If you accuse Venkat Krishnan N. of starting Daan Utsav, the festival of giving that will be celebrated for the tenth time this year, he shies away from it, insisting on being referred to as just one of the volunteers. He has, though, been at the centre of its genesis, and he has stayed deeply involved in its evangelisation.
Around 2004, when he was still running GiveIndia (GI), which he founded, he was chatting informally with a few friends from NGOs — Mathew Cherian, head of HelpAge India, Ingrid Srinath, then CEO of CRY, Mathan, a colleague at GI — about getting more people to give. A national giving day was mooted, which they all agreed was a good idea. After some groundwork the idea languished: they all had enough to do running their own organisations.
Then, in 2008, he says, “We assembled a huge new group, not just NGO people, a diverse bunch we knew from different walks of life.” Senior corporate executives, educators, entrepreneurs joined in. Something else was different too. “You go to people with a new idea, you get feedback, people will tell you what you should do. Here, the people we met reacted with what they would do. That is what got us excited: this meant there was inherent pull in the idea.”
An early realisation was that whatever day they chose, whether it was a weekday or weekend, they risked leaving out some people. Schools and offices would not do weekend events; weekdays would be tough for families, or the hospitality business. So they decided it would have to be a week-long festival.
Mr. Krishnan had by then stepped down from GI, and had more time on his hands to focus on the efforts. A friend who headed an advertising agency, the erstwhile EuroRSCG, volunteered to help pro bono . “A typical marketing guy, he walked us through the process. ‘Why do you want to do this?’ We said, ‘We wanted people to give.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s a good thing.’ ‘Because the poor will benefit?’ ‘Of course, but also because givers themselves will experience a lot of good.’ That’s where the name Joy of Giving Week came from.” The agency did a campaign with ideas around joy: the joy of caring, the joy of cooking, and so on.
What surprised everyone was that it took off immediately. Mr. Krishnan says that in 2009, “from what we could add up, a little over 10.5 lakh people participated.”
But it was also the last time the core team tried to put a number to it. It is impossible to count every effort. An example: “I was speaking to an old friend who heads the GMR Foundation. GMR owns the Delhi and Bombay airports, and I wanted to check whether he could get them involved. He said, ‘Hey, we’ve been celebrating for the last 10 years!’ We’d never heard of that, nobody had ever approached the group. Across the country, every day, some volunteer is meeting somebody who has already been celebrating and we never knew about it. And that was the intent from the beginning: to create a festival that belongs to the people.”
Growing in reach
Pressed for an estimate, he says, “There is a sense it has grown, but there’s no scientific answer. Geographical reach is wider. : four years ago, we had nothing in Lucknow, now it is one of the strongest volunteer groups, every district of Uttar Pradesh is celebrating. But in some places it is weakening: Hyderabad, one of our strongest cities in 2009, is now much weaker, at least as per what we get to know. [Overall] I can tell you it’s probably 75 lakh to a crore Indians celebrating; very unlikely it will be less than 50 lakh or more than two crore.”
One thing changed on the way. The name ‘Joy of Giving’ communicated directly to a fraction of India. The core team eventually decided on Daan Utsav despite some reservations as it at least was understandable even in South India. “You go to anyone in Madras and say daanum , or ustavum , they will understand.”
Aside from getting ordinary citizens involved, there is now some support from official circles too. Tamil Nadu has seen the biggest such participation, and Mr. Krishnan attributes that to the efforts of one core volunteer, Aarti Madhusudan, who is a big believer in working with government. “We have found working with government very interesting,” Mr. Krishnan says. “Their reach is the biggest multiplier. But do we have people willing to put in the effort? The amount of effort Aarti puts in, I personally would not be able to. The pay-off is ridiculously high, but many of us are not able to set aside our egos… you could carry your laptop, sit there and do your work. Until we have more people who will do that, a tipping point may not happen.” Daan Utsav’s volunteers have worked across the political spectrum, and focused more on the bureaucracy than politicians.
The team recently met the national head of NSS (National Service Scheme), which has sent a circular across the country encouraging students to take part. In Tamil Nadu, aside from the NSS, over a dozen government departments are celebrating. In Mumbai, some organisations are doing an ‘art paatshaala’ in municipal schools teaching children to make paper bags. The idea is each child becomes a donor, making the bags and then gifting them to local shopkeepers, learning thereby not just about the environment but also to give away hard work. The Delhi Metro is offering space to NGOs to set up stalls; with 30% of Delhi using the Metro, awareness of Daan Ustav will jump.
But really, Mr. Krishan says, the intent has always been that anyone celebrating would do so in the way they want. People can register on daanustav.org and find ideas, or initiatives they can participate in. But no one ‘owns’ Daan Utsav by design, like no one has an exclusive franchise on Diwali, Id or Christmas. It’s up to the people to decide to give, and find the joy.
