Finance for NGOs

Our app aims to provide a user-friendly platform for NGOs and community initiatives to record their finances and do fundraising in accordance with the law.  

NGOs and community organizations in India lack an easy-to-use and affordable platform to manage their finances and fundraise. 

India has over 3 million NGOs and the number of unregistered community organizations such as student clubs, resident associations, etc. is even higher. 

Around ~10% of such NGOs such as Plan International and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are big enough to have dedicated finance departments that can track expenditures and donations of the NGO along with managing its fundraising needs. 

For other NGOs and community organizations especially those who work at the grassroots level in smaller towns and communities lack the resources to do so. For example, I have noticed a dozen NGOs in my small city of Sirsa send staff members every month to the houses of donors to collect recurring donations. When it comes to doing audits and complying with financial reporting, they find it difficult to fulfill all the obligations, they struggle as there is no easy way to track and record all expenses. In this case, the NGOs that already struggle with a lack of financial resources have to pay hefty sums to Chartered Accountants to help with it. 

With increasing scrutiny of NGOs in the Indian ecosystem, it makes it difficult for them to comply with all financial reporting requirements and manage donors putting them at risk of closure. 

It directly impacts 2.7 million NGOs that are helping countless lives. Hence, this problem has an impact on millions of Indians who are currently being helped by these not-for-profits. 

Our solution is to build an app to help NGOs track their finances and manage donors in a user-friendly and cheap way. 

It will include the following components:

• A feature allowing NGOs to add any expense they are incurring and digitally record the invoice of that expense. 
  • They can also organize that expense into categories such as salary, food & beverage, travel cost, etc. 
  • It will be free to use up to a certain amount of expenses and after that, a small fee will be charged. 
    • The amounts need to be decided after further market research. 
    • For example- expenses up to Rs.500,000 can be recorded for free; for expenses totaling Rs. 500,000 - Rs. 10,000,000 a monthly fee of Rs. 5,000 can be introduced. 
  • Charts and graphics showing how NGOs are allocating their expenses will be automatically created which can be shared with donors leading to transparency.

• A feature allowing NGOs to set up a customized tool to collect monthly and one-time donations of varying amounts and the ability to generate automatic invoices. 
  • It will accept payments from all commonly used platforms in India such as UPI apps (PayTm, Google Pay, etc.), net banking, debit and credit cards.  
  • It will deduct a management fee of 1% of donations. 
  • It can be integrated with the website of the NGO. 
  • It will generate an automatic invoice for the donations. 

• Donor management- All key information of donors can be securely accessed for relationship building. 

• Reporting- Data involving expenses and donations of NGOs can be extracted in different forms that can be used for financial reporting.

• Learning module- Step-by-step guide on how to do annual financial reporting and file all documentation. We will also host expert office hours close to tax season where NGOs can get their common queries answered. 

Our solution serves ~2.7 million small and medium-sized NGOs that are working on different UNSDG goals and positively impacting millions of lives in India. 

There are various crowdfunding platforms, and finance tracking apps for businesses but no specific app for NGOs to meet their financial management and fundraising needs in India. 

Our solutions have been described above and they will help NGOs in the following ways:

• Save on labor costs, now NGOs won't have to hire multiple staff members to go monthly to houses of donors to collect recurring donations and track invoices of expenses. 
  • The existing staff will have to do less manual work such as recording all receipts, going from house to house to collect donations, etc. 
• They will also save on the cost of hiring a lawyer and chartered accountant to assist them with financial reporting. 
• It will make it easier for them to comply with legal obligations which reduce their risk of closure. 
• 85% of people we surveyed reported that high legal costs to do annual financial reporting are a barrier to entry preventing them from starting an NGO. Our solution will reduce that barrier to entry. 

• We have experience running an NGO for 2.5 years. Hence, we understand the financial management needs of an NGO.
• We have volunteered with various community organizations such as student clubs, and faith-based organizations in smaller cities and metro cities in India. So, we understand the needs of different kinds of NGOs.
• Our academic background is in business and commerce and alongside this, we have done entrepreneurship incubation programs as well. This has equipped us to learn the basics of starting a venture and implementing it. 
• Based on the above experiences, we are able to identify and connect with our potential users. 

• We have conducted focus group discussions with 100+ representatives from different NGOs and community organizations. 
  • This has provided us insight into what are the challenges faced by our user group due to the lack of a consolidated platform to manage finances and fundraising. 
  • The current options in the market are limited to USA and expensive such as Give Lively and Quickbooks. 
  • We understood the key features an NGO or a community organization requires. 
• We have tested different fundraising and finance management platforms that are available in India and on an international level. 
• As founders of an NGO, we understand the needs of small and medium organizations in terms of managing their finances. 

Currently, no such solution exists in the Indian market that can help not-for-profit organizations manage their finances. The current offerings are either limited to crowdfunding apps or finance trackers to meet the needs of for-profit organizations. 

Through our solution, we will be able to help 3 million+ organizations that in turn will be able to help millions of individuals. 

Positive impacts of our solution:

• Free up staff and volunteer time by automating manual tasks allowing them to focus on important tasks such as program design, measuring impact, etc. 
• Save up on the costs of Chartered Accountants and lawyers. 
• Make it easy to collect donations leading to an increase in funds received. 
• Easier compliance with audit and other financial requirements by the Government of India; reduces the risk of being sued or blacklisted by the government. 
• Encourage more people to start NGOs or community organizations as it will make the financial management process easy. 

In 2023, we hope to develop a prototype and do beta testing. For this, we require seed funding, tech support, and mentorship.

In 2024, we hope to onboard 100,000 NGOs. Once this is successful, we hope to onboard 2 million NGOs and community organizations by 2026. 

Our solution will require users to have hardware (mobile/laptop) wherein they can download our software. 

We will be using app development tools and Cloud technology. 

Currently, we need a person with technological expertise on the team to help us figure out the technological process of doing so. 

Currently, our solution is in the ideation and conceptualization stage. 

We hope to develop the app this year and conduct beta testing. 

In 2024, we hope to onboard 100,000 NGOs. By helping them, we will be able to help millions of individuals in need. 

We need technical expertise and seed funding to develop the app and do beta testing. 

Additionally, we would like a mentor who can advise us further about starting a business. 

Not applicable 

• NGOs and community organizations are our key beneficiaries. 
• We will provide them with an app to enable them to manage their finances in an easy and efficient manner. 
• It will enable them to save on hefty costs of lawyers, chartered accountants, etc; provide more time to staff/volunteers to do important tasks instead of manual tasks of writing up invoices and make it easy to collect donations increasing their revenue. 

We hope to use platforms and accelerators such as Solve MIT to get seed funding to build a prototype and do beta testing. 

After that, our model will be self-sustaining as it will collect a 1% management fee from all donations that are received by NGOs. 

Additionally, it will charge NGOs a monthly amount based on the expenses they are recording through our app. Smaller NGOs will be able to use it for free, and a small fee will be charged for medium and larger NGOs. We have to do more research and financial projections to decide the exact amount.