The Dasra Social Impact Leadership Programme began in 2006 as the DSI accelerator programme for leaders of not-for-profit organisations early in their scaling journeys. The DSI Leadership Programme was launched in 2014 in collaboration with Harvard Business School and today has an alumni base of over 600 leaders. Earlier this year, we caught up with the Dasra team and the current cohort of the Leadership Programme to learn more about this initiative. Our thanks to Amit Chandra, Kavneet Kaur, Sai...
May 01, 2025•12 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Earlier this year during Dasra Philanthropy Week 2025, innovators, changemakers, and thought leaders came together in Bengaluru to explore the role of Data, Technology, and AI in driving social impact. We caught up with three panellists to find out what was discussed at their sessions and to hear their views on the future of technology in the social sector. Sarayu Natarajan , the founder of the Aapti Institute was on the panel “Gender inclusive Data technologies - Need for a paradigm shift”. She...
Apr 18, 2025•24 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Bhagwan P Thacker is the founder of The Empowerment Fund, a private, charitable foundation with an aim to support underserved communities in the Kutch District of Gujarat with a focus on education, health and technology. Born in Anjar, a town in Kutch, a remote region of Western Gujarat, Bhagwan P Thacker had fairly humble beginnings. He was one of the first young people in Anjar to go to a college and attended Saint Xavier's in Ahmedabad. He then studied chemical engineering at Bombay Universit...
Apr 02, 2025•36 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Meet the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. The Chhattisgarh Mitwa Sankalp Samiti is a Community Based Organization working for the development and mobilization of the transgender community in the region of Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The organisation works to change societal attitudes towards the community, ensuring that government policies and schemes reach the transgender community and also con...
Mar 18, 2025•7 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Meet the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. Deepshikha Samiti is committed to fostering socio-economic development in Delhi/NCR through education, health initiatives, and employment opportunities, with an aim to empower women, youth, and transgender communities Since 1994, they have been building a safe, healthy and empowered environment for the transgender and MSM community and provide oppo...
Mar 18, 2025•9 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Meet the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. Vikalp is a women’s rights group that advocates for the rights of marginalised women & gender/sexual minorities, working closely with and in rural tribal areas. Formed in 1996 to combat domestic violence and discrimination against women in Gujarat, India, particularly tribal women, over time Vikalp has evolved at the intersection of class, cast...
Mar 18, 2025•10 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Meet the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. What is Payana? Payana means Equality. Payana is a community owned and managed organization based in Bengaluru that aims to address the many challenges of transgender individuals from underserved backgrounds. Their goal is to remove discrimination towards non-English speaking, working class members of sexual minorities and ensure their social inclu...
Mar 18, 2025•10 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Meet the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. Basera is a non-profit organization that strives to promote and protect the rights of the LGBTQ community. It advocates for transgender rights, anti-discrimination laws, protection against hate crimes, documentation and reporting of gender-based violence, and HIV/AIDS awareness. Basera has been instrumental in facilitating employment for members of...
Mar 18, 2025•7 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Over the next few episodes we’ll be meeting the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. The Karna Subarna Welfare Society is a network of seven organisations headquartered in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal and addresses the needs of the transgender and queer communities in surrounding areas. Their main verticals cover rural livelihoods, research and advocacy and awareness. You can find o...
Mar 13, 2025•8 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Over the next few episodes we’ll be meeting the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. Sadam Hanjabam is the founder and CEO of Ya_All The Youth Network, a United Nations recognized LGBTI+ youth led and focused organisation working in Manipur, India. Ya All aims to capacitate, educate, empower equip and strengthen vulnerable communities. Listen to Sadam talk about his own personal experiences th...
Mar 13, 2025•6 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Over the next few episodes we’ll be meeting the grassroots organizations who are part of the first cohort of The Pride Fund, India’s first dedicated LBTQIA+ fund launched in February 2025. Sappho for Equality has been working to address the unique, intersectional challenges faced by lesbian, bisexual and transmasculine individual for over a quarter of a century. The organisation has evolved from an emotional support network to one that works in advocacy, public education and sensitising the poli...
Mar 13, 2025•8 min•Season 4Ep. 2
We're kicking off a new season of No-Cost Extension with a conversation with Radhika Piramal. Radhika Piramal is one of the founding patrons of the Pride Fund India. Radhika Piramal holds several senior leadership positions in corporate India across various companies and brands and is a charity trustee holding trustee positions at Dasra UK and Give Out - an award-winning international LGBTQ Community Foundation. A leading LQBTQIA+ advocate, Radhika is one of three Indian philanthropists supporti...
Feb 25, 2025•31 min•Season 4Ep. 1
To coincide with the launch of the Rebuild India Fund’s 7th cohort of grassroots NGOs, entirely women led AND assessed by women leaders from within the Rebuild portfolio, we thought we would revisit conversations with power house leaders on No-Cost Extension. Our first conversation is from earlier this year, with Deepa Pawar, founder and director of the Anubhuti Trust and a member of the Rebuild India Fund Investment Committee. This is a conversation on the contribution of women in keeping the c...
Dec 12, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 23
Divya Varma represented the Ajeevika Bureau and Work Fair and Free Foundation at Dasra Philanthropy Week 2024. She spoke passionately about India’s internal migrant population who are often forced to move from rural India to its cities due to climate variabilities which have rapidly degenerated agricultural livelihoods.Mired in indignity and invisibility, India’s migrant labour workforce works and lives at the very bottom of the societal pyramid at the mercy of a regulation free environment. Lis...
Dec 03, 2024•6 min•Season 4Ep. 22
Jackie Jones is the Director, Gender Norms Portfolios and Office of the President at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where amongst many other things she thinks of gender dimensions and how they intersect with solving programs across the many verticals the foundation works across. At the Dasra Philanthropy Forum 2024, Jackie shared a story from one of the foundation’s immunization clinics in the Congo where there was low immunization uptake across genders. Find out how one health care wo...
Dec 03, 2024•4 min•Season 4Ep. 21
Join Maya Patel from the Tarsadia Foundation, Hechin Haokip from the Centre for Women and Girls, Manohari Doss from the Institute for Self Management and Farida Kathawalla from Circle of Hope in a conversation around women grassroots leaders. A small percentage of philanthropic capital globally is earmarked for gender equality, and the funding gap for feminist or women led organizations is quite glaring. Maya Patel, Hechin Haokip, Manohari Doss and Farida Kathawalla share from their lived experi...
Nov 21, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 20
Binoy Acharya is the Founder-Director of Unnati - Organisation for Development Education. Unnati works in the spaces of Civic Leadership and Governance and Social Accountability, Disaster Risk Reduction and Social Inclusion and Empowerment. At Dasra Philanthropy Forum 2024, Binoy spoke of how governments are failing at last mile delivery across the world, and philanthropic support is needed to bridge this gap. For more information on any of Dasra's work, or on any of the guests on the show, go t...
Nov 12, 2024•10 min•Season 4Ep. 19
Kuldeep Dantewadia is the founder of Reap Benefit, a non-profit based in Bengaluru, India that is igniting a movement of young changemakers to redefine civic and climate leadership, one action at a time. At Dasra Philanthropy Forum 2024, Kuldeep shared two stories of young changemakers whose individual actions lead to larger systemic changes in their community and how giving young people the agency and skills they need to effect change can move the needle on apathy. India, he says needs an army ...
Nov 07, 2024•7 min•Season 3Ep. 16
In today's episode, we're bringing to you Dr Arunabha Ghosh's Keynote Address from Dasra Philanthropy Week 2024 held in New York. Dr Arunabha Ghosh is a public policy expert, author and columnist and founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, or CEEW, one of Asia's leading policy research institutions and climate think-tanks. At DPW, Dr Ghosh spoke about how we must internalise two important paradigmatic shifts: away from centralised to decentralised systems that embrace local ...
Nov 07, 2024•7 min•Season 3Ep. 18
We’re taking a break from regular programming with a series of conversations and microtalks from the recently concluded Dasra Philanthropy Forum 2024. 2024 was a milestone year with Dasra celebrating twenty five years as an organisation. At DPF 2024, Deval Sanghavi, co-founder of Dasra and host of No-Cost Extension Podcast, Boris Siperstein, Global Council Member Dasra, Akruti Desai from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation discussed the organisation’s journey, and the intentional way in which ...
Oct 24, 2024•31 min•Season 3Ep. 15
In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval speaks to Vimal Jat, the co-founder and CEO of Synergy Sansthan, an organization in Madhya Pradesh that works on development programs for underserved youth. Born in Seoni Malwa block of Hoshangabad district, Madhya Pradesh, Vimal has a postgraduate degree in Social Work from Devi Ahilya University, Indore. During his time at university he and his friends formed a youth group with the aim to advocate for adolescent and youth rights. Vimal went on to co-...
Sep 05, 2024•42 min•Season 3Ep. 14
In this special episode of No-Cost Extension, we look back at conversations we’ve had on the podcast around serving with and for dignity. Many NGOs work at the grassroot level with communities that have a deep-rooted legacy of oppression which manifests in every economic and socio-political facet of life. From lack of access to education, employment, resources and legal recourse, all while facing discrimination spanning generations. The only way forward to detangle this insidious web of oppressi...
Aug 22, 2024•19 min•Season 3Ep. 13
In this special episode of No-Cost Extension we speak to three development sector leaders about This past season, Deval and his guests have talked about mental health in the development sector. From the sense of urgency that never leaves the work and the feeling of inadequacy that leaders experience when faced with the immense scale of the problem at hand. You’ll hear Dhruv Lakra get candid about how the constant hustle of the early days took a toll on him emotionally and physically. Revathi Rad...
Aug 08, 2024•27 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Dr. Sitavva Jodatti is the founder of the Mahila Abhivruddhi Mattu Samrakshna Samsthe (MASS), an organisation founded to end the devadasi practice in the Belgaum district of Karnataka. The devadasi practice is one in which young girls are devoted and married to a religious deity, before they reaches puberty, to act as a caretaker. Recently, this practice has been used to push girls into prostitution. Dr. Sitavva herself was forced into the devadasi practice at the age of seven and it’s her own e...
Jul 25, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Hejang Misao is the founder and CEO of Integrated Social & Institutional Development for Empowerment (InSIDE-North East), an organization that works towards the empowerment of children, youth and women in Manipur, under the Gun2Pen project. Hejang is no stranger to conflict in his state, and it prompted him to start an organisation that would help those directly or indirectly affected by conflict and violence. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Hejang touch upon the history of M...
Apr 24, 2024•23 min•Season 3Ep. 10
The Rebuild Conversations is a series in which the No-Cost Extension team checks in with the Rebuild India Fund Investment Committee members to see how they’re doing, what they’ve been learning and how they envisage for the future of the Fund. Rebuild India’s mission is to provide grassroot organizations with long-term flexible funding that can support them through the course of 5-10 years, without constraints or targets. As of early 2024, the fund has been working with over 142 NGOs from across...
Apr 11, 2024•12 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Twenty five years ago Vishal Talreja founded Dream-a-Dream as a voluntary effort in Mumbai with eleven other individuals who were committed to working with young people. Since then, Ðream-A-Dream has become a non-profit that works with close to 5 million children across six Indian states, with a vision to provide transformative educational experiences that impart life skills to children living in poverty. Deval and Vishal have known each other since the beginning of their journeys in the social ...
Mar 28, 2024•54 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Rahima Khatun has been associated with Nari-O-Shishu Kalyan Kendra (NOSKK) an NGO working extensively with the rights and dignity of women and children across West Bengal for over two decades. The earliest seed for NOSKK was sown on Republic Day in 1952 when Rahima’s father started a community library in their village before going on to open madrassas to promote education amongst both men and women. A strong desire to work for the community was ingrained in Rahima as a child and she often spent ...
Mar 14, 2024•26 min•Season 3Ep. 7
From selling horlicks in the Burdwan coalmine districts to studying filmmaking, this week’s guest on No-Cost Extension, Yasmin Madan has led a rich and varied life. After holding various senior level positions at PSI and serving as the Private Sector Lead at Thinkwell, Yasmini joined Co-Impact – a global philanthropic collaborative ‘supporting locally-rooted coalitions working to achieve impact at scale in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.’ At Co-Impact, Yasmin is the Director and US Lead for Phi...
Feb 29, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Deepa Pawar is the founder and director of the Anubhuti Trust , an organization formed and self-led by women, with the intention to work with youth on developing their leadership so that there are aware and responsible youth in society who can lead change for a more just and equitable world. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Deepa sit down at the Dasra office to talk about the stigmatization of Nomadic and Denotifed Tribes in India from the time of colonial rule, their unacknowledg...
Feb 15, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 5
