Philanthropy to India: The Potential of Collective Impact
People sometimes ask how the India Philanthropy Alliance evolved. There had been efforts in the past to catalyze some kind of consortium or network of India-focused nonprofits active in the United States to drive collaboration and reduce unnecessary duplication of efforts. But none had much staying power until Alex Counts and M.R. Rangaswami wrote this concept note and circulated it in advance of the Indiaspora Forum in Virginia in September 2017. At the time, Counts was the President/CEO of the American India Foundation and Rangaswami was (and remains) the founder and chairman of Indiaspora.
What We Know Now About Poverty in India and About Defeating It
At the welcome dinner to the India Philanthropy Alliance (IPA) retreat, which was held on April 27, 2023 in New York City, IPA Vice-Chair Nishant Pandey, who is also the CEO of the American India Foundation, was asked to set the context by addressing this question: What would it take to virtually eliminate poverty in India in the next ten years? His comments were well received by the group, and we later asked him to reconstruct them into this blog post in order to share them with a wider audience.