From Coverage to Excellence: A New Mandate for Indian Philanthropy

Over the past decade, India has achieved something truly remarkable: the near-saturation delivery of basic public services and facilities. From electricity, sanitation, and bank accounts to digital identity, welfare transfers, and housing — the Indian state, especially under the BJP-led central government, has orchestrated one of the largest inclusion exercises in human history.

We are no longer a country struggling with reach. We are a country that must now grapple with quality.

And this is precisely where India’s private philanthropic sector must rethink its role. For far too long, the dominant instinct among large philanthropic foundations has been to chase scale — reaching more villages, more beneficiaries, more geographies. But that horizontal expansion, while important in the past, now risks becoming redundant in the face of an already expansive state-led welfare architecture.

Philanthropy’s New Role: Not Breadth, but Depth

What India needs now is not more of the same. It needs something better.

Private philanthropies — regardless of their size or ambition — must shift focus from breadth to depth, from coverage to excellence. Their mandate should now be to solve for innovation, demonstrable quality, and world-class standards in their chosen domains.

In skilling, we don’t just need vocational centres — we need next-gen training in AI, robotics, green manufacturing, or sustainable construction.

In public education, we don’t just need class-rooms and activity-rooms— we need pedagogical breakthroughs, edtech prototypes, and teacher training methods that raise global benchmarks.

In healthcare, we don’t just need kits and beds — we need replicable models for maternal care, mental health, rural diagnostics, and cancer prevention.

Government schemes, by necessity, are bound by scale, vote-bank sensitivities, and tight fiscal constraints. Philanthropy is not. It has the rare freedom to experiment, to fund what’s not popular, and to keep investing even when returns are long-term and intangible.

This freedom should be used not to replicate what government is already doing well, but to do what only philanthropy can — push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Leading by Excellence: Real-World Examples

Some foundations are already showing the way:

The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), nurtured by the Birla family, remains one of India’s most respected private academic institutions — a legacy of deep investment in excellence over numbers. It set a benchmark for private-sector engineering and science education decades before “edupreneurs” became a trend.

The Adani Foundation’s pioneering ecological restoration work in the arid Kutch region of Gujarat is another standout. Rather than launching token tree-planting drives, they undertook a complex, multi-year process of biodiversity recovery, mangrove plantation, and community involvement — a model that combines scientific rigour with grassroots relevance.

Nilekani Philanthropies has focused on building public goods — like digital ID, open networks, and capacity for state institutions — laying the groundwork for innovation in governance itself.

Tata Trusts, while vast in scope, have created centres of excellence in areas like cancer care, water management, and craft revival — often acting as quiet incubators for the very models that governments later adopt at scale.

Each of these efforts is rooted in vertical depth, not horizontal sprawl. Each one sets a benchmark rather than chasing it.

Not Competition, But Complementarity

This new role for philanthropy isn’t in competition with the state. It’s complementing the state. The government ensures that everyone gets something (ie, a bundle of necessities). Philanthropy can ensure that someone gets something vital right, for nation-wide scaling. Think of it as the lab bench to the government’s assembly line.

But to do this effectively, philanthropies must shed their obsession with scale as the only measure of success. In today’s India, the greatest service a foundation can do is to create something excellent — in one village, one district, or one institution — and let it become the model for many.

The Time Is Now

India stands at the cusp of a development leap. The scaffolding is in place. Now, it is time to build something that lasts, something that shines, globally. That job no longer rests with the state alone. It belongs, just as much, to the stewards of private capital who have chosen to give, not for profit — but for posterity.

Philanthropy in India must now become what it was always meant to be: a force for excellence, in service of the public good.