India is one of the few countries in the world mandating its corporate citizens to set aside a part of their profits to spend on social impact projects. Sattva Consulting has been working with leading corporations in various industries helping them make their CSR programmes effective and efficient. Our goal in each engagement is to help the funder achieve their intended impact and maximise their Social Return on Investment because each rupee spent well contributes to better impact. To ensure research-backed, data-driven, objective decision-making, we continuously track relevant data that can guide funders in making the right decision.
One such exercise we undertook was to understand inter-region flow of CSR funds – an increasingly important source of funding for social organisations. Here is what we found:
Each section represents a region in India. The only exception is the ‘pan- India’ section that represents projects undertaken at an all-India level. Each section comprises two layers – the outer layer represents the total CSR activity in the region (CSR fund generated plus spent), the inner layer represents the total CSR budget spent in the region.
Regions in the visual are connected to each other through lines that have two key attributes- the width representing the total flow of capital and the colour representing the region receiving that capital. Do note that for pan-India section, all lines are light blue.
The visual can be used to interpret the following:
-The total CSR activity within the region
-The proportion of CSR amount generated and spent in the region itself
-Which regions fund/receive CSR money from which other regions
While doing this analysis, we found the following points noteworthy:
- Out of the total INR 27,949 crores spent on CSR activities, INR 11,729 crores (42.0%) of CSR fund is generated from companies headquartered in the Western region. The next big contribution comes from the North region with a total CSR budget of INR 8,190 crores (29.3%).
- The Central, East and North East regions together generate INR 3284 crores (11.7%) of the total CSR budget. These three regions have a total population of about 400 million+ and constitute 299 out of 712 districts in India. We also see that only INR 3593 crores (12.9%) of total CSR expenditure is spent in these regions.
- Among the regions where CSR funds are spent, projects reported as pan-India receive the highest CSR money with a total expenditure of INR 10,968 crores (39.2%). The West and South regions in India also see significant CSR expenditure with INR 5756 crores and INR 4988 crores invested in these regions respectively.
- The North East and Central region spend two-third of their CSR budget in the region itself. The next two regions are South and East- spending about half of their CSR budget within the region. West and North are lowest on this parameter spending one-third and one-eighth of their total CSR budget within region respectively.
These are some of our observations. What do you notice?
Do write to us/ post comments on social media and let’s get the conversation going!
We would love to hear from you on other visual depictions you would like to see. Please write to us at impact@sattva.co.in.