Project Vishrambh

Designing and developing a system to improve the transparency of operations and monetary flow within the philanthropic sector, while also aiding the efficiency and productivity of the NGOs

Across the world, philanthropies have been playing an increasing role in addressing some of society’s most critical challenges. Philanthropy is a huge sector worldwide and a rapidly growing one in India, donations of around $500 billion a year is seen worldwide. While in India there is around $10 Billion donated every year. Within the sector, NGOs remain a common mode of charity with a large amount of these donations going to NGOs. The sector given the resources provides a massive opportunity to address and alleviate a range of societal problems, but the intent often rarely translates to the desired impact.

However, lack of adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms and unenforceable trust have been troubling the sector. Due to lack of transparency within the sector, efforts by donors and NGOs within the sector are often disparate resulting in redundant expenditure of time and money. While, over the years, there have also been cases of fraudulent activities and fund misuse that have been observed and reported. These mismanagements and corruptions across the fund flow result in the money not reaching the real intended purposes and reducing the impact of the sector. There is an increasing need for transparency and public availability of data in the philanthropy sector to increase its efficacy and impact.

Access to public data across the sector can inform decision-making and lead to more concerted efforts, reducing redundant spending and efforts resulting in greater impact and improved efficacy. Public data can also enable citizens and civil society to identify various causes being addressed through philanthropic activities and ensure philanthropic entities are responsible and democratic. While increased transparency and trust enforcement systems can mitigate fraudulent activities, fund misuse, and foster long term support from donors and promote wider participation due to the trust garnered.

Project Vishrambh was started with the objective to address the issues of transparency and trust within the philanthropic sector. We have been developing an end-to-end auditable platform that can help NGOs collect data, manage data, and monitor projects. The NGOs can define policies to push relevant data to tamper-resistant public ledgers to ensure data integrity and enable end to end audibility and transparency. The data within the tamper-proof ledgers are also visualized through a public dashboard for public consumption by the various stakeholders within the sector.

We have been working in collaboration with Child Fund India (CFI), a child development organization that is aims to help vulnerable children lead a dignified life and achieve their full potential, to develop the platform. We are currently piloting the first version of the platform with CFI to help them manage their grant projects.