Women in Cloud and Indiaspora Launch Community Fundraising Campaign to Support Women in India

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Women in Cloud and Indiaspora Launch Community Fundraising Campaign to Support Women in India 

The campaign will raise funds to stabilize women and families impacted by COVID-19 who might otherwise fall into a cycle of poverty.

November 6, 2021 — Women in Cloud and Indiaspora announced today the launch of a community fundraising campaign to provide cash assistance to women in India who have lost the primary earning member of their family due to COVID-19. Women in Cloud is coordinating this community fundraising campaign as part of its #empowHERfamily initiative, a cross-sector effort with the goal of providing economic relief to women in India who have been affected by the pandemic through strategic advocacy, digital skilling opportunities, and cash relief. “Four out of ten women lost jobs in India in 2020, while a total of 17 million women lost their livelihoods during the nationwide lockdown in March and April of 2020,” said Women in Cloud Co-Founder and Indiaspora member Chaitra Vedullapalli.  “While the public health crisis may be over, there is an ongoing need to educate, skill, and assist women who are struggling with the longer-term economic impacts of the pandemic.”Indiaspora, Women in Cloud’s community fundraising partner, will facilitate donations through its online giving platform ChaloGive.  Indiaspora launched ChaloGive in 2019 to encourage greater charitable giving from the Indian diaspora.  In 2020 and 2021, Indiaspora raised more than $4 million through ChaloGive to support COVID relief efforts in India and in the United States.  “The outpouring of generosity over the last eighteen months has been incredible,” said Ashish Shah, Senior Director of Philanthropy and Community Engagement at Indiaspora. “However, it is critical that this momentum continues if we want to build more resilient communities and systems.”GiveIndia and its network of more than sixty nonprofit partners in India will identify qualifying beneficiaries and coordinate distribution of funds raised through this campaign.  Beneficiaries will receive cash assistance as a one-time direct bank transfer of $400 (INR 30,000).  Recipients will include daily wage earners and tribal communities, among other underserved populations.“We have seen the impact cash assistance can have on families who have suffered loss due to COVID,” said Atul Satija, CEO of GiveIndia. “This small amount of support has ensured that struggling families have food, shelter, medical care, and other basic necessities essential to their survival.” Donors from anywhere in the world can contribute by visiting chalogive.org/empowherfamily.  U.S. taxpayers are eligible for a tax deduction.  For additional information and resources, visit womenincloud.com/empowherfamily. About Indiaspora Indiaspora (www.indiaspora.org) is a nonprofit community of powerful global Indian leaders from diverse backgrounds and professions who are committed to inspiring the diaspora to be a force for positive impact by providing a platform to collaborate, engage, and catalyze social change.About Women in CloudWomen In Cloud (www.womenincloud.com)  is a community-led economic development organization taking action to generate $1B in net new global economic access for women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships with corporations, community leaders, and policymakers.

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Media contact Indiaspora: Raka Mukherjee Senior Coordinator, Marketing and Communications raka@indiaspora.org  

Media contact Women in Cloud: Vibha ChapparikaMarketing and Communications Specialist Vibhac@womenincloud.com 

ChaloGive Oct 2 - 8: Indiaspora’s online giving campaign to facilitate higher levels of giving by the Indian diaspora

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Ashish Shah, Community Relations Director, Indiaspora

Phone: (312) 203-5418

email: ashish@indiaspora.org

or

Gabrielle Trippe, Philanthropy Initiatives Manager, Indiaspora

Phone: (917) 708-1696

Email: gabrielle@indiaspora.org

ChaloGive (Oct 2 - 8) 

Indiaspora’s online giving campaign to facilitate higher levels of giving by the Indian diaspora

Press Release

Washington, DC, USAIndiaspora has launched its inaugural ChaloGive online giving campaign from Oct 2 to Oct 8, created to encourage higher levels of giving by the Indian diaspora.The grassroots initiative will focus on individual giving by the Indian diaspora to nonprofits that are making an impact through its online platform ChaloGive.org.The campaign was inspired in part by the success of Giving Tuesday in the US as well as the week-long Daan Utsav campaign in India, which also has gained considerable traction.“The word ‘Chalo’ means ‘Let’s,’ so ChaloGive means ‘Let’s Give,’” said Sanjeev Joshipura, Executive Director of Indiaspora. “The idea is simple: to allow the diaspora to learn about different organizations doing meaningful work, streamline the process for them to donate, and help cultivate the spirit of giving.”While it is well documented that Indian Americans are roughly 1 percent of the population and the highest-earning minority group in the U.S., a study Indiaspora conducted in 2018 with Dalberg found that the monetary giving potential of Indian Americans is enormous—at over $3 billion dollars annually.“ChaloGive was created to achieve that promise. Imagine what an impact such a growing and influential demographic can have,” said Gabrielle Trippe, Indiaspora Philanthropy Initiatives Manager.In addition, the study found a “passion-donation gap,” which means that the community does not necessarily give to those causes which it collectively claims to be most passionate about.By highlighting more than 20 organizations with successful track records in areas of poverty alleviation and empowerment, health, and education, ChaloGive allows the diaspora to find causes that they care about and to give to them.“We want to make the giving experience frictionless in order to effectively engage with online donors so that giving is not only easy but also strategic. The 21 beneficiary organizations for ChaloGive this year are a mix of small, medium-size and large non-profits with proven interventions and an ability to scale,” said Ashish Shah, Indiaspora Community Relations Director, who has previous experience starting giving platforms as founder of GivingRise.High-profile personalities in the diaspora community are also helping raise awareness about ChaloGive. “ChaloGive Ambassadors” include Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Laureate; Nina Davuluri, 2014 Miss America; and cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar.ChaloGive also coincides with the 150^th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth this October 2, in which themes of service resonate with the Indian diaspora.“ChaloGive was a logical next step for Indiaspora in our mission and role as a philanthropic catalyst for the Indian diaspora community. Our aim is to encourage philanthropic giving at all levels and ChaloGive allows us to engage with the 3 million strong Indian Americans who are looking to give to a cause that they care about,” said Indiaspora founder, MR Rangaswami.Indiaspora (www.indiaspora.org) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization established to transform the success of the Indian diaspora into meaningful impact worldwide. Their members are global leaders from diverse backgrounds and professions that work to build stronger communities at home and abroad, with a shared culture of strategic giving and inspiring social change. 

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New India Philanthropy Alliance to Advance Humanitarian and Development Goals

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Contact: Alex Counts, Senior Adviser, India Philanthropy Alliance

Phone: (202) 257-8739

Email: alex@indiaspora.org

NEW INDIA PHILANTHROPY ALLIANCE ANNOUNCED TODAY

TO ADVANCE INDIA’S HUMANITARIAN AND DEVELOPMENT GOALS

            Eleven leading organizations to stress cooperation and collaboration

 WASHINGTON, DC, October 2— On the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, eleven organizations announced the formation of a new India Philanthropy Alliance (IPA) to further advance humanitarian and development goals in India through increased collaboration.  They did so at the Indiaspora Philanthropy Summit held on the first day of ChaloGive, a week celebrating Indian diaspora philanthropy.The organizations that comprise the new Alliance are the Akanksha Fund, American India Foundation (AIF), Arogya World, CRY America, Dasra, Ekal USA,  Foundation for Excellence (FFE), Indiaspora, Magic Bus USA, Pratham USA, and VisionSpring.  These organizations collectively raise $125 million annually in philanthropic donations, including more than $50 million in the United States. Their most generous donors are Indian-American entrepreneurs and professionals as well as companies doing business in both the United States and India.  Together, these 11 organizations have cumulatively impacted more than 67 million people with their evidence-based programs spanning education, health care, livelihood support, and other essential services.  The pre-launch activities of the Alliance began two years ago and were generously supported by Indiaspora.To help India meeting its United Nations Sustainable Development Goal commitments, the organizations that are part of the Alliance will work more closely together in their constituency-building efforts in the United States and in their work in India.  An article detailing their activities and objectives was published on October 1 in the prestigious Stanford Social Innovation Review.“We’re excited about this effort to join forces today as a new alliance committed to the ideal of making a collective impact.  Working together, using our combined philanthropic reach and innovative ideas, we can help India in far greater ways than each of us could accomplish working on our own,” said Deepak Raj, a New Jersey-based entrepreneur and investor.  Raj is the chairman of the Alliance, and also the chairman of Pratham USA, one of the leading education-focused nonprofits in the world. “The time is right for building a more robust culture of philanthropy among Indian-Americans and I am positive that our efforts will help accelerate social progress in India.”“Organizations working towards the goal of educating all Indians regardless of their family’s wealth cannot work in isolation from others with similar goals, or from efforts of the government,” said Minoo Gupta, vice-chair of the Alliance and the president of Foundation for Excellence (FFE), which has supported 20,000 low-income Indian scholars to pursue higher education.  “The opportunities for transformation are vast and a collective impact approach is now needed.”“Our generous donors have been telling us for years that greater collaboration among professionally run nonprofits focused on India made sense, and that a narrative of complementarity has been missing from our sector,” said Nishant Pandey, vice-chair of the Alliance and CEO of American India Foundation (AIF), which is a nearly two-decade old collective platform for philanthropy benefitting India that has raised $129 million benefitting more than 5.6 million underprivileged people in India through its work in education, health, and livelihoods.  “AIF is pleased to respond in a pragmatic and visionary way to our friends and supporters by being a founding member of the Alliance.” The India Philanthropy Alliance’s mission is: “To enhance collaboration among organizations working to advance the development agenda in India. We work together to foster a more robust and better recognized culture of giving among Indian-Americans and over time, increase the scale and impact of philanthropy benefiting India.”   

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