Deepening the Culture of Philanthropy

The Alliance seeks to deepen the culture of philanthropy in both America and India , especially among Indian Americans and among others with an affinity for India. We do this through coordinated communications, our evolving youth engagement initiatives, collective efforts such as India Giving Day, and by organizing conferences such as the Indiaspora-IPA Philanthropy Summit. We have emerged as philanthropy thought leaders, publishing an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled, "Diaspora Philanthropy 3.0," among many other examples. 

In a 2018 study conducted by Dalberg Advisors and Indiaspora, we learned that Indian Americans, while being prolific in volunteering their time, were donating at roughly one third the rate of the overall U.S. population resulting in a giving gap of $2-3 billion annually. In a follow-up study conducted by Dalberg, Indiaspora, and the India Philanthropy Alliance, this giving gap had decreased to $1 billion by 2024, a remarkable turn-around covered in the report, From Closing the Gap to Setting the Standard: The State of Philanthropic Giving in the Indian American Diaspora. 

While our goal over the past several years has been to lift Indian American giving to the same level as the U.S. average, and are near to achieving that goal, the success of the Indian diaspora suggests that the community has the capacity to do much more. We now set our sights on leveraging  the remarkable gain of the past five years to a lasting legacy by closing the gap completely and setting a new global standard for diaspora giving. Our hope is to do this while focusing a meaningful amount of those gifts on the development needs in India. We hope to achieve this goal while sustaining the Indian American’s impressive tradition of volunteerism, which is double the national rate in the United States.