Amit Chandra - ATECF Impact story

At the A.T.E. Chandra Foundation (ATECF), we believe nonprofits can optimally & sustainably tackle large-scale social challenges when their organisations are strong. This belief drives our Capacity Building (CB) mandate. While we now largely focus on systemic issues, historically our support to NGOs was focused on strengthening four foundational pillars:

Leadership & Governance: stronger leadership capacity, clearer decision-making, and governance structures that enable long-term thinking
Financial Resilience: diversified fundraising, stronger pipelines, and meaningful reserves
Programmatic Effectiveness: strategic clarity, expanded outreach, and evidence-backed impact (MEL)
Institutional Strength: robust systems, healthier cost coverage, and early corpus building

We strive to document learnings from the journeys of both those we and others have supported for Capacity Building to demonstrate the incredible value of long-term organisational investments. A few examples that spotlight what such sustained support can unlock are:

Quest: The organization strengthened its fundraising capabilities, securing a six-year partnership with UNICEF, and developed sector-building assets such as the Anupad diagnostic test, which has since been adopted by the government. Due to strengthened fundraising capabilitiess over the past five years, their budget has grown 2.7 times.
Jai Vakeel Foundation (JVF): What began in 2019 as a small but ambitious initiative across just four JVF schools has grown into Disha Abhiyan, a transformative program that has now reached 20,990 children across 456 schools in Maharashtra. In July 2025, this journey took a decisive leap forward. An MoU was signed on the JVF campus in the presence of Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, and Maj. Ram Kumar, Director, NIEPID — paving the way for national adoption of the curriculum. From a pilot to a platform for nationwide impact, Disha Abhiyan is poised to shape inclusive education across India.
Arpan: They built a 16-member M&E team (11% of the organisation) with CB funding from ATECF, unlocking analytical capabilities that reshaped its strategy. This strengthened function validated Arpan’s cascade Training of Teachers model (30.8 lakh people reached), improved digital learning through continuous assessments, guided expansion into Rajasthan, and secured external validation from Sattva. This evidence base has powered Arpan’s shift to a systems change model, enabling curriculum integration at national and state levels and reaching 15.4 million children.

These experiences reaffirm to us the value of investing in Capacity Building to achieve scale impact in a sustainable manner.