Announcing a New India Giving Day Partnership between Arogya World and Ashoka
by Nalini Saligram, Founder of Arogya World and Ashoka Fellow; Swathi Nuli, Senior Change Manager of Diaspora Networks at Ashoka; and Dr. Shruti Nair, Director of Ashoka India
The excitement around India Giving Day (IGD) 2025 is palpable and increasing every day among the 36 participating non-profit organizations. This effort in collective giving towards India is winning on so many counts – every year the goal is set higher and IGD surpasses expectations. The groups involved leverage this opportunity to mobilize their communities and bring in new donors while getting more Americans to care for these global causes. Encouraged by the guidance of the India Philanthropy Alliance and its backers, every year more partnerships are forged between participating organizations.
After 10 years of working together, Arogya World (arogyaworld.org) and Ashoka (ashoka.org) are putting their combined networks together this India Giving Day. Arogya World, a founding board member of the India Philanthropy Alliance which organizes IGD, strives to tackle the epidemic of diabetes that affects India and Indians everywhere so deeply. Arogya does this through prevention, by getting millions of individuals to change their behavior, with well-designed science-based programs.
Ashoka is a global organization that finds and nurtures social entrepreneurs, called Fellows, across the world, especially in India where they have the largest number of changemakers. Founded 40+ years ago in India, Ashoka is now the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, with 4000+ Fellows working in 90+ countries. Nalini, the founder of Arogya World, is one of the 400+ social entrepreneurs in the Ashoka network in India. Ashoka is taking part this year for the first time in India Giving Day, and Arogya is a 3rd year “veteran.”
In today's fast changing world, Ashoka realizes the ability to be a changemaker is the new literacy. This “Everyone a Changemaker” vision is fundamentally necessary for India to create a society where everyone develops the ability to be a changemaker. When Ashoka started in 1980 in India and selected their first Ashoka Fellow, the construct of social entrepreneurship was not known. Today it is part of everyday thinking and language, and social entrepreneurs are inspiring many people. So, for the last four decades Ashoka has focused not only on supporting Social Entrepreneurs but also on helping a larger population recognize the critical role that social entrepreneurs play. These critical thinkers pull people together, multiply impact, strengthen an idea, and make it both viable and scalable.
Ashoka was motivated to engage in the India Giving Day effort to increase diaspora philanthropy towards India, after seeing the success of individual Fellow-led organizations like Arogya World, which received its first one-million-dollar gift from Rural India Supporting Trust (RIST) on India Giving Day last year. Donations to Ashoka received from India Giving day will go directly to advancing the sourcing, selection and stipend support of new Fellows in India, increasing programming for current Indian Fellows, and advancing Ashoka’s Indian Diaspora engagement programs.
Ashoka is bringing their full network of Fellows, experts, corporate partners, and young changemakers to get involved. Most exciting is that Ashoka will be using India Giving Day to jumpstart a new strategy to engage new and individual donors for Fellow sourcing and selection in India; this will allow them to leverage matching funds up to two million dollars, thanks to a generous donation from the iconic philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
Arogya World is using the opportunity to engage more peer-to-peer fundraisers, find and nurture young champions, and reactivate dormant donors. Arogya will also celebrate its 15th birthday this March. Both organizations will be partnering on in-person and virtual events in the U.S., and in workshops and campaigns in India. This spirit of community and true partnership between India-focused organizations is what inspired big donors to support this campaign in the first place.
The India Philanthropy Alliance and their founding members are very pleased that India Giving Day has been a runaway success, and a win-win for everyone. For the non-profits involved, IGD is a great way to attract new donors, and learn from what others are doing to mobilize their communities. For individual donors they can learn about many India focused organizations and their missions in one place, make donations to those that catch their attention and see their individual contribution raise even more from the various matching funds. For the sponsors and community leaders, it is exciting to see money and ideas being put to good use and really growing the pie.
For the India Philanthropy Alliance, it has been gratifying to see multiple years of engagement and planning paying off, the creativity of the movement building, and how every year the participating organizations foster collaboration in new ways. Especially in these uncertain times, with the world order changing so rapidly, and with official development aid being curtailed, efforts like this that inspire everyday Americans and philanthropists to step up and give to global causes, are noteworthy. We are pleased to do our part to help this experiment in collective giving, succeed, and grow.