According to a survey conducted among over 145 organizations working in the social impact sector, more than 57% of non-profit organizations have at least one female founder. This figure significantly exceeds the share of women among Indian startups, which is only 18%. Furthermore, the representation of women in the non-profit sector surpasses corporate leadership, where women hold only 1.8% of CEO positions, 4.4% of CFO positions, and 29% of executive director positions.
These results are part of a report by the non-profit accelerator Change Engine titled 'East of Good: A Gender Lens,' which focuses on access to flexible funding. The study covered small, medium, and large organizations differing by annual budget. The study sample was also almost evenly divided between organizations eligible for foreign funding (with FCRA or US 501(c)) and those that were not.
Of the over 145 surveyed organizations, nearly 31% are exclusively female-founded, and about 27% have both male and female founders. The study also showed that women not only create more non-profit organizations but the structures founded by them receive better funding and have access to more long-term flexible financing.
It was found that non-profit organizations with at least one female founder have larger budgets. Data indicates that 70% of such organizations have an annual budget exceeding 1 crore rupees, compared to 43.5% of organizations founded only by men. Additionally, about 21% of organizations with female founders allocate more than 25% of their budget to flexible unrestricted funding, whereas this figure is around 13% among organizations founded only by men. Flexible funding is non-programmatic funding that non-profit organizations can use to invest in talent, technology, research, and organizational strengthening.
Regarding long-term grants, it was found that over 65% of organizations with at least one female founder have access to multi-year funding sources (three years or longer), compared to approximately 56% of organizations founded only by men. Among them, about 27% of organizations with female founders received multi-year grants exceeding 1 crore rupees, while this figure was only about 11% for organizations founded only by men.
The report emphasizes that when assessing (on a scale of 1 to 5) the ease of attracting unrestricted funds from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs), domestic foundations, international foundations, and crowdfunding/retail, organizations with at least one female founder consistently received higher ratings across all categories, achieving an average score of 2.41 versus 2.06 for organizations founded only by men.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. The study shows that cheque sizes remain small for all: 'A striking 82% of organizations with at least one female founder and 83% of organizations founded only by men reported that typical unrestricted cheque sizes in India are less than 25 lakh rupees, demonstrating that the problem of small cheques affects both groups by gender,' the study notes.
Varun Aggarwal and Shubham Bansal, co-founders of Change Engine, noted that the data suggests that women are leading India's social sector and creating larger and better-resourced organizations. Aggarwal stated: 'We must encourage more women to enter this sector. In our accelerator, we meet female founders who are creating strong, ambitious institutions to solve some of India's biggest social problems. It is encouraging to see what we observe on the ground now supported by data. Six out of ten non-profit organizations in our survey were founded by a female founder.' Bansal added: 'However, the Change Engine founders emphasize that access to unrestricted flexible funding remains consistently low across all levels, as 80% of surveyed founders report difficulties in scaling their work due to the lack of unrestricted funding. This funding rigidity forces organizations to spend disproportionately more time on fundraising instead of focusing on innovation and impact.'