Pay It Forward

Promising to give away half their wealth to charitable causes, these extraordinary Indians are setting a new milestone in philanthropy

- Ishani Nandi

When Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet launched The Giving Pledge in August 2010, they invited high net worth individuals to dedicate more than half their fortunes to philanthropy. The movement grew rapidly and by 2017, there were 168 signatories from 21 nations. This is when word reached 47-year-old Girish Batra, a corporate executive from Bengaluru. A part-time volunteer at DaanUtsav—a pan-India giving week in October—Batra discussed starting a similar initiative in India with his fellow volunteers. But, instead of bringing together the super-rich, Batra proposed that wellheeled middle-class Indians—with a net worth of 1 crore or more—pledge to give away at least half their wealth over the course of their lives, or in their wills as a posthumous donation, to causes close to their hearts.

By August that year, the campaign, dubbed #LivingMyPromise (#LMP), went online and news began to spread. Venkat Krishnan N, founder of the non-profit GiveIndia, and among the first to take the pledge, and five more donors from DaanUtsav came on board. Today, a total of 27 signatories from across India have signed up, including actor, director and philanthropist, Rahul Bose. “Asking Indians to commit to something like this would have been preposterous earlier,” says Bose. But this, to him, is an indication of where philanthropy has reached in India. “This is not first level; this is talking to those who are a few steps in the journey, where they are willing to make this a way of life,” he says.

What indeed ties the pledge takers is not their enormous fortunes, but their big, giving hearts. Most of them have grown up in average, middle-class homes, where frugality was tempered with generosity and social responsibility. Having learnt from strong, positive role models in their own lives, they have continued on the path of giving—donating funds, time and services to serve the needy.