Family philanthropists will play a pivotal role: Kant | Economic Times

Family philanthropists will play a pivotal role in building a modern India, beyond the contributions through corporate CSR and institutional foundations amid an expected rise in global extreme poverty due to Covid-19, Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, said at a talk organised by philanthropic organisation Dasra. The 'Jedi talks' (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) introduced this year as part of the Dasra Philanthropy Week highlighted the need to promote justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in philanthropic discussions in India to achieve the goal of ‘A Billion Thriving.’ “Global extreme poverty is expected to rise due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, beyond corporate CSR and institutional foundations, family philanthropists will play a pivotal role in building of modern India in terms of bringing in ideas, innovation and institutions," Kant said. Earlier this week, the organisation had released The India Philanthropy Report, 2021, co-authored by Bain & Co., according to which family philanthropy tripled its corpus- growing to Rs 12,000 crore in FY20, even as funding from other sources remained stagnant- thus demonstrating the potential of family philanthropy in India to drive social impact and support. It also predicted that corpus available for CSR will further decline by 5% in 2021, due to decline in profitability of corporations; further pinning hope on contributions by families of billionaires and promoters. “Dasra’s focus is on working with vulnerable communities that face disproportionate risk and are trapped in a socio-economic system that has deemed them largely invisible. To help uplift these communities and realise the potential of over a billion Indians, the first step is to champion diversity and build resilience. But to achieve this, family philanthropists, NGOs, foundations, corporates and governments will need to work together to regularly exchange knowledge, have a shared vision, build a collective voice, and combine resources to invest in scalable, inclusive and sustainable solutions," Neera Nundy, co-founder, Dasra, said.