National

Managing your charity is their business

CHENNAI: News anchor T.S. Ranganathan is a busy man. Recordings, post-production and managing a couple of companies do not leave much time for being involved in charity work. Yet, over the last two years, Mr. Ranganathan has helped to educate a higher secondary student, clothe an elderly person, house patients at a HIV home and women’s shelter and help a visually challenged person get access to Braille books.

He has done it by handing over his “social investment portfolio” to an organisation called The Interface.

Mr. Ranganathan is one of more than 50 people who have found that professional management of their charity donations can raise their return on investment. As a social investor, he has several ready-made portfolio options, or he can opt for a customised package that will use his money to fund a specific basket of activities. Such activities are monitored, as a result of which he receives quarterly and annual reports on the status of his investment.

And if all that sounds like financial jargon juxtaposed on the world of charity, it is a deliberate move. “Using the analogy of wealth investment, I am a social investment manager,” says Usha Sridhar, who heads The Interface and is its only full-time staffer. Explaining that her typical target is young people in the IT sector or financial sector who have large disposable incomes at a young age, Ms. Sridhar says she deliberately “throws jargon at them that they would be familiar with and that would appeal to them.” The terminology is also a reflection of the professionalism of her approach, she says. “We need more accountability and professional management in the NGO sector,” she says.

For busy professionals and corporates, the Interface offers “a convenient, credible and accountable one-stop-shop for giving and making social investments,” creating a bridge or interface between the “socially challenged” and “social investors,” according to Ms. Sridhar. The organisation, which is an initiative of Sarada Foundations, coordinates donations to twelve social verticals – education, healthcare, elders, child and patient support, women’s causes, feeding, sanitation, the mentally and physically challenged, advocacy, NGO administration, promotion of arts and crafts and the unusual (funding anything from the care of children of jailed convicts to animal welfare to funeral rites). Donors or investors can give a minimum amount of Rs. 3000 (tax-exempt under Section 80G of the IT Act) to any combination of these verticals.

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