Philanthropy has changed in the times of Covid-19

Atul Satija, CEO, GiveIndia

We are in the midst of a ‘giving revolution’ triggered by a virus; a rare upside of a crisis that has ravaged the world. People across the socioeconomic spectrum have opened up their hearts, wallets, and schedules to help each other during this once-in-a-century pandemic. These acts of kindness by ordinary citizens, on the ground and on digital platforms, are rewiring generosity. We spoke to the two-decade-old online donation platform GiveIndia’s chief executive officer, Atul Satija, to understand this transformation in how we give and, more importantly, how to sustain momentum of giving after the pandemic’s most devastating waves subside. Edited excerpts

Corporate giving is similar. Obviously, every company has certain priorities as per CSR policies and internal biases based on the businesses they are in. But the fundamentals are the same. It has to be easy and you have to be sure that the money goes to the cause and really creates an impact. But companies also have to be fully compliant with the law, so that becomes an additional dimension in B2B giving.

On the brand campaign side, we work with Flipkart, Myntra, Pepperfry, Xiaomi, and Glance, for example, to have their ecosystem of consumers and users come forward to donate through joint-giving campaigns. We also use platforms with a large reach for awareness campaigns.

Many organisations are creating programmes for their employees and community support programmes. Banks and technology companies are creating partnership platforms with us where employees come forward to donate to the causes that they care about.

Now younger generations are starting to look at causes that are more relevant given the times. These are climate change, water, and energy, and renewables.

With Covid-19, obviously, public health is on top of everyone's mind. We are seeing a shift from food, hunger, and education to the public health side. During lockdowns, we also see more activity on the livelihood side.

This year started with a grave need on the medical infrastructure, equipment, and supply side. We worked on physical infrastructure, supporting Covid-19 care facilities, supplying oxygen concentrators, cylinders and setting up PSA oxygen plants. As the need for food and cash support is growing, for the last few weeks we’ve been raising money to provide dry rations and cash relief. We are also focusing on vaccine equity, access and affordability. Because nobody is safe until everyone is safe.

We’re expanding the scope of our work as we learn more about the second and third-order effects of Covid-19 this year.

We're witnessing an extraordinary outpouring of generosity which is happening in organised and unorganised ways, online and offline. How can platforms like Give India sustain momentum in giving after the worst of the pandemic passes?

There is always much higher levels of giving during challenging times and disasters. As life goes back to normal, giving numbers come down. And that is okay as long as thoughtful giving from the B2B ecosystem and recurrent giving from individual donors continue.

We have to keep conversations and dialogues going and build awareness. As a platform, we try to talk about the long-range impact of disasters and the need to park a certain amount of money for the future. It’s important to start thinking about the pandemic's long-term impact. People forget the communities destroyed in disasters, who are directly impacted and will live a lifelong journey of loss. Most people focus on rescue work and short-term relief. But longer-term rehabilitation always suffers because there is usually much less money available for what usually needs the most money.

The writer is Editor (Storyboard) at Network18