By Dr Samar Verma*
From Temples to Schools: India’s Giving Culture Thrives
If Indian philanthropy has a heartbeat, it is the small, frequent act: the family that contributes at the temple on festive days; the salaried professional who supports a neighbourhood school; the farmer who gives grain after the harvest and a security guard who shares his meal with a dog. Two strands of fresh evidence—one from India’s nonprofit frontlines and another from households themselves—show that this pulse is steady and getting stronger.
On October 6, 2025, the UDARTA: Everyday Giving (EG) Report 2025 underscored how nonprofits are leaning into citizen philanthropy: a collaborative study of 304 organisations across 26 states, funded by GivingTuesday and Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, finds that “everyday givers” already account for roughly one-third of nonprofit funding and that 96% of organisations engaging them consider it worthwhile—especially because such funds are more likely to be unrestricted and community-rooted. The collaborative initiative represents India’s unified effort to explore how nonprofits harness citizen-driven philanthropy.
From the supply side of giving—the households— the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP)’s longitudinal How India Gives 2021–22 provides the empirical complement. In a year-on-year comparison, reported “cash” giving (cash, cheque, cards, wallets) rose from ₹23.7 thousand crore in 2020–21 to ₹27 thousand crore in 2021–22, with the share of households donating rising from 87% to 91%. The growth is broad-based and real. The recipient pattern remains deeply Indian: religious organisations dominate at 75% of market share (₹20.2 thousand crore), followed by persons engaged in beggary (13%), family/friends (6%), household staff (4%), and- importantly for civil society- non-religious organisations at 2% (₹672 crore).
What explains this profile? First, motivations. Across regions and socio-economic classes, “religious beliefs” and “religious customs” top the list, with “self/mental satisfaction” a close third; tax incentives hardly register. In a separate deep dive on motivations, CSIP finds the same: religious beliefs/customs and mental peace dominate, and tax benefits do not meaningfully drive household donations. For nonprofits, that means moral narratives and community trust- not fiscal deductions- are the levers that actually move the needle.
Second, who gives to what? Higher-affluence households (SEC A) are the backbone of giving to non-religious organisations; among middle- and lower-SEC households, giving is more likely to be religious or not occur at all. Geography adds nuance: rural India’s giving is more religious, while large towns contribute relatively more to non-religious organisations- a pattern consistent across CSIP’s panel. (SEC stands for Socio-Economic Classification, a system widely used in India to categorise households based on socio-economic parameters for market research, social studies, and policy analysis. It helps segment populations to understand behaviours, preferences, and economic capacities, such as philanthropy trends in the context of the EG Report.)
Third, how do households choose where and how to give? Here, the evidence is strikingly consistent with UDARTA’s practice-side message. Households overwhelmingly prefer in-person solicitation- requests by a beneficiary or a volunteer- over digital or media pushes; “face-to-face” channels and word-of-mouth dominate information flows for both religious and non-religious donations. Indeed, the share of giving to non-religious organisations via digital wallets fell from 4% to 1% between 2020–21 and 2021–22; currency notes remained the primary medium. For fundraisers tempted by the efficiency of online channels, this is a caution: digital convenience does not substitute for social proximity in India’s giving culture.
Trust is the hinge and is not scalable. Among households that hesitate to donate, the leading remedy is simple transparency: easy access to information on how one’s contribution was used, receipts for donations, and clarity about other funds handled by an organisation. Roughly a third of households say such visibility would increase trust, with “seeing impact” more salient in urban India and “proof of receipt” valued especially by higher-SEC groups.
In CSIP’s motivations/barriers study, households go further: personal visits, speaking to the same representative over time, and continuity in relationships are concrete trust-builders—again privileging human connection over impersonal campaigns.
How do these household facts meet UDARTA’s nonprofit insights? The match is nearly one-to-one. UDARTA reports that everyday giving is not just viable across nonprofit sizes and causes; it also builds community and resilience by bringing in flexible, unrestricted resources as institutional funding tightens. Yet only about a third of nonprofits have actively fundraised from everyday givers in the last five years—an untapped opportunity by any measure.
Taken together, what do these findings mean for India’s civil society leaders, CSR heads, and policymakers? One, design for proximity, not just scale. If the median Indian donor is moved by faith, family tradition, and mental peace- and prefers in-person approaches- then mobilising local volunteers, strengthening beneficiary-donor touchpoints, and enabling community events will outperform mass digital pushes. The CSIP data on preferred solicitation modes and information channels are unequivocal on this point.
Second, treat transparency as a product. Households want to know where the rupee went. A lightweight, mobile-friendly “use-of-funds” receipt, a one-page impact explainer within 30–60 days, and an annual “how we used unrestricted funds” note can directly address the top trust gaps. This aligns with CSIP’s finding that transparent utilisation information and receipts are the most cited trust enhancers.
Third, segment by socio-economics and geography. SEC A households are your natural base for non-religious causes; rural households may require different cause frames (elderly care, disability, disaster relief) and more personal intermediation. CSIP’s cause and SEC breakdowns point to these variations; one size will fail many. Fourth, leverage giving “moments” and regularity. Many households donate around festivals and special occasions; frequency data show a meaningful fraction giving monthly or more frequently. Convert moments into habits by offering modest monthly options (₹100–₹500), with dignity and zero pressure.
Finally, advocate smart policy tweaks, but don’t over-rely on them. Since tax incentives barely influence household giving choices today, policy should focus less on expanding deductions and more on friction-reducing standards such as e-receipts, common impact badges, and grievance redress norms for fundraisers. That said, improving awareness and ease of claiming deductions could widen the base at the margin.
A final word on narratives. The dominance of religious giving is not a bug to be fixed; it is a social fact to be respected and channelled. The data show that households motivated by religious customs and beliefs also cite “mental satisfaction/peace” and “desire to support a cause” when giving to non-religious organisations. Bridging appeals- framing education, elderly care, and disaster relief as dharma-aligned duties- may therefore be the most culturally congruent and rich way to grow secular giving without asking people to abandon their moral vocabulary.
For funders and boards, UDARTA’s message is to institutionalise everyday giving as a strategic pillar, not a rainy-day tactic. Build internal capabilities for retail fundraising (community managers, volunteer networks, data ops), ring-fence time for relationship-led cultivation, and set learning goals: pilots on monthly giving, matched-giving days, and volunteer-to-donor conversion. The study’s finding that everyday giving brings visibility, community, and unrestricted support- benefits now scarce in projectized, byte-sized, metric-driven funding- should be reason enough.
For the Indian state, the enabling agenda is straightforward: strengthen disclosure rails for nonprofits seeking household contributions (standardised e-receipts, simple impact reporting templates), nudge platforms and payment providers to default to transparency features, and consider updated consumer-protection guidance for solicitation (IDs for fundraisers, complaint hotlines). The cyber-security associated with digital giving could be a nudge. These measures are pro-donor, pro-nonprofit, and fiscally neutral.
There is, finally, a leadership challenge for nonprofits. UDARTA indicates that only 37% of organisations have actively cultivated everyday givers despite high returns. CSIP shows households reward proximity, clarity, and continuity. The gap is not the Indian public’s generosity; it is our sector’s under-investment in the unglamorous work of local presence and follow-through.
Such a data-driven effort should be commended because often the most powerful philanthropy is invisible, viz., knowledge infrastructure. Sampling frames that reach small towns, consistent taxonomies, longitudinal surveys, open repositories and transparent methods constitute the unsung plumbing that dignifies local givers and nonprofits. They convert anecdotes into usable intelligence and enable states, funders, and communities to design fairer interventions. There have also been institutions that quietly grow in the spaces between big cheques: volunteers who show up, small donors who stay, and communities that claim ownership. The Indian household is telling us, in data and in deed, that it is ready to play that role.
UDARTA’s frontline view and CSIP’s household lens converge on a simple truth: everyday giving is not the fallback of a sector in distress—it is the foundation of a resilient, self-respecting civil society. The task now is to meet citizens where they are, speak in the moral languages they trust, and offer the transparency they deserve. If that happens, the quiet revolution already underway in Indian giving will not just persist; it will compound, making its rightful contribution to narrative-building in philanthropy.
*Dr Samar Verma is an economist, public policy professional and an institution-builder, with 28 years of experience in economic policy research, international development, grant management and philanthropic leadership. The views expressed are personal.
