SAI Special Event
This event seeks to explore challenges and successes of private and corporate philanthropy in South Asia in a comparative lens to philanthropy in the US. What are the enabling factors in the US that promote philanthropy? How do these compare to India’s enabling factors? For example, India is the first country to have corporate social responsibility legislation, mandating that companies give 2% of their net profits to charitable causes. How has this changed the landscape of corporate philanthropy? What lessons can the US and South Asia learn from each other?
Harvard Crimson: Panel Highlights Philanthropy Models Across Nations
Lunch will be served.
Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Arghyam; Author of Uncommon Ground: Dialogues between Business and Social Leaders and Stillborn
Rohini Nilekani is Founder-Chairperson, Arghyam, a foundation she has personally endowed to fund initiatives in ‘safe, sustainable water for all’. Since 2005, Arghyam has supported projects in water and sanitation all around India. Arghyam also facilitates the India Water Portal, which has become a singular resource for the sector. As a committed philanthropist, she continues to fund work in areas such as governance and accountability, independent media, education and research and environmental sustainability.
Full bio.
Geeta Pradhan, Associate Vice President for Programs, The Boston Foundation
Geeta Pradhan is Associate Vice President of Programs at The Boston Foundation, responsible for overseeing and advancing community goals across five program areas: Education, Health, Jobs, Neighborhoods, and the Arts. She also leads the Foundation’s investment and alignment efforts along the Fairmount Corridor designed to generate transformational opportunities created by new transit investments in Boston’s lowest income neighborhoods. Over her decade of work at the Boston Foundation, Geeta co-created the Boston Indicators Project, launched a 5-year special initiative on the digital divide in Boston, and developed a strategy to support the nonprofit sector. She helped create Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, the state association of nonprofits, Neighborhood Stabilization Loan Fund to turn around foreclosed properties in neighborhoods; and the Catalyst Fund for Nonprofits to support transformational collaborations and mergers among nonprofits. Geeta has over twenty five years of experience in the field of community development.
Chair: Alnoor Ebrahim, Associate Professor in the Social Enterprise Initiative, Harvard Business School
Cosponsored by the Hauser Institute for Civil Society at the Center for Public Leadership
