aikyam fund
Making resilience accessible to early stage non profits, ideas & at risk NGOs
Abundance of good people doing great work...
- Right to information(RTI), Forest Rights Act - FRA, Protection of Children from sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Juvenile Justice Act, Right to Education, Internet Freedom, Digital Personal Protection Act, 2023(DPDP Act) are a reality because of Civil Society in India.
- 15L-20L Active For Impact , Not For Loss orgs(NGOs) a decade ago(~130-150NGOs/1L Citizens) & the teams working in them.
- More Giving. Private philanthropy at 1.3 lakh crore in FY24 (1.05 lakh crore in FY22) even with FCRA Inputs reducing.
But, there is scarcity of resilience in Civil Society Organisations
- Today around 4.1L active NGOs are listed on DARPAN. The ratio of NGOs to citizens in India is approximately 28 NGOs per 1L citizens, compared to 186 in Brazil, 64 in China, and 200 in Russia.
- 6/10 early-stage impactful NGOs do not receive crucial early stage funding due to challenges with compliance, outreach, an ecosystem.
- 3/10 mid sized NGOs do not receive repeat funding from trusts and foundations due to compliance burdens, program and monitoring frameworks, and capacity.
- 5/10 NGOs (all sizes, stages) have just 3-month cash runway.
- 8/10 NGOs (all sizes, stages) struggle to obtain indirect costs funding (capacity building, technology, operational infrastructure) leading to organisation stunting
- Indian Trusts & Foundations estimate that number of fundable (1 Cr/year) organisations in India could be less than 4000.
Components of resilience for NGOs - key functions
By working with partner NGOs, we broke down the key components of Resilience to the following
| Mostly Internal and can be controlled | Mostly External/Changing |
| 👩🏼💻 Psychologically Safe Workspaces, Teams |
🏛️ Compliance |
| 🏛️ Efficient Operations | |
| 🌍 Measurable, Impactful Programs | |
| 💰 Diverse, Predictable fundraising streams |
Current state of Key components
In our experience of working with, interacting with around 100+ NGOs over the last 2 years, below is a an estimated of the maturity level across each of the key components of resilience
TEST: Tiny Experiments for Social Transformation
We didn't have many of the answers to improve the above metrics so we ran 200+ Tiny Experiments with partner NGOs to solve for parts of the above challenges and learnt from each experiment. One tiny experiment at a time.
One of our objectives was to understand the key barriers (e.g Website is not a tech challenge but a storytelling challenge, ERPs are not a tech challenge but a Internal Policies, Training Challenge)
A few TESTS are listed here:
- Can workshops around listening enhance team work and org vision? Details 🔗
- Can we make high quality Compliance Content accessible & discoverable? Details 🔗
- Can online forums encourage finance teams to ask questions to experts? Details 🔗
- NotebookLM's podcast tool make complex laws accessibel to gig workers? Details 🔗
- Vulnerability centered program design leads to better fundraising request? Details 🔗
- Psychologically safe physical spaces helps team reflect, collaborate better? Details 🔗
- Scarcity of safe spaces to bring like minded folks together? Details 🔗
- How can we make vulnerable art/music more accessible to everyone? Details 🔗
- How to nurture a highly engaged community of practitioners from NGOs? Details 🔗
- Can zero code tools like Ghost be used by NGOs to amplify reach? Details 🔗
- Can high quality job descriptions help talent find right social impact jobs? Details 🔗
- Monthly fellowship income to change-makers makes their ideas resilient?
..and many more. This approach by running experiments on actual problems and creating live solutions with feedback helped us to create a first draft framework for solving this in a systematic way for our partner NGOs/Ideas/projects.
aikyam fund - "Y Combinator for Changemakers in India"
What is aikyam fund?
- 12 month program unlocking impact in 4 levels
- Goal is to enable early stage non profits/Ideas & at risk non profits become resilient.
- Resilient means compliant & efficient, sustainable operations, mission aligned teams in a psychologically safe workspace, impactful (measurable) programs delivered to vulnerable communities, diverse, predictable and reliable fundraising streams.
- We also support selected Ideas, NGOs with INR 5L-15L as seed funding/support
- Ego-system to Eco-system approach by creating public free open source infrastructure for NGOs and fair priced shared services.
Image: Making resilience accessible to early stage, at risk NGOs - 1 Level at a time
The table below shows sub levels to achieve the L4 across each of the key components of resilience. our program helps them navigate through each box.
| L4 | Compliant & Efficient Operations | Psychologically Safe Workspace, Teams | Impactful Programs delivered effectively | Diverse, Predictable fundraising streams |
| L3 | System Implementing Processes | Systems aiding in Team/Feild Work, Collaboration | Systems for Monitoring & Last mile delivery | Systems for Discoverability, Fundraising |
| L2 | Policies, Processes & Practices | Capacity & Team Building, Growth, Training | Program Workflows, Monitoring Frameworks | Engagement & Outreach, Fundraising Plans |
| L1 | Regulatory Compliances, Filings, Audits | Leadership on Vision, Mission, Values, Hiring | Vulnerability/Planet centered Program(s) Designing | Storytelling, Theory of Change |
How do we do it?
- Structured guidance through curriculum focused on building resilience one step at a time across Compliance, Operations, Program, Impact, Fundraising, People.
- Office hours with aikyam fellows
- Collective Wisdom sharing with other Founders, Frontline workers, Teams
- Nurturing an eco-system of "infrastructure" for NGOs through public resources/projects/alliances like:
Budget Projections (Aug 2025 - July 2027)
| S No | Description |
Y1 (Aug 2025 - July 2026) |
Y2 (Aug 2026 - July 2027) |
| 1 | People (Fellowships, Salaries, Consulting, Interns) | ₹67,00,000 | ₹69,68,000 |
| 2 | IT Infra for NGOs (Hosting, Laptops, Devices) | ₹17,50,000 | ₹18,20,000 |
| 3 | IT Consulting for NGOs (Customisations of FOSS) | ₹7,00,000 | ₹7,28,000 |
| 4 | Office/Space (Rent, Utilities, Medical, Facilities) | ₹28,00,000 | ₹29,10,000 |
| 5 | Space (Furniture, Fixtures, Maintenance) | ₹3,50,000 | ₹3,64,000 |
| 6 | Legal & Compliances | ₹2,50,000 | ₹2,60,000 |
| 7 | Support/Fund for NGOs/Idea (INR 5L - 15L per unit) | ₹50,00,000 | ₹50,00,000 |
| ₹1,75,50,000 | ₹1,80,50,000 |
Note #7 above:
- Support/Fund for NGOs/Idea (INR 5L - 15L per unit) will be used to cover urgent and important expenses for the projects in the cohort. Basic Salaries for Founders, Compliance Consulting costs, Medical Insurance, Workshops, Capacity Building, any other expenses as they go through the 12 month journey.
- We will reach out to other funders to top this fund as we progress and enroll more ideas/projects/NGOs. The goal is to grow this to a INR 2-3 Cr/ year fund over the next 2 years. Moonshot - to raise a Corpus of 200 Cr in 5 years that could potentially make aikyam fund sustainable in the long term.
Grant Request to Samagata Foundation (Aug 2025 - July 2027)
A total of INR 3.56 Cr (Three Crores Fifty Six Lakhs Indian Rupees) in 2 tranches
- August 2025: ₹1,75,50,000 (One Crore Seventy Five Lakhs and Fifty Thousand Indian Rupees only)
- August 2026: ₹1,80,50,000 (One Crore Eighty Lakhs and Fifty Thousand Indian Rupees only)
This will help us support aikyam's operating costs and support funding for 5-10 NGOs/Ideas/Projects per year for 2 years
Compliance Documentations
Company Registration
- List of Directors.pdf
- AoA.pdf
- CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION T4G.PDF
- PAN_T4G.pdf
- License for Section 8 of Companies Act.PDF
- MoA.pdf
- Darpan_Registration.pdf
12A & 80G
CSR Registration
Audit Reports
Income Tax Returns
- FY 2022-23
- FY 2023-24
Annual Reports
Policies
- HR Policies.pdf
- PoSH Policy.pdf
- Travel Policy.pdf
- Reimbursement Policy.pdf
- Advance Policy.pdf
- Procurement Policy.pdf
- Banking and Cash Approval Policy.pdf
Bank Details
T4G Impact Tech Foundation
IDFC Saving Bank a/c: 10184006257
IFSC Code: IDFB0080151
Branch: Residency Road, Bangalore