The India Programme's approach of providing long-term funding for core costs was, and to a lesser extent, still is, innovative and pioneering.

Most funders in India prefer to fund specific projects or purchases such as school books or lunches. Sadly this often means that when the funding ends, so does the programme.Our approach was different - instead of funding key projects, our focus was on developing systems and processes.  

It meant we supported a proportion of an organisation’s running costs allowing them to really concentrate on sustainability. The decision regarding 'where' our NGO partner focused these resources was reached through an annual Capacity Audit conducted with the NGO's staff and management team.

It meant our NGO partners were able to use our funding wherever it was most needed to keep their organisation running efficiently, whether that was for salaries or general running costs. 

The India Programme provided a unique opportunity for small and large partner NGO organisations to network. Partners may have come from a diverse range of voluntary organisations but they shared common problems. This forum allowed them to discuss and try to reach a solution together. 

Over the 24 years, the grand total of 105 Zurich assignees undertook a four week project sharing their professional skills to help the NGOs develop their processes and systems to make them function more effectively. 

To help our NGO partners to identify areas of focus for funding and see where the skills of one of our assignees could be most useful, we introduced capacity audits. These involved ZCT's India Programme Manager and staff focus groups from our NGO partners looking into various aspects of the organisation including management and governance, HR and training, finance, advocacy and communications and PR.

From the perspective of our assignees, we know how much their professional and personal lives were touched by the experience. 

As a development programme, this delivers a million times more than any other development programme I've ever been on - both to the individual and the organisation.

It touched me at the very core of myself.  Dr V (with whom I worked) asked me the question "Tell me... what does it mean to be a human being?" and after that my whole life changed.

While the economy has continued to grow, we are very conscious that the human need in India is still great.  

Even if our funding has now drawn to a close, it was important for us to leave a legacy in the form of the concept that our four remaining NGOs valued most from our partnership - flexible capacity building.  The NGOs were keen for this approach to funding to be shared with other funders - corporates and Trusts and Foundations - so that they would appreciate the value and impact of it, and to help them with their own long-term sustainability.

In 2014 the Indian CSR Bill was introduced - this bill requires all larger companies to commit 2% of their profits to corporate responsibility projects. We felt the timing was just right to capitalise on the increased awareness of CSR to promote capacity building.

So to help our partners access more funding from Indian enterprise we partnered with the Alliance to Promote Abilities and Rehabilitation (ATPAR). ATPAR worked to encourage local corporates and trusts to provide long term core funding.  

The good news is that this relationship has already yielded results and some of our NGO partners have secured funding for multiple years from Indian corporates, trusts and foundations.