The Season of Giving: Lessons from India & the Philanthropic Journey

This time of the year usually calls for a pause.  

For me, between a recent trip to India, Thanksgiving in the U.S. and the wave of Giving Tuesday that would follow soon, I found myself reflecting on what giving really means and how my understanding of it has evolved, personally and professionally. Much of that has shaped by where I come from and the work I have done. 

I have spent more than two decades in the social sector, i.e. global development, nonprofits, and philanthropy. But my connection to giving started long before it became my profession. I grew up around it. In my family, growing up in a Jain household in India, ‘charity’ was often embedded in daily life. School donations. Coins to a beggar on the street. Neighbor in need. People stepped in quietly when someone needed support. It wasn’t measured, optimized, or showcased. It was simply part of being in a community.

My professional path added a different layer. Working at institutions like the Sir Ratan Tata Trust in India and, later, in the US at IIE, IYF, and a range of USAID-funded initiatives, I saw how giving becomes more structured — budgets, compliance, efficiency, and expectations of what good funding should look like. I also saw how many organizations doing truly meaningful work struggled not because their ideas were weak, but because the systems around them focused on what was deliverable on a tight timeline. 

And over the last few years, especially with the dismantling of USAID in early 2025, that tension became even more visible. The sector has been forced to confront what happens when the largest development agency collapses almost overnight and what sustainability actually means when the structures designed to support it are suddenly gone.

This blend between trust-based giving and impact-driven funding came into focus again during my India trip last week. My cousins had gone to watch the India vs. South Africa Women’s Cricket World Cup finals in Mumbai. What they described stayed with me. Below are some snippets of what they shared with me:  

• • The stands were full of young girls not being taken along for the match but leading the experience.
• • Young girls held posters saying, “Jemimah Didi! Badi hokar mujhe aap jaisa banna hai!” (Jemimah, I want to be like you when I grow up!).
• • One girl identified each player by the jersey number — “No. 18 pe hain Smriti…” (Smriti’s jersey is No. 18).
• • When the match ended close to 1 a.m. local time, a son urged his elderly father to go home. The father replied: “Nahin. Ladkiyaan cup uthayengi uske baad hi jaaunga.” (No. I will leave only after the girls lift the trophy.)

These moments speak for themselves. And they made me pause. Because this, too, is giving. Not financial. Not formal. 

Giving recognition. 

Giving aspiration.  

Giving a sense of possibility to a generation watching. 

As we move through this season of giving, as communities, as a diaspora, and as part of a professional ecosystem still recalibrating after the dismantling of USAID, this year has reminded me that giving doesn’t always have to be strategic or perfectly timed to matter. Sometimes the quietest acts – a father waiting until the women’s team lifts the trophy, a young girl imagining herself on the pitch – carry the greatest weight. If this season asks anything of us, it may be to give in ways that strengthen what lasts.

Nehal Gandhi is a nonprofit finance consultant with over 20 years of combined experience in international development, philanthropy, and USAID-funded programs. Based in the DC area with her husband and two sons, she works with nonprofits to strengthen their financial systems, budgeting, and grant operations. Her forthcoming book, The Nonprofit Paradox, uncovers the financial contradictions that shape giving and what that means for the future of philanthropy. You can learn more here – www.socialechoes.org.