Giving Compass' Take:

• Indradeep Ghosh and Nishanth Kumar demonstrate the utter necessity of nonprofits during COVID-19 for migrant workers in India and how we can find new ways to keep them around.

• Why are nonprofits essential in filling in funding gaps that the public sector can't manage? What are you doing to support nonprofits during COVID-19?

• Find out more about how you can help nonprofits during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown has had a particularly devastating impact on migrant workers and their households. The imposition of the lockdown has led to many workers being left stranded in their workplace or suffering through long and dangerous journeys back home. Prevailing domicile restrictions for accessing state welfare (including rations), reduced mobility due to lockdown measures, and the stigma associated with being a migrant have left workers in distress and in need of help.

The central government has accelerated relief efforts and inter-state discussions for migrant welfare are underway. However, it is evident that there is still a large dependency on nonprofits and community-based organisations to ensure the delivery of support for the informal sector. In an open letter, the CEO of NITI Aayog cites different ways in which the government seeks support from the social sector, including filling the gaps in public healthcare delivery, creating awareness, and supplementing the efforts of local governments. Whether it is enabling access to state-financed welfare or philanthropic support, nonprofits have stepped up to fill the void in the state’s capacity to deliver welfare.

However, the key question is: How will they fund this support to state actors? We believe that although the social sector has responded courageously to the COVID-19 crisis, its efforts have been greatly limited by the funding mechanisms available to it. There is an urgent need to unlock new sources of capital for COVID-19 relief and recovery. In what follows, we illustrate this idea specifically for the situation of the informal sector, exploring structured finance solutions to fund nonprofits engaged in relief.

Read the full article about nonprofits during COVID-19 by Indradeep Ghosh and Nishanth Kumar at India Development Review.