Two Founders Walk Into

Why is nonprofit fundraising so difficult, even when the work matters?In this episode of Two Founders Walk Into, we sit down with Rishabh Lalani, founder of Kohmorehbee Consulting and a fundraising professional who has helped raise over ₹2,000 crore for organisations and causes, to unpack the realities of fundraising, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in India.From growing up with financial uncertainty to finding his way into social impact, Rishabh shares how his experiences shaped his approach to fundraising. He also challenges some widely accepted practices in philanthropy, including the growing corporatisation of nonprofits, the role of AI in grant proposals, and the systems that determine which causes receive funding.In this conversation, we discuss:• Rishabh Lalani’s journey from Wipro to nonprofit fundraising• How he raised his first significant grant and discovered his role in social impact• Why nonprofits often receive funding for delivering programmes, but struggle to fund research and investigate the root causes of problems• How compliance requirements and corporatisation are changing the nonprofit sector in India• Why grant proposals may matter less than the relationships behind them• How AI is changing proposal writing, screening and fundraising• Why trust and human connection remain central to philanthropy• The different types of funders and what motivates them to give• Restricted vs. unrestricted funding, and why nonprofits need more flexible funding• Why Rishabh believes NGO reports should be replaced with more direct conversations• What the future of philanthropy and nonprofit work in India could look likeRishabh also shares a practical perspective on understanding funders, building relationships, and identifying where philanthropic capital is most likely to move.One of the central questions in this conversation is whether the systems built around philanthropy are helping nonprofits solve problems—or limiting their ability to do so.Watch the full episode for an honest conversation about nonprofit fundraising, CSR, philanthropy, trust and the future of social impact in India.Subscribe to Two Founders Walk Into for more conversations on leadership, building organisations and creating social impact.Subscribe to our channel and never miss the latest episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@UCPichWEo9gwkwpABT8kgk9Q Two Founders Walk Into Featured in FeedSpot's Top 25 Indian Leadership Podcasts About Ajit Sivaram and Satish Manchikanti - They are the co-founders of U&I Trust and Change+. About U&I - U&I is a nonprofit organization committed to transforming lives through education and community engagement. Our two core programs are U&I Teach and U&I Empower. U&I Teach provides after-school tutoring and mentorship to underprivileged children across India, helping bridge the education gap. U&I Empower creates volunteering opportunities for corporate employees, enabling them to give back through meaningful, impact-driven experiences. At the heart of U&I are our core values: #bethechange #bigaudaciousimpact and #inthistogether About Change+ - The organization helps people become the leaders they’re meant to be. The leadership training journeys blend self-awareness, real-world practice, and people-first thinking, helping teams lead with clarity, confidence, and impact. From emerging managers to senior leaders, Change+ designs learning experiences that teach leadership. Follow them on LinkedIn: Ajit Sivaram - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajit4949/ Satish Manchikanti - https://www.linkedin.com/in/satish-manchikanti/ Visit our Website: https://uandi.org.in/ Volunteer With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/volunteer Partner With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/csr Work With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/hiring Donate to our Cause: https://ui.danamojo.org/ #NonprofitFundraising #Philanthropy #SocialImpact #CSR #Fundraising #NGOIndia #RishabhLalani #TwoFoundersWalkInto

What does it actually take to build something that can reach a billion people?In this episode, Sanjay Purohit unpacks what exponential change really means, and why social impact can't be approached the way we approach business growth. After 25 years in the corporate world, Sanjay stepped away at 50, mentored by Nandan Nilekani, to build the Center for Exponential Change. Ten years later, after EkStep, Shiksha Graha, and now Apurva.AI, he puts it bluntly: if you tried to train India's 4.5 million school leaders one institution at a time, it would take 5000 years. So he didn't. He built a network instead.Sanjay pushes on three sharper questions: What is scale? What is speed? And what does it mean for change to actually sustain?The conversation explores:Why scale is about the size of the problem, not the size of your organisationWhy solutions need to be portable, able to spread through other people's handsThe relationship between scale, speed, and sustainability, and why "differentiation" is often the wrong questionWhy sometimes "slow is faster" than what we think is fastThe "farm vs. forest" mental model, and why interconnected systems outlast standalone programsHow networks help solve problems too large for any single organisation (Project ECHO's "all teach, all learn" model)Why expertise needs to be diffused, not concentrated in a few expertsHow young changemakers can build the self-efficacy to lead systemic changeHow AI can become a force for diffusion rather than concentration, shaping Apurva.AIWhat it means to design for population-level impact, not project-level impactIf you're interested in systems change, social impact, exponential change, innovation, leadership, AI, or networks, this episode is for you.Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UCPichWEo9gwkwpABT8kgk9QTwo Founders Walk Into Featured in FeedSpot's Top 25 Indian Leadership PodcastsAbout Ajit Sivaram and Satish Manchikanti - Co-founders of U&I Trust and Change+.About U&I - A nonprofit committed to transforming lives through education and community engagement. U&I Teach provides after-school tutoring and mentorship to underprivileged children across India. U&I Empower creates volunteering opportunities for corporate employees. Core values: #bethechange #bigaudaciousimpact #inthistogetherAbout Change+ - Helps people become the leaders they're meant to be, blending self-awareness, real-world practice, and people-first thinking for emerging and senior leaders.Follow them on LinkedIn:Ajit Sivaram - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajit4949/Satish Manchikanti - https://www.linkedin.com/in/satish-manchikanti/Visit our Website: https://uandi.org.in/Volunteer With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/volunteerPartner With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/csrWork With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/hiringDonate to our Cause: https://ui.danamojo.org/Follow Us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uandi.org.in/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/u&i-charity/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/uanditvSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/04ZaR7HIvmqL5iG9wAAdV4Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-founders-walk-into/id1806002327Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0a5b4559-645c-4b99-a556-adef1fab97c7/two-founders-walk-intoMore from Sanjay:Rhythm, Harmony, Melody: https://centreforexponentialchange.org/rhythm-harmony-melody-the-art-of-system-orchestration/System Orchestration: https://centreforexponentialchange.org/it-is-a-system-orchestration-at-play/Podcast with ShikshaLokam: https://youtu.be/6s_qIK0VV8QPodcast with Apurva: https://youtu.be/Z3oIx4WwHbwThink Collective Month: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-squirrels-know-scale-societal-thinking-9tsdc/Think Books: https://societalthinking.org/books/Project ECHO: https://societalthinking.org/distributing-the-ability-to-solve-moving-knowledge-faster-with-with-echo/What is Exponential Change: https://centreforexponentialchange.org/what-is-exponential-change/

Why do fast-growing companies suddenly slow down?Often, the bottleneck isn’t strategy, technology or even talent. It’s the management layer.In this conversation, we unpack why managers can become one of the biggest barriers to scaling a company — and what CEOs, founders and senior leaders can do about it.We explore the three leadership bottlenecks growing organisations need to solve:* Execution ownership* People leadership* Leadership systemsFrom Google removing managers and bringing them back, to Netflix building a culture of context over control, Microsoft moving from “know-it-all” to “learn-it-all,” and HUL developing leaders through real-world responsibility, we look at what some of the world’s strongest organisations have done differently.We also discuss why managers often end up with 100% accountability and 0% autonomy, why promoting your best individual contributor doesn't automatically create a great people manager, and why leadership development cannot stop at workshops.The bigger question is this:How do you move from accidental managers to leadership by design?Because ultimately, a company can only grow as fast as its managers.If you’re a CEO, founder, CHRO, business leader or people leader building a scaling organisation, this conversation is for you.Subscribe to our channel and never miss the latest episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@UCPichWEo9gwkwpABT8kgk9Q Two Founders Walk Into Featured in FeedSpot's Top 25 Indian Leadership Podcasts About Ajit Sivaram and Satish Manchikanti - They are the co-founders of U&I Trust and Change+. About U&I - U&I is a nonprofit organization committed to transforming lives through education and community engagement. Our two core programs are U&I Teach and U&I Empower. U&I Teach provides after-school tutoring and mentorship to underprivileged children across India, helping bridge the education gap. U&I Empower creates volunteering opportunities for corporate employees, enabling them to give back through meaningful, impact-driven experiences. At the heart of U&I are our core values: #bethechange #bigaudaciousimpact and #inthistogether About Change+ - The organization helps people become the leaders they’re meant to be. The leadership training journeys blend self-awareness, real-world practice, and people-first thinking, helping teams lead with clarity, confidence, and impact. From emerging managers to senior leaders, Change+ designs learning experiences that teach leadership. Follow them on LinkedIn: Ajit Sivaram - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajit4949/ Satish Manchikanti - https://www.linkedin.com/in/satish-manchikanti/ Visit our Website: https://uandi.org.in/ Volunteer With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/volunteer Partner With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/csr Work With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/hiring Donate to our Cause: https://ui.danamojo.org/ Follow Us: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uandi.org.in/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/u&i-charity/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/uanditv Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/04ZaR7HIvmqL5iG9wAAdV4 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-founders-walk-into/id1806002327 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0a5b4559-645c-4b99-a556-adef1fab97c7/two-founders-walk-into #podcast #genz #leadership #ngo #entrepreneur #management

What does it actually take to get funded as an NGO in India and why are so many organisations pitching the wrong funders entirely?In this episode of Two Founders Walk Into, we sit down with Amit Antony Alex, Investment Director at Dovetail Impact Foundation, where he manages an international portfolio of social enterprises and impact organisations. Before Dovetail, Amit led investments at Upaya Social Ventures and headed enterprise grants at the UN Foundation's Clean Cooking Alliance giving him a rare vantage point from both sides of the funder-NGO relationship.This conversation goes deep on the structural realities of philanthropy in India: why the sector is maturing but still has a long way to go, what the 10x startup culture is doing to nonprofits, and why the most honest thing a social entrepreneur can sometimes do is shut their organisation down.Subscribe to our channel and never miss the latest episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@UCPichWEo9gwkwpABT8kgk9Q Two Founders Walk Into Featured in FeedSpot's Top 25 Indian Leadership Podcasts About Ajit Sivaram and Satish Manchikanti - They are the co-founders of U&I Trust and Change+. About U&I - U&I is a nonprofit organization committed to transforming lives through education and community engagement. Our two core programs are U&I Teach and U&I Empower. U&I Teach provides after-school tutoring and mentorship to underprivileged children across India, helping bridge the education gap. U&I Empower creates volunteering opportunities for corporate employees, enabling them to give back through meaningful, impact-driven experiences. At the heart of U&I are our core values: #bethechange #bigaudaciousimpact and #inthistogether About Change+ - The organization helps people become the leaders they’re meant to be. The leadership training journeys blend self-awareness, real-world practice, and people-first thinking, helping teams lead with clarity, confidence, and impact. From emerging managers to senior leaders, Change+ designs learning experiences that teach leadership. Follow them on LinkedIn: Ajit Sivaram - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajit4949/ Satish Manchikanti - https://www.linkedin.com/in/satish-manchikanti/ Visit our Website: https://uandi.org.in/ Volunteer With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/volunteer Partner With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/csr Work With U&I: https://uandi.org.in/hiring Donate to our Cause: https://ui.danamojo.org/ Follow Us: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uandi.org.in/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/u&i-charity/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/uanditv Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/04ZaR7HIvmqL5iG9wAAdV4 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-founders-walk-into/id1806002327 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0a5b4559-645c-4b99-a556-adef1fab97c7/two-founders-walk-into Timestamps: 00:00 — What excites Amit about where India is heading 02:30 — India's growth story and the two Indias 06:21 — Three things India's philanthropic sector needs to fix 08:21 — The funder-NGO power imbalance, explained 15:33 — How nonprofits can build towards scale the right way 18:01 — The controversial case for closing your NGO 19:36 — AI and its real (vs. hyped) potential in the social sector 22:03 — Career advice for young people entering the social sector 26:32 — Should funders pay for salaries? Unrestricted funding explained 29:03 — One change that would transform the nonprofit sector in 10 years#philanthropy #nonprofit #socialimpact #NGO #India #ImpactInvesting #TwoFoundersWalkInto #socialentrepreneur

India has 96–97% school enrollment. So why can't 50% of Grade 5 students read a Grade 2 sentence?That's the question at the heart of this conversation — and it's the exact problem that Akshay and Madhuri from U&I have spent years trying to solve on the ground.In this episode, we go deep inside U&I Teach, one of India's most innovative after-school education programs, now running across 150 learning centers in 40 cities including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Chennai. #EducationIndia #SocialImpact #NGOIndia #LearningGap #TheoryOfChange #VolunteerIndia #FoundationalLiteracy #MentorshipIndia #AfterSchoolProgram #IndiaEducation #ShelterHome #ImpactPodcast #BengaluruNGO #HyderabadNGO #MumbaiNGO