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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.    ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

What is it like to dedicate one's life to working for some of the most under-represented groups? Nandita Pradhan Bhatt is the Director of the Martha Farrell Foundation, an NGO that supports informal, migrant workers, mostly female domestic workers and adolescent children to build their leadership and collective voice against injustice. Nandita has been a civil society practitioner decades, and has worked extensively on gender inclusion and the prevention of sexual harassment against women. ...

After a short year end break, No-Cost Extension is back! In the first episode of 2024, Deval sits down with Deep Jyoti Sonu Brahma, co-founder of Farm2Food Foundation. Deep speaks of his early years growing up and studying in Arunachal Pradesh, the impact the turbulent times in the North Eastern region had on him and later experiences with people led movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan. His journey lead him back to Assam with a desire to work with young people and communities and place...

Revathi Radhakrishnan is the founder-director of the Vanavil Trust, a non profit founded in  2004 that supports children of two Nomadic communities: Boom Boom Mattikarars and Narikuravars, in Tamil Nadu. After 17 years of working with the communities, Vanavil now has grown into an organisation that works in child protection,  health and nutrition, holistic education and livelihoods. As a child, Revathi was a vociferous reader, devouring whatever books she could lay her hands on. She had to...

Season 3 of No-Cost Extension kicks off with host Deval Sanghavi in conversation with Dhruv Lakra, founder and CEO of Mirakle Couriers, a for- profit courier service that employs low income deaf adults thereby delinking charity with disability.  Dhruv grew up in Kashmir before moving to Mumbai for college, after a brief stint as an investment banker he joined Dasra as one of the organisation’s first team members in 2004. He then went on to become a Skoll scholar at the Said School of...

Deval Sanghavi is back with a new season of No-Cost Extension! In this season Deval’s talking to some of the most committed social leaders from India and around the world on what it’s like to work towards the challenging goal of equity. Deval and his guests also speak about what it is like to run organizations post COVID, bootstrapping and entrepreneurship, the work of philanthropy, and what it is like to work with the most marginalized and excluded communities.  Episodes drop November 30,...

How does it all begin? Was there a singular experience or encounter that sparked a desire to work on social change? How do you go from being affected by an issue, to contributing a few times, to the realisation that there is more to this? - that working in social change could be the calling, or the profession, and how do you go from that to wanting to build an organisation and so much more? In this No-Cost Extension special, we combed through our two seasons to bring you inspiring origin...

Over the past two seasons, host Deval Sanghavi has talked about the idea of impact with his guests: what does it mean and what should it mean? How can we further our understanding of social impact?  From the archives we bring you Donald Lobo of the Chintu Gudiya Foundation, Karen Doff of Sharanam Centre for Girls, Safeena Hussain of Educate Girls and Ravi Chopra and Jo McGowan Chopra from the Latika Royal foundation talking about impact and scale and how they look at these as individuals and...

Gagan Sethi is the founder of Janvikas, an NGO that has worked in the space of holistic human development for over three decades. Gagan has helped set up several strategic organizations in the country, like Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Sahjeevan, Drishti, Centre for Social justice and the HID forum. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Gagan talk about disaster relief work, what happens when there’s discrimination in relief work and the toll working in the development sector...

Loren Cardeli is the Executive Director at A Growing Culture, a non profit that believes in food sovereignty for everyone everywhere and works with farmers to ensure they decide what to grow, where to grow it and who to sell it to. Deval and Loren met at a Synergos retreat and found they had much to talk about and bond over, prompting Deval to invite Loren on to No-Cost Extension as a guest.  Listen to Loren talk about his growing years in New York City in a family that loved to argue, what...