“If we pitch a new idea without log frames, detailed indicators, proof of concept, a track record in that field and three possible backup plans based on a ‘risk assessment’ to a donor, you know what they will say? ‘In your dreams!’”
Like a bad song on repeat on the sound system during an overnight bus journey, this trope came up repeatedly in our conversations with grantee partners.
The social sector seems to be in a strange conundrum. Flexible grants are usually small, and large grants require everything to be planned out to a T with an assurance of success. Implementing organisations are constantly under pressure to successfully sustain their vision. We wondered what it would be like if we asked our grantee partners to dream of some work that they really wanted to do – something that required financial support but quite possibly had no quantifiable indicators of success or even perhaps no ‘results’!
Dreams, passions and visions of a bold new world form the basis of social justice movements and development work. Risk-taking and innovation are buzzwords. While the exhortation is to dream of change, the systems in philanthropy move organisations towards projects that are scalable, replicable and deliver success. The Dream Grants, then, became our search for that sweet spot where dreaming and waking meet, and passion becomes the project.
Trust and Faith
Our team at the Human Capability Foundation1 recognises the privilege of being donors because we have come from the experience of being grantees. Of being the people who had to ask donors for grants for the work that we did in organisations we headed or founded.
We did not need to be convinced about trust-based funding. We understood the need for flexible funding for agendas that our partners had identified for themselves. We were firm in the belief that complex task-based monitoring is not the only way to build accountability. We spend considerable time and effort on due diligence as well as on ensuring alignment in values and approach in building partnerships. Through building relationships with our partners, we realised that core support, institutional strengthening and systems building are important needs, but many partners also have passion projects buried under their everyday work implementation.
The question before us was simple: if we trust our partners with flexible funding to conduct programmes to achieve social change in the communities they work in, why don’t we trust them with resources to dream the impossible dream in those communities?
A Sky Full of Stars
Dreaming is difficult. We asked our partners to let their imagination take flight – 50 lakh rupees of flexible dream funding over three years, to try out an idea they might have nurtured for a while but had not been able to back with resources. This was in addition to the regular funding they received for programme implementation. And the dream did not have to be successful; it could be an appalling failure – what was critical was the risk they were willing to take to dream and the learning they would gain if the dream did not land quite in the manner they wished.
The “application format” was a 5 page (maximum) note that clearly answered simple and standard questions: What, Where, How, Why and When, and what could be the possible challenges? An independent jury composed of people who were part of their ecosystem assessed the applications for relevance, capacity and inclusion.
Partners applied – some scared to dream big, some thought right out of the box, some added layers to their work, some challenged their own capacities, and many found the dreaming difficult! It was rare for organisations working on social justice to be asked to use their imagination and visualise a world which was not bound to a Theory of Change or a Log Frame!
Eleven dreams were selected for implementation in 2022, and another 6 received this award in 2025.
Some Dreams Do Come True!
It was exhilarating to see the “Dream Projects” become reality on the ground.
“The Dream project gave us a beautiful opportunity to explore something as innovative, alternative and effective as narrative practices [in our work with people with psychosocial disabilities]” shared the head of an organisation working on mental health and rights. The one-line stories elicited, enabled their team to shift the way they engaged with people recovering from mental illness. The organisation did not want these one-line stories to be hidden away. They wanted common people to engage with the lives of people who have psychosocial disabilities in a way that would be meaningful for the viewers as well as those whose stories were being shared. They curated an installation with these stories in a mainstream mall so that customers would perforce have to engage with what was being shared by them. Shoppers at the mall engaged with the stories and in many cases shared their own stories of family and friends who they felt had mental health issues. The stories that are usually hidden away were brought out into public space and public history was created!
A partner that had set up a hospital catering to a tribal belt in the hilly regions of Tamil Nadu two decades ago, leveraged the agricultural skills of the tribal community and, over time, organised a farmer’s cooperative. Their dream was to set up a centre for excellence in millets run by Adivasi farmers. Whilst their training government departments and other nonprofit organisations on health continues, they now also dish out healthy snacks – baked ragi, jowar and millets cookies and murruku!
A science lab expanded into an astronomy and observation centre for children in rural Rajasthan. The children became “citizen scientists” and are now taking pictures of the galaxies and the moon. Their work has been appreciated by bodies like NASA. Now, their mothers are keen to join the astronomy class which is making them question their own unscientific and unquestioned beliefs.
Women lawyers from Dalit Bahujan and Adivasi communities were supported to pursue their vision of serving justice; services for children with learning disabilities expanded; a queer drop-in space was created that abounded in love and created a canteen to feed that love; a mobile library that moved through villages is providing learning through books and discussions; beauty products are being created using biochar – using waste to create beauty! Some of these were limited duration projects and some continue to live on in various shapes and forms.
What a Headful of Dreams Taught us:
Building trust takes time
Talk, meet, spend time with organisations to understand them in their context. Implementing organisations are overburdened to prove success, scalability and sustainability to garner funds. Build a relationship as an ally and believe in the years of experience and intent that you trust. Knowing the organisation’s work, ethics and values through years of grant-making allowed us to base the Dream Grants on faith in that relationship rather than complicated plans and log frames.
Enabling access goes a long way
Equity of opportunity goes beyond just sending out a call to apply. Invest in making opportunities and systems accessible; allow proposals and reports in the language organisations are comfortable with; include translators, interpreters and tech to make communication accessible; create time to think and reflect. Our partners frequently use the option of reporting or making proposals in regional languages and we make it our responsibility to access the languages in which they wish to operate. This has ensured that partners can share their experience and insights in their own idiom and styles rather than relying on more “skilled documentation professionals” mediating what is shared and how.
Reporting – Keep it simple, silly!
Implementers should best spend their time implementing on the ground, not reporting about it for a donor portal. We resisted the urge to rely on indicators, numbers and lists of activities to ensure accountability. In this project, we asked what might have changed in their dreams or might need to change in the future. The pressure to perform was removed and the opportunity to reflect, realign and rethink was encouraged. The reports were short but enabled conversations. While all our reporting follows the essence of reflection, the dream project specifically incorporates cumulative learning through workshops and discussion amongst partners and the foundation.
The organisation creating a queer, trans led community space for wellbeing could be open about the diverse possibilities for the future of this space: it could be a cooperative with an independent identity separate from the NGO or be subsumed into the NGO’s strategy as a training centre. They could openly reflect on and share that this would depend on what the members of the community decide for it. They believe they have laid the foundation for it with the intention of it being collectively held and the reports have been a space for reflection and to bring us in as partners on this collective decision-making.
Flexibility enables pivoting based on needs
The Dream Grant supported the organisation’s dream project, and came with complete flexibility to change how it would be used, based on what the organisation felt were the needs for the dreams to be accorded reality.
We saw 6 out of 11 organisations in the first cohort apply for a budget reallocation within a year of implementing their dream project. Many even thought that they would fulfil their dream within two years of commencement but realised that they needed more time and extended it to three years, while one thought three years would be sufficient but had to request a no-cost extension for an additional one and a half years.
Two organisations shared the desire to rework their design based on learning from an initial round of implementation. One was for the curriculum for the children citizen scientists and the other was for the women lawyers’ fellowship in Rajasthan. They realised that they had been too ambitious, needed to change their pace and the way they engaged with the different stakeholders. Asking about what has changed made it easy for them to share the shifts on an ongoing basis.
The women lawyers’ fellowship, hosted by a labour, law and justice organisation, was a new offering by the organisation. It was received with scepticism by their ecosystem. This required the organisation to go slow, allowing colleges from which they recruited their fellows to actually understand the fellowship’s purpose – something they missed doing during the first round of recruitment. They also realised that it was important to engage patiently with colleges, particularly those who responded positively, and be available to respond to their questions. Finally, they sought to move beyond fresh graduates and to also scout for women who had earned their law degrees but were not practising for various reasons. This entire change in strategy meant there were delays in timelines and even in the total number of fellows supported. These changes stemmed from the organisation ruminating on their progress and understanding the challenges and learnings unfolding from it. For HCF, this was the natural way forward, prioritising the quality and engagement with the fellows rather than the quantity.
“Means” over “end” – Recognise moments of learning
In this sector, we constantly need to prove the impact of our work through measurable outcomes aka scale! However, we believe that deepening our efforts is also scale and that, in the process of deepening, we may not actually achieve what we set out to do – increase participation of the community or achieve the markers we lay out for ourselves. These moments are opportunities to learn from and figure out how to approach things differently the next time.
One organisation initially conceived three distinct dreams. So far, two of those have come alive. The first one was a mobile library mounted on a modified E-Rickshaw as a vehicle for girls to take conversations to different villages. They play games, read, discuss their rights, government schemes, etc. all through books, posters and pamphlets with the young girls and women of the villages. The second dream is a centre for awareness-based healing via the arts. Collaborating and learning from a fellow dream project grantee, the organisation took a series of trainings on Dance and Movement Therapy and created a cadre of grassroots practitioners who work on body movement and music as a healing practice to better understand trauma and restore wellness.
With the lived experience of implementing the first two dreams the organisation realised that the two dreams are intricately intertwined with the third. This dream, originally envisioned as a rural museum exhibition on the body and its rights has now developed layers and dimensions after the experience of the first two dreams and the learnings from them. The conversations from the mobile library and the embodied healing practices have added layers of meaning, transforming the museum into a multidimensional dynamic space. Today, the third dream is still in the pipeline but now has a different personality from what was originally planned.
“Initially when we thought of the body museum, had we implemented it right away, it might have centred mostly around politics of the body, stigma and reproduction. But over the past two years, as we have deepened our discussions and reflections, new layers have emerged … journeys of these dreams continue to shift, grow and transform – like rivers finding new paths, shaping new landscapes as they flow” Co-founder of the organisation.
Two organisations have had to stall their dreams due to factors outside of their control. There is a slight upheaval in their dreaming, but they haven’t stopped! They continue with their work and know that their dreams will come alive again; it is but a brief lull in their process.
These challenges did not deter us from having our partner organisations at our meetings and workshops, the journey of cross-learning is ongoing, and we continue to support the organisations at their pace. As philanthropists, we need to develop the capacity to sit back and learn from what didn’t work and not be disheartened. Patience and solidarity through this can also go a long way. In fact, we clearly told our partners that whatever the end might be, it’s fine as long as it brings learning. We are just as much a part of this journey as they are.
“The way we got the opportunity to dream about the biochar dream project… The funding came with such transparency and trust and enabled us to honestly talk about whatever we were doing. We always felt that even if we failed, we had the freedom to dream and if we did fail, at least we’d know we tried everything we could.” Co-lead of the organisation.
Dreams are fun but documenting is not
We realised the need to create something more than oral history for organisations to hold and share with others and so a team of excellent documenters and film-makers came on board. They travelled to the groups and wrote up their stories, creating visual journeys for the first eleven organisations to hold on to.
Honest conversations, meaningful shifts.
An annual sharing retreat became a space for our partners to share their progress, celebrate and find solidarity as well as support through collaborations. We realised that updates and meetings could be restful, productive and fun.
At our first grantee meeting, we asked partners to evaluate themselves and share their experience through five simple questions:
- Five things you want everyone to know about your project.
- Four things that have excited you about this work.
- Three things you want to showcase.
- Two things you hadn’t planned on and ran into challenges.
- One thing you are proud of and one thing you would have done differently.
Power Point presentations were not allowed and the organisations had to present their work through role-play or a song or any other form they chose. This process enabled them to really think through what was special about the dream project, rather than present the information through Power Point.
An organisation addressing labour and occupational health hazards on silicosis initially planned to involve children in their dream project. However, deeper conversations with HCF on the impact of children’s involvement in the project made them seek further support. In collaboration with HCF, the partner organisation consulted with a child rights expert, whose insights along with reflections at the retreat led to a strategic shift. While children are no longer directly involved, the organisation remains committed to addressing the issue of silicosis.
The partners’ openness to review strategies and seek input from various channels reflects trust and a collaborative spirit while keeping the community they work with as their focus.
Dreamy alliances, magical connections
Unusual bedfellows can come together to build shared dreams! We saw a lot of unexpected collaborations, when the partners were brought together to share and celebrate their work. A doctor working on health with tribal communities in Tamil Nadu engaged more deeply with an organisation creating a safe space for trans and queer persons. He learnt about sexuality and health needs of trans persons and offered to perform gender-affirming surgeries at his organisation’s hospital for a minimal charge. This helped broaden his horizons and led him to extend the travelling doctors’ fellowship offered by his organisation to this organisation as a new site. Similarly, for another organisation the stereotypical image of this doctor was shattered as they learnt about his willingness and new explorations.
In another instance, two organisations are sharing strategies of livelihood – one offering alternatives for labour working in mines and the other working with the Nat community engaged in sex work. Skills, knowledge transfer, logistics and methods are being exchanged for goat-rearing and products made by biochar, such as soaps amongst other items. Who thought one organisation’s dream project could be replicated as an alternate means of income-generation for another vulnerable community this soon? An organisation working on the empowerment of women, young people and vulnerable communities connected with a pioneering organisation in Dance Movement Therapy to help achieve one of its three dreams, focused on wellbeing.
These explorations began when organisations came together, talked and shared their work beyond the dream project. This enabled them to connect, support and collaborate with one another in a myriad of ways. These connections reiterate that we are in this together and no one organisation has figured it all out, be it grantee organisations or philanthropists.
Old partners can bring new ideas
Why should only implementers stick their necks out? Working on the ground always comes at a fair amount of personal and professional risk. The financial risk of trying and failing should be one that philanthropies should take. The grant call encouraged partners to explore new domains. The Dream Grant did not demand a proven track record of work on the issue proposed. It encouraged experimentation, forays into new learning and curiosity.
This inspired two organisations that did not previously work on agriculture to explore the relatively new technology of Biocharring in collaboration. They used agricultural waste and weeds to create organic fertilizer that improves moisture content in soil. This has enabled new learning for the field through pot and field trials on soil quality. At HCF, we took the responsibility of this “risk” of the partners exploring an area of work that was new both for them, and for the sector.
An organisation that had previously worked on issues of labour and migration proposed a project to support young Dalit women with a law degree to establish themselves as professionals in the local courts in their area. This was an entirely new area for an organisation that had not previously worked on issues of gender or caste directly.
Another organisation running a rural school for underprivileged children took up a project to set up a deep sky observation centre and procure equipment to teach rural children astronomy and citizen science. The connection was not obvious, and the expertise was not established. But faith in the passion of the organisation’s leader has enabled a highly unconventional project that has increased interest in science for the local children (as well as their parents!) manifold!
Dreaming is not always easy
While we felt that providing an opportunity to dream was exciting and would enable the organisations to come together, we learnt that organisations often had to work hard to get their entire team to share the dream and the vision. Therefore, the time given to the dream was critical and two to three years was the bare minimum that was required.
It was crystal clear for one organisation on what their dream project would be as they received the call for it. All five founder members shared the same dream, and they had no difficulty articulating it. They wanted to create a Centre for Creative Wellbeing and Social change – a space for healing through dance movement therapy and art. However, each one of the founders had their own vision of this centre. The dream project required them to come together and have several rounds of discussions, arguments and collective planning. Their ideal resource centre, of a collectively held dream, is still a work in progress. While other staff members realised that this proved to be additional work on top of their regular programmes and took a toll on them, they remained committed. Despite the challenges they continue to put in hard work to make their dream a reality.
Another organisation dreamt of sharing “mad stories” of people with psychosocial disabilities with the world and that too narrated by themselves. They decided to adopt narrative practices in order to pursue their dream. To take their dream forward, they needed to be trained in narrative practices themselves – this got personal, and several staff were pushed to discover unfamiliar and uncomfortable layers of themselves that they hadn’t ever explored before. In conversation with staff members, they shared that they felt very exhausted, lost and some even considered giving up. However, when they used narrative practices in their own work, they realised how important it was to engage in the process at a personal level. This training in narrative practices has fundamentally changed the way they relate, connect and communicate with each other as well as with people with psychosocial disabilities.
Adventure of a lifetime
As donors, we embarked on a voyage of learning and unlearning. HCF has been intentional in ensuring that grant-making is simple, straightforward and realistic. We sensed that there was a dire need to make this change when we came to the other side of the grantee-donor equation as a foundation.
We wanted grantees to continue their work without creating new programmes or initiatives to fall under the domain of what we as donors believed is critical. They didn’t have to reuse the same base proposal with an altered pitch just because education was the buzzword for a particular year. Instead, they got the option to strengthen an existing domain! 100% of the organisations HCF has funded in the last 12-15 years have been supported to continue their regular work through core and flexible funding. Three organisations have completed their 10-year cycle with the foundation this year.
We draw our learning from grantees in a way that allows us to create new funds like the dream project. We ensure that while they are being supported for their core work, they also take time out to dream a big or little dream and have fun with it. For HCF believes, as a foundation, it is our responsibility to create ecosystems that are conducive to organisations in furthering their vision of a just world, since it is finally, they who are working with people and communities, and without them we are essentially nothing.
We continue to dream on and hope that many others will join in to support dreams – the attainable as well as impossible ones!
- The Human Capability Foundation is a UK-based grant making foundation that that supports the work of organisations in India, related to women’s rights, adolescent and young people’s issues, mental health and disability, migration and labour, sexuality and gender. ↩
Cover image by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash
