When we hear the term in-kind donation, we usually think of non-monetary contributions—groceries, new or gently-used clothes, refurbished laptops, or even appliances like washing machines. At Bala Mandir, these are received as regular donations and acknowledged with receipts, but without any financial transaction. While reflecting on this, I realised there is a bigger category of in-kind...
The academic year 2025-26 has started off on a good note with lots of new ideas and initiatives being taken. The Bala Mandir schools are in the process of a big re-engineering project as a part of which we are integrating both the Primary and High schools in the same building with the same name. ...
“Successful crowdfunding is all about the coming together of credible storytelling combined with effective communication leveraging the latest technology to positively influence donor behaviour.” This blog is an attempt to explain my own approach to the recent fundraising and the reflections that I have on the whole process, the results thereof, etc. Hope the readers find...
In August 2021, most unexpectedly, I got a call from Mr Madhavan, ex-CEO of Cognizant Foundation who is a good friend and a well-wisher of Bala Mandir. At that time the world was in the grip of the COVID pandemic and we had just launched the Kinship Care programme and were looking to get some...
Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving – Hank Rossa Let me begin with an interesting incident. We live in a newly-formed gated society of over 250 households, most of whom are upper middle-class owners. One would believe that we don’t have any significant number of nit-pickers or street fighters in our...
We have very special donors; in fact, they are two sisters, Mrs. Bhargavi Sundararajan and Mrs. Usha Ranganathan, who have been gifting all our Bala Mandir children with lovely new and colourful clothes every Diwali. Though living in the US, distance has not stopped them from making this very special contribution to make Diwali an enjoyable...
For my father’s Sashtiaptharpurthi (61st birthday) in 1990, we had a big celebration and the extended family and friends from various places, including from far North of India, assembled in Thirukadaiyur where we had made booking for all of them. It was an elaborate function spread over 2 days. It was a wonderful event and...
