We are doing internal exercises to understand the business and landscape for V-ALL, and I was faced with the age old question of on how many NGOs exist in the sector and how do you classify them in terms of size, geography, causes etc. There is a figure of 3.3 lakh from a 2009 International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) report, but is that even relevant in 2024 ? It was not even relevant in 2009 since it included everything from the BCCI to your local RWA. The only legitimate research we can find, is the ecosystem study from 4-5 years ago from the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP) at Ashoka University. It suggests that even after examining the CSR, FCRA, and Darpan databases, there isn't enough data. The closest thing to a database is GiveIndia, with 54,000+ NGOs listed, but even that's inconsistent due to outdated website information. It's mind-boggling how India has a vibrant and diverse NGO sector, yet there's a significant gap in accurate and comprehensive data about these organizations. It's hard to imagine how effective policymaking, resource allocation, and impact assessment can be done with such limited data. We're definitely struggling with landscape mapping. I've looked at IDR Answers, but it's not a repository of NGO data with analytics. Are there any other data sources or information I'm missing? Do people have access to more up-to-date information? Or are we going to reach the same conclusion that there's no reliable data? #ngoinformation #ngo #nonprofits
Nivedita Krishna
1mo
Data availability is poor - that is the reason you see the same CSR data being squeezed out for any research on NGOs/ social sector funding etc. One approach would be to write a code to scrape data from DARPAN - that might give you a low fidelity estimate.
The NITI Aayog NGO Darpan dataset currently lists 267,640 unique entities. https://ngodarpan.gov.in/