Giving Compass' Take:

• Alex Counts shares conversations around growing Indian-American philanthropy from Indiaspora’s Philanthropy Summit in Washington, D.C. 

• How can funders work to encourage giving in their networks and communities? 

• Read the India philanthropy report 2019.


Over the last few years, a number of studies and surveys of Indian diaspora philanthropy (and Indian philanthropy generally) have been published. The most recent of these reports was published by Dalberg and Indiaspora in July, with the support of many civil society organizations.  It estimated, based on more than 1,000 survey responses nationwide, that people of Indian origin in the United States volunteer at double the rate of the U.S. population. It also found that they donate roughly one-third as much money per capita as typical Americans do.

At the Indiaspora Leadership Forum 2018 in San Jose, California, the findings were reviewed (with the benefit of a few hundred more survey responses) and a roundtable discussion was held to begin developing an agenda for responding to this information.

Two primary objectives of an action agenda based on these findings were proposed to the group:

  1. Increase Indian-American giving (i.e., fill the donation gap).
  2. Gain more visibility for the robust tradition of Indian-American volunteerism.

Two additional, secondary objectives were presented as well:

  1. Improve the quality of giving (from industry-building and impact perspectives)
  2. Increase giving from other actors (high net worth Indians, Indian companies, non-Indians in the U.S., and Diaspora populations outside of the United States).

Two concrete recommendations emerged:

  1. Quantify the estimated value of donated time so that a dollar value can be assigned to the excess or surplus of Indian-American volunteerism in order to make the findings more balanced and complete; and
  2. Engage academics to try to uncover giving that is missed by the measurement and survey instruments used to date (also known as “grounded giving”).

Read the full article about Indian-American philanthropy by Alex Counts at Indiaspora.