ATECF’s grantmaking principles stem from its leadership’s focus on making catalytic investments that are instrumental in driving sustainable social impact at scale. The foundation invests in research on underserved issues in the sector and develops solutions to fulfill unmet needs. It places an intentional focus on measuring the effectiveness of those solutions and sharing their learning with critical stakeholders. ATECF partners with government and other donors to scale the impact of the solutions it develops as well as to influence other critical stakeholders (such as policy makers and think tanks) to embrace evidence-based decision making.

With a common theme of making high-impact investments, the foundation engages in philanthropic grantmaking in the following distinct ways:

• Sustainable Rural Development. Over the years, ATECF has identified specific niches in rural development, where it works in partnership with government and nonprofits. Currently, its focus is on rejuvenating water sources to ensure water security in drought-prone regions and advocating for natural farming practices. 
• Capacity Building. ATECF focuses on building social-sector capacity at three levels: individuals, organisations, and ecosystems. It believes that investing in people and in organisations’ core functions results in a high social return on investment.
  • It supports learning and development programs that build the leadership capabilities of nonprofit founders and senior leadership, middle management, and other domain heads (such as fundraising and communications) — enabling them to build efficient and effective organisations.
  • At the organisational level, it has set up a capacity-building Centre of Excellence program (CoE), where it funds a selected set of nonprofits. The key objective of the CoE is to build evidence of the benefits of supporting organisational development (OD) and make the case to other funders.
  • At an ecosystem level, it identifies white spaces and creates solutions to help make the sector more efficient or effective and funds relevant programs or initiatives — for example, building the retail giving platform GiveIndia and the knowledge platform India Development Review.

ATECF’s founders’ background as entrepreneurs and investors contributed to its focus on long-term, sustainable impact. By working closely with nonprofit partners, ATECF has been able to better understand and support the unmet needs of the communities it serves as well as the social-sector ecosystem. This approach has also advanced the foundation’s goal of playing a catalytic role in strengthening the social sector.

ATECF has focused on multiyear partnerships and targeted OD support since inception, driven by the founders’ desire to achieve a high social return on investment and contribute to a stronger social sector. The foundation identified OD as an underfunded, high-impact opportunity that aligned with its strengths and impact vision.

To this end, ATECF strives to help its nonprofit partners address their pain points. For example, partner nonprofits often do not have a well-defined, long-term plan or a list of OD priorities, making engaging in multiyear partnerships and providing OD support challenging. ATECF encourages its nonprofit partners to take a longer-term view of their programmes and engages with them to collaboratively prioritise OD needs and identify potential ways to build the necessary capabilities. The foundation also gathers evidence in support of OD investments and helps to make the case for more funding to be directed towards strengthening nonprofit capabilities.

Long-term partnerships give their nonprofit partners a sense of security and flexibility, allowing for heightened focus on strengthening organisational capabilities and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of their work. Additionally, OD support has helped nonprofit partners build the capacities needed to partner with additional stakeholders to advance their work.

Looking ahead, ATECF is interested in providing more multiyear funding aligned with its focus on building nonprofit partner capacities. It also intends to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion within its learning and development programmes to account for regional, linguistic, and other forms of diversity and extend support to a wider set of nonprofits.

Return to Full List of Funder Profiles