Giving Compass' Take:

• India Development Review discusses the role strategic philanthropy is playing in the country's nonprofit sector and how bolder ideas are gaining more traction.

• From bridging the digital divide for women in rural areas to reforming the education system in high-poverty areas, we can learn a lot from the innovation India has explored in recent years.

• While the author appears to deride the term, don't forget that "checkbook philanthropy can still be strategic.

Domestic philanthropy in India is expanding rapidly, driven by the growth in individual and corporate giving. Between 2011 and 2016, social sector funding in India grew at an annual rate of nine percent. This upward trend is largely driven by the growth in domestic individual philanthropy, which is the second largest source of social sector funding in India after government spending. The CSR mandate of the Companies Act, 2013 has helped in the rise of corporate giving.

Increasingly, philanthropists are focusing their giving on addressing specific social change issues. Their approach to giving has transformed from the more conventional "checkbook giving" to thinking strategically about how to achieve better outcomes in society. They define clear goals, set out a pathway for change, and put in place mechanisms to measure progress and results. Some are tackling deeply entrenched social challenges to help create population-level change in areas of large social need.

Philanthropists have moved from "checkbook giving" to thinking strategically about better outcomes.This type of ‘bold philanthropy’ has been gathering momentum in India, but there has not yet been all that much written on the subject. For its new report — Bold Philanthropy: Insights from Eight Social Change Initiatives — The Bridgespan Group examined nearly 100 philanthropic initiatives in India, and chose eight that were determined to be bold on the basis of several parameters: giving size, clear social change goals which deliver population-level change, white space of unmet needs, and a clearly defined pathway toward addressing a seemingly intractable social problem.

Read the full article about a move to more strategic philanthropy in India by Pritha Venkatachalam at India Development Review.