the people in them. The first ethical duty is to tell those stories with dignity: as agents of their own lives, not as objects of pity.

Show people as protagonists of their own story, not as proof of your compassion.

— a principle of ethical communications

Telling a story with dignity	Means
The person is an agent	Not an object of pity
They chose to be in it	Informed consent, freely given
They can decline	And the ask still gets written
Their name is used as they wish	Or withheld where there is risk
The story is accurate	Not composited or improved

The person in the story bears consequences you do not. A photograph circulating with a story about poverty, illness or violence follows someone through their community long after the campaign ends.

Composite stories — several people merged into one "typical" case — are common and are misrepresentation unless labelled. If you use one, say so.

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Poverty Porn

No 'poverty porn'

Poverty porn

Imagery or storytelling that exploits people's suffering — exaggerated misery, helplessness and humiliation — to trigger guilt and donations, while stripping the subject of agency and dignity.

It dehumanises the people you claim to serve
It may raise money short-term but corrodes trust and self-respect
It reinforces stereotypes of helpless 'beneficiaries'

Poverty porn	The dignified version
Exaggerated misery	Accurate circumstance
Helplessness	Agency and effort
Anonymous suffering	A named person, with consent
Guilt as the trigger	Solidarity as the trigger
The subject as illustration	The subject as the point

It works in the short term, which is why it persists. Guilt-triggered giving converts; it also produces donors who give once, feel relieved, and do not return — and it costs the subject their dignity permanently.

The practical test: would you be comfortable showing this material to the person in it, in front of their neighbours? If not, it should not be published.

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Consent

Informed consent for every story

Get genuine, informed consent to use a person's image or story
Explain where and how it will be used — and let them decline
Protect identity where there is any risk of harm
Be honest: no staged scenes, no fabricated suffering

A signature on a release form is not consent if the person did not understand what they were agreeing to. The duty is to comprehension, not paperwork.

Consent must cover	Because
Where it will appear	A local newsletter differs from a national campaign
How long it may be used	Images circulate for years
The right to withdraw	Circumstances change
Whether they are named	Naming can identify a household
That refusal costs them nothing	Otherwise it is not consent

The last row is the one that fails in practice. Consent given to the person who delivers your services, in front of them, is not freely given — and everyone in the room knows it.

Ask through someone with no power over the person, in their own language, with a genuine option to say no. A signature on a form documents a process; it does not substitute for one.

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Two Accountabilities

Donor vs community accountability

Upward (to donors)

Reports, audits, results, value for money. Necessary — and loud, because donors hold the purse.

Downward (to community)

Listening, responsiveness, honesty, sharing power. Just as important — and easily neglected, because communities hold no cheque.

The ethical challenge: do not let accountability to funders crowd out accountability to the people you exist to serve. Balance both, deliberately.

	Upward (donors)	Downward (community)
Enforced by	Contracts and money	Nothing
Content	Reports, audits, results	Listening, responsiveness, honesty
When they conflict	Usually wins	Usually loses
Made real by	The grant agreement	A deliberate mechanism, or not at all

Downward accountability has no enforcement, which is precisely why it needs a mechanism. Without a named process — community feedback, published budgets, a grievance route — it stays a value rather than a practice.

The simplest test: does the community know how much this project cost and what it was meant to achieve? In most projects they do not, and the funder does.

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Ethical Lines

Lines a fundraiser should not cross

No misleading claims, inflated numbers or invented results
No exploiting suffering, fear or guilt to manipulate gifts
No accepting money whose conditions betray the mission
No pressure tactics that override a donor's free choice
No quiet sale or misuse of donor or community data

Many countries have a fundraisers' code of ethics. Adopt one, write your own principles, and hold the whole team to them.

Line	Why it is a line
No misleading claims or inflated numbers	One exposure ends the organisation’s credibility
No exploiting suffering to manipulate	The person did not consent to that use
No money whose conditions betray the mission	The grant ends; the compromise does not
No promising what you cannot deliver	The community bears the failure
No using a story without real consent	The subject carries the risk

Decide these before you are under pressure. Every line here gets tested in a specific situation where crossing it funds three salaries, and that is the wrong moment to be deciding.

Write them into a fundraising policy the board has approved. A line the organisation has agreed in the abstract is far easier to hold than one an individual fundraiser has to defend alone.

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Takeaways

If you remember five things

Mission first — money is the means, never the point
Relationships, not transactions — people give to trust
Diversify — never depend on a single donor
Get compliance right — CSR-1, 12A, 80G, FCRA
Tell stories with dignity — never 'poverty porn'

Takeaway	The failure it prevents
Mission first	Drifting toward whatever is fundable
Relationships, not transactions	Replacing your donor base annually
Diversify	One funder’s decision ending a programme
Get compliance right	Being ineligible rather than unsuccessful
Tell stories with dignity	Raising money at someone else’s cost

The fourth is the cheapest to fix and the most absolute. Missing CSR-1 or a lapsed 80G does not make you a weaker candidate; it removes you from consideration entirely.

If you take one number from this deck, take the share of income from your largest funder. It predicts fragility better than any other figure and most organisations have never calculated it.

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Keep Learning

Source	For
Companies Act, 2013 and CSR Rules	The primary text on Section 135 and Schedule VII
FCRA, 2010 as amended 2020	Any foreign funding — read the amendment
Income-tax Act, 12A/12AB and 80G	The registrations that decide eligibility
NGO Darpan and MCA portals	Registration and filing, in practice
Your own audited accounts	The concentration ratio and unrestricted share