Our funding manifesto

Dear Potential Funder,

This is a personal letter cum manifesto.

The way philanthropy is happening today is not working for us at Gramhal. Our main contention is that majority of money remains passive and keeps waiting for impact leaders to chase it. Sadly, this passiveness of the money has converted the act of raising philanthropic capital into treasure hunt. And, we, frontline impact leaders, have been structurally and wrongfully burdened with the expectation of chasing money, taking away a lot of our precious time and energy, which could have gone into achieving the impact that we all want to see. 

We understand that you have been stewarded with money and deploying it to create impact is not as easy as it looks from outside. You need passionate talent like us and we need you. This makes both of us equal partners in creating impact. We believe that both of us have ought to have equal skin in the game. But, we had enough conversation with passive money that made us feel that there is an inherent hierarchy in the relationship of a funder and impact organisation.

So, with this manifesto, we are embracing a philosophy that we will not ask or chase you for money. Instead of chasing money, we are going to put our 100% effort into building a high-performing organisation that can convert your money into impact and give it purpose and meaning in the world. Hence, we would only partner with money that actively seeks us. We believe that active money is one that does not wait for someone to seek it; rather, it actively seeks partnerships to become useful to others. This means that it has inertia and flows itself, on its own, to the right individuals, teams, and organisations.

We have been lucky enough to met partners early in our journey, who showed us what an active money looks like. 

It acts and contributes like a partner and not like givers. Without holding any higher ground, it believes that people closer to the problem can make the best decision and trusts them fully with the money.

It supercharges partners to achieve exponential impact, without becoming a burden on them through endless paperwork or attaching strings to the money they bring to the table. It humbly works behind the scenes to crowd in more money without wanting any effort from the partner.

It operates with a sense of urgency, meaning decisions are made lightning-fast, and money is wired in days.

Lastly, it embraces the risks of pursuing new and bold ideas for social change because active money itself was the result of risky bets made by someone.

We have been living with philosophy for sometime now. We have observed that the more we believed and manifested this philosophy, the more it has worked for us. Through this manifesto, we are now openly putting our manifestation out into the world for more magic to happen.

Committing to Principles

We understand that once you bring active money to the table, it’s not a free pass for us to slack. Quite the opposite, we are binding ourselves to a set of publicly declared principles. 

1. We shall be prudent stewards of your investment, ensuring it is utilized efficiently for maximum impact.

2. We shall be lean, agile, and iterative to relentlessly steer the wheel towards enduring impact.

3. We shall be transparent in our operations, achievements, and setbacks.

4. Lastly, we shall uphold the highest standards of integrity and ethics.

Finding Us

One question that might be going in your head is that if we are never going to reach out to you, how are you going to find us?Well, isn’t it your mission to find and fund high-performing organisations? Since when does it become our job to become findable and fundable?

You may find solace in Sage Kabir’s words, "Those who seek truthfully shall find (their seeking) in an instant." Nonetheless, to make it easy for you to find us, we have adopted principles of #building-in-public. All our work is transparently shared on our website, and even without speaking to us, once you could know almost everything about us.

Partnering with Us

If you have come this far, you might be considering partnering with us. It is simple and easy; you have to submit an application by answering these five questions:

1. In the crowded space of philanthropic funders, what makes you the best fit for us?

2. Describe a world where your funding has made the ultimate difference.

3. Share a time when you threw the rulebook out the window to support a cause.

4. Tell us about your boldest funding bet you have made until now.

5. Submit a video explaining why your funding vision aligns with our work.

It was a joke! You can simply start the dice rolling by writing to us and sharing whatever public material you have about your approach. You don’t need to write an application.

Embracing the Risk

And, yes, before adopting this manifesto and publishing it on our website, we did consider the risk of no one reaching out to us. In this highly unlikely scenario and sad world, we would prefer to sunset our organisation and go on a quest to find better ways to create the same impact in the world rather than chasing the sleeping money.For us, hard work, manifestation, and magic are real. Is it for you?

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Post Script (July 2025)

This manifesto was originally written in 2023 by Vikas Birhma, CEO of Gramhal, and shared only within our close circle of friends and partners. It was born out of deep reflection on our relationship with money, power, and purpose in the philanthropic ecosystem. While authored by one, it captures the collective voice and philosophy of Gramhal.

Today, as we prepare to sunset Gramhal—not because of a lack of funding, but because our solution did not achieve product-market fit and product-impact fit—we're choosing to share this manifesto publicly.

We share it not as a call for funding, but as a parting offering. A marker of our lived experience. A gentle provocation to reimagine the norms of funding in the social sector.

If you are an impact leader navigating similar tensions, may this manifesto offer you solidarity.

If you are a funder, may it invite you to act with more urgency, trust, and humility.

And if nothing else, may it remind us all that how we fund is just as important as what we fund.​