Niranthara

Supporting grassroots NGOs with our flagship organisational development programme

Niranthara helps build the institutional capacity of NGOs, for compliance, governance, MIS, finance and accounting, and fundraising and marketing.

Programme objectives

Our objective is to help our NGO partners develop into effective, well-managed, and sustainable organizations, which perform better internally and meet the evolving expectations of external stakeholders. We will:

  • Build credibility for the sector and organisations part of it
  • Ensure a minimum acceptable standard for Compliance, Governance, Accounting, Human Resources, and MIS
  • Move to a data-based management approach without losing the ‘essence’
  • Drive organizations with clear strategic plans and enhanced capabilities
  • Increase visibility and accountability through enhance digital presence and marketing collaterals
  • Effective programme management process to make long-lasting impact on the communities served by NGOs
  • Put marketing and fundraising systems in place to enhance sustainability of NGOs to continue their vision beyond specific donor tenures

Niranthara is a field-based practical process-oriented intervention, which ensures step-by-step progress in NGOs.

Why Niranthara?

The model helps enable a process and systems-oriented approach among smaller and medium level NGOs to enhance efficiency, credibility, and sustainability. This programme was developed to fill critical gaps in organisational capacity, identified in a study done by Dhwani Foundation in 2017.

Working with the social sector for over a decade helped us realise that capacity building is an on-going process, requiring patience, persistence and strategic effort. We surveyed over 100 NGO decision makers, donors, government agencies and beneficiaries on their definition and constituents of a good NGO. Our learning led to the creation of Niranthara as a capacity-building programme, covering eight key non-domain areas for effective NGO functioning.

This work has resulted in: 

  • Building credibility for partner organisations and the sector as a whole
  • Ensured a minimum acceptable standard for the NGO’s compliance, governance and MIS systems 
  • Moved to data-driven decision making and management, enabled by technology
  • Created an empowered middle management cadre by delegating more responsibility

How it works

Niranthara programme focuses on building institutional capacity through 20-24 months of comprehensive support. From classroom training sessions and provision of tools and technology to overseeing site implementation, we facilitate NGO transformation by working closely with the board, leadership, and programme staff.

Niranthara Batch 1 was launched in December 2017, with a cohort of 23 grassroots NGOs, largely from rural Karnataka. In 2020, we had 30 NGOs from Karnataka in Batch 2, and 32 NGOs from Tamil Nadu in Batch 3.

The current batches have 100 days of classroom training for Leaders, Board members, Compliance & Finance Managers, Fundraising Managers and Program Managers​. We also support the partners with a helpdesk, learning material, and expert interaction.