Philanthropy Asia Alliance expands India network, partners with Dasra and backs two social ventures

Mumbai: Philanthropy Asia Alliance, a Temasek Trust initiative, is expanding its presence in India by adding Dasra to its network and backing two locally developed social ventures as it seeks to scale proven models across the country and other developing markets.

The alliance said on Wednesday that Dasra had joined as a network partner, while PAA and its funder members would support early childhood education nonprofit Rocket Learning and Frontier Innovations’ women entrepreneurship platform She Leads Bharat: Udyam.

The moves deepen PAA’s engagement in India, where philanthropic organisations are increasingly looking to direct capital towards projects that have demonstrated results and are ready to expand.


Dasra joins PAA’s network of more than 110 funders, network partners and programme organisations across Asia and other regions. Existing Indian members include Aditya Birla Education Trust, Shiv Nadar Foundation and Bharti Airtel Foundation.

“India is solving some of the hardest social and environmental challenges, and many of those solutions are ready to work well beyond home,” Shaun Seow, chief executive officer of PAA, said in a statement.

The partnership will connect PAA’s regional network with Dasra’s ecosystem of Indian philanthropists, foundations and nonprofits, potentially opening opportunities for Indian organisations to collaborate with partners in Southeast Asia and other developing markets.

PAA’s funding will also support the expansion of Rocket Learning, which delivers early childhood education to families through WhatsApp in local languages, alongside training for preschool educators and behavioural interventions for parents.

The organisation has reached 6 million children across 15 states and union territories in five years. An independent MIT-JPAL evaluation found that 80% of children in its programme were ready for school by age six, compared with a national average of 50%, according to Rocket Learning.

The new funding will support expansion in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha and help the organisation enter Southeast Asia. Rocket Learning is targeting 50 million underserved children by 2030.

Frontier Innovations’ She Leads Bharat: Udyam connects rural women shopkeepers and entrepreneurs to digital commerce, credit and other services through its Meri Saheli app. The model has reached more than 50,000 women across four states and generated $10 million in additional income, according to the organisation.

PAA’s funding will take the programme into smaller and more remote villages in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

The partnership and funding commitments add to PAA’s existing programmes in India and extend its focus on using philanthropic capital to expand social-sector models that have already demonstrated results.