Knowledge Creation
What the Sector Requires
The social sector needs robust research that bridges evidence with action: deep insights to inform policy and practice, reliable data to drive decisions, and credible knowledge to scale impact. Philanthropy in India is growing, but systemic issues persist, and there is a need for more effective deployment of funds due to low absorptive capability, insufficient scaling power, and a lack of evidence-informed decision-making.
What CSIP Does
Through applied research and strategic philanthropy scholarship, CSIP offers actionable evidence and thought leadership to advance the field. We aim to foster evidence-based discourse, effective decisions and capacity building across India’s social sector, contributing to a more mature and effective philanthropic ecosystem.
Project Highlights
How India Gives is a first-of-its-kind longitudinal study on household giving in India, led by the CSIP at Ashoka University. It offers deep insights into charitable patterns, motivations, and shifts in giving behaviour across Indian households over time. We will soon be publishing the results from the 2025 edition in this series.
This study offers vital insights into compensation and talent management in the Indian social sector, aimed at strengthening the sector’s ability to attract and retain talent. A key output is a free, publicly accessible online database providing compensation benchmarks and HR practices for civil society organisations, philanthropists, and foundations.
The CSIP Research Fellowship, completed in 2024, supported emerging scholars to conduct original research on Indian philanthropy and giving trends. While the fellowship is no longer active, it has contributed valuable, practice-oriented research to strengthen the field.
We have recently concluded a brief study to understand the barriers and challenges to using case-based pedagogy in learning and development organisations in the social sector. The report helped us to prepare the strategy for the case centre that we have recently launched in October 2025.
