Early research stage. No Registry. No advisory practice. No validated pilot. A hypothesis being tested openly.
Research

The evidence infrastructure for institutional philanthropy

EGII's research agenda covers the problem, our role, the methodology, and the products we are building. This page sets out our full intellectual framework.

Working Paper - Available Now
The EGII Methodology: A Framework for Evaluating Social Interventions in India's Institutional Philanthropy Ecosystem
Working Draft - Effective Giving Institute India, 2026
Download PDF
Where EGII Fits

EGII's place in the evidence-to-allocation chain

EGII neither produces all primary research nor makes funding decisions. It occupies the synthesis and translation layer between evidence generation and institutional allocation.

Upstream
Development Research
Academic institutions, research networks, randomised trials, systematic reviews
EGII
Evidence synthesis and translation
Evidence Memos Intervention Reviews Contextual Adjustment Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Funding Landscape Reports
Downstream
Institutional Funders
CSR teams, corporate foundations, family foundations, family offices
Outcome
Funding Decisions
Made by the institution, informed by evidence. EGII does not decide.

The feedback loop: funded implementation generates real-world evidence that updates EGII's research over time.

The Problem

Large institutional capital. Limited evidence to support it.

India's institutional giving ecosystem - mandatory CSR, corporate foundations, family offices, and grantmaking foundations - deploys substantial capital each year. The challenge is not the amount of money. The challenge is the quality of the decisions about where it goes.

Independent public evidence infrastructure specifically designed to help institutional funders compare interventions that helps institutional funders ask: which problems should we prioritise? Which interventions have the strongest evidence? Which approaches appear most cost-effective?

By evidence infrastructure we mean the research, evidence synthesis, decision-support tools, and knowledge products that help institutional funders make better allocation decisions - systematically, transparently, and at scale.

Why institutional decisions matter

Institutional philanthropy - corporate foundations, CSR committees, family offices, and grantmakers - controls far larger sums than any individual donor. A single corporate foundation may allocate more in a year than hundreds of thousands of individual donors combined. The quality of those decisions has an outsized effect on where India's philanthropic capital goes.

Institutional philanthropy is not simply larger than individual giving - it also shapes the incentives, practices, and priorities of the broader social sector.

The missing layer

India has research institutions producing rigorous development evidence. It has a large nonprofit sector delivering programmes at scale. What remains at an early stage is independent public evidence infrastructure that systematically translates that research into practical guidance for institutional decision-makers at the point of allocation.

EGII is testing whether such an institution is needed - and what it would need to look like to be genuinely useful.

Our Role

How EGII contributes

EGII occupies a specific role in the philanthropy ecosystem - focused on an earlier stage of the funding process than implementation, consulting, or grantmaking.

Research

Producing independent evidence

EGII produces original research, evidence syntheses, and intervention reviews. The goal is to build the evidence base that institutional decision-makers need but that no single funder has the capacity to develop independently.

Decision Support

Strengthening allocation decisions

EGII translates research into practical guidance for corporate foundations, CSR teams, family offices, and grantmakers. EGII does not make funding decisions. It strengthens the evidence available before those decisions are made.

Knowledge Infrastructure

Building shared resources

Over time, EGII aims to develop knowledge tools that make rigorous evidence more accessible across India's institutional giving ecosystem - reducing the research burden on individual decision-makers.

How It Works

From funding question to informed decision

A simple illustration of EGII's role in an institutional funding process.

Step 01

Funding question

An institution has a significant allocation decision to make and wants to understand what the evidence says

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Step 02

EGII prepares an Evidence Memo

Intervention comparisons, cost-effectiveness estimates, evidence quality, and key uncertainties

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Step 03

Institution reviews the evidence

Decision-makers consider the research alongside their own strategic priorities and constraints

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Step 04

Institution decides

The institution makes its own funding decision. EGII does not decide. It informs.

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Step 05

Implementation

Implementation partners are selected. The grant is made. The work begins.

EGII does not make funding decisions. It strengthens the evidence available before those decisions are made.

Theory of Change

How better evidence leads to greater impact

EGII's central hypothesis: when institutional donors have access to better evidence and decision-support, more philanthropic capital can flow toward highly effective interventions.

We do not claim that EGII already increases funding to effective interventions. We are at an early research stage testing this hypothesis.
01

Independent Research

Rigorous evidence on what philanthropic interventions work, at what cost, in what contexts

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02

Evidence Synthesis

Research translated into practical guidance for India's institutional funders

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03

Decision Support

Institutional decision-makers use that evidence when making allocation decisions

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04

Better Allocation Decisions

More capital directed toward evidence-backed, high-impact interventions

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05

Greater Impact

More people helped more effectively with the same resources

What rigorous evidence research has shown

Decades of evidence-focused research on development interventions have revealed a consistent pattern: the difference in effectiveness between the best and average interventions in the same cause area is often very large. Systematic, transparent comparison of evidence - applied consistently - can shift the distribution of philanthropic capital toward more effective work over time.

Why India's context requires its own approach

Evidence infrastructure for institutional philanthropy in India needs to be designed with India's specific regulatory, cultural, and organisational context at its centre. Corporate foundations operate under Schedule VII. CSR committees face compliance constraints. Family offices navigate regulatory complexity. These realities shape what evidence is useful - and what forms of decision-support will actually be adopted.

What EGII Produces

Illustrative Evidence Memo

The following is an illustrative example demonstrating what a future EGII Evidence Memo may look like. EGII has not yet produced work for any corporate client.

The situation

A corporate foundation plans to invest Rs. 5 crore to reduce anaemia among adolescent girls in Rajasthan.

They are not asking EGII to recommend a specific organisation. They are asking: what does the evidence say about which interventions work, at what cost, and with what trade-offs?

The foundation makes the funding decision. EGII's role is to ensure that decision is informed by the best available evidence.
Illustrative Example - Evidence Memo
Reducing Adolescent Anaemia:
Intervention Evidence for Rajasthan
EGII
2026
No. Section
01Strongest global evidence on anaemia interventions
02Indian delivery context and policy landscape
03Intervention comparisons and cost-effectiveness estimates
04Implementation models and trade-offs
05Evidence quality and confidence ratings
06Major uncertainties and knowledge gaps
Prepared for: Corporate Foundation (anonymised) | Cause: Nutrition | Geography: Rajasthan
How EGII Works

From research question to published output

Every EGII research output follows the same structured process, designed to be transparent and replicable.

01

Research Question

Identify a cause area or intervention using EGII's prioritisation criteria

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02

Evidence Review

Systematic review of published and grey literature on intervention effectiveness

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03

Contextual Adjustment

Interpreting global evidence through India's regulatory, institutional, and delivery context

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04

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Central estimate with sensitivity analysis and explicit confidence bounds

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05

Evidence Synthesis

Multi-dimensional assessment across evidence quality, scalability, and feasibility

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06

Publication

Evidence Memo, Intervention Review, or Landscape Report published openly

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07

Periodic Updating

Recommendations revised when new evidence materially changes conclusions

This process is described in full in the EGII Methodology Paper.

How We Work

Research methodology

EGII aspires to research standards closer to an academic institution than a consultancy. The following principles guide our approach.

01

Systematic literature review

Reviewing existing evidence systematically - identifying what is known, what is contested, and what remains genuinely uncertain.

02

Evidence synthesis

Aggregating research from global institutions and mapping it onto India's delivery contexts, cost structures, and institutional constraints.

03

Policy and landscape analysis

Analysing India's regulatory framework and funding flows to understand how allocation decisions are actually made in practice.

04

Expert interviews

Talking with corporate foundation professionals, CSR teams, grantmakers, and researchers to understand where evidence gaps genuinely affect decision-making.

05

Transparent assumptions

Publishing methods, assumptions, and data sources openly so that conclusions can be evaluated, challenged, and replicated.

06

Honest uncertainty

Clearly distinguishing between what evidence shows, what we infer, what we hypothesise, and what we do not know.

07

Independent judgement

EGII is independent of implementers, funders, and government agencies. Its role is to assess evidence rather than advocate for predetermined funding decisions.

EGII's Distinctive Contribution

What makes EGII different

Most global evidence on intervention effectiveness was not generated in India. Applying it directly to Indian institutional philanthropy without adjustment can produce misleading conclusions.

EGII's methodology systematically interprets evidence through India's regulatory environment, implementation capacity, government systems, and philanthropic context before drawing any conclusions.

Contextual Adjustment covers
India's regulatory environment and Schedule VII constraints
State capacity and implementation ecosystems
Government programme interactions and additionality
Regional and within-India variation
Political economy and NGO maturity
What We Build

Research products and knowledge infrastructure

EGII's research agenda is organised around a set of knowledge products, clearly labelled to distinguish what is active from what is proposed and what remains a longer-term possibility.

Active

Foundational Working Paper

Can evidence-based philanthropy principles be adapted to India's institutional giving context? The paper develops EGII's theoretical and empirical foundations.

Available now
The EGII Methodology: A Framework for Evaluating Social Interventions in India's Institutional Philanthropy Ecosystem
Working Draft - Effective Giving Institute India, 2026
Download PDF
In Development

Evidence Memos

Short, focused summaries of the evidence for a specific intervention or cause area, designed for institutional decision-makers.

Proposed

Intervention Reviews

Structured, systematic reviews synthesising research findings and mapping them onto India's delivery contexts and cost structures.

Proposed

Funding Landscape Reports

Original research on how India's institutional giving ecosystem functions - who funds what, where the gaps are, and what decision-support would be used in practice.

Proposed

Institutional Allocation Frameworks

Practical frameworks applying cost-effectiveness thinking within the regulatory and institutional constraints Indian philanthropic decision-makers actually face.

Proposed

Comparative Cost-Effectiveness Registry

A possible future knowledge product - a searchable resource mapping evidence onto India's institutional giving context. This is one proposed output among several, not EGII's primary identity.

Future

Decision Dashboards

Interactive tools helping funders compare interventions and track evidence quality across cause areas.

Future

Annual State of Institutional Philanthropy

A flagship annual publication tracking evidence use and allocation quality across India's institutional giving ecosystem.

Intellectual Lineage

The work that inspires this initiative

A generation of organisations has demonstrated that evidence and cost-effectiveness thinking can transform giving decisions. EGII draws on their intellectual work while developing something distinct - evidence infrastructure for institutional philanthropy in India.

GiveWell
GiveWell

Rigorous, transparent research identifying the most cost-effective global health and poverty interventions

Giving What We Can
Giving What We Can

Community and commitment mechanisms helping individuals give more effectively

Founders Pledge
Founders Pledge

Research and decision-support infrastructure for high-capital philanthropic giving decisions

The Life You Can Save
The Life You Can Save

Advocacy and evidence communication raising awareness of effective giving

One for the World
One for the World

Workplace and university-based effective giving programmes reaching new donor communities

While these organisations serve different audiences - from individual donors to major philanthropists - they share a commitment to improving philanthropic decision-making through evidence. EGII draws inspiration from that tradition while focusing on India's institutional philanthropy ecosystem.