PHILANTHROPY'S GREAT CONVERGENCE

Philanthropy funds nurture innovative ideas for social good; CSR funds help roll out projects, and impact investments help ventures scale up for a change in the society.

- JOE C. MATHEW

AT THE START OF COVID-19, India had 14 laboratories capable of diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 (corona) virus. By the time the fear of the pandemic faded, the number was 3,000. Cost of domestic test kits fell 60% from $8 to $3 during the period. The partnerships that made this happen were stitched together by U.S.-based The Rockefeller Foundation. The foundation’s funding to Indigenization Of Diagnostics Initiative enabled drastic reduction in price of test kits, ten-fold increase in PCR (polymerase chain reaction) diagnostic machine manufacturing and dramatic expansion of testing capacity. The insights acquired were adopted for G20’s medical countermeasures platform under India’s presidency.

During Covid-19, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), India’s top corporate social responsibility (CSR) spender, supplied 1,000 metric tonnes liquid medical oxygen every day for over one lakh patients, distributed over 8.5 crore meals to frontline workers and vulnerable communities, funded over 40 lakh vaccinations and set up 2,000-plus hospital beds. In FY21, RIL, through Reliance Foundation, spent a record ₹922 crore on CSR. Overall India Inc.’s CSR contributions were the highest that year, ₹26,211 crore (₹4,313 crore from public sector enterprises), spent in 14 development sectors. Companies with certain scale have to spend 2% of average net profit of previous three years on social sector initiatives under CSR rules. At the other end of the spectrum are impact, or for-profit, investments in sectors and technologies delivering big social impact.