Started by Mukund Padmanabhan, the New York-based Guru Krupa Foundation has provided funds to charities and reputed institutions in India and the US since 2008 to help the needy, promote learning, and preserve heritage. The South Asian Times has compiled this Organization of the Year feature to salute and felicitate GKF and its founder.
By Parveen Chopra
Founding Editor, The SATimes
Founder, ALotusInThe Mud.com
You may have read this story before.
An old man, on his daily walk along the beach, spots a boy crouched by the water, scooping something up from the sand and throwing it into the sea.
The boy keeps shuffling a little further down the beach, repeating the same action again and again – stopping, scooping, throwing, moving.
“What are you doing there, boy?” the old man approached him.
“I’m saving these stranded starfish,” replied the boy.
“My boy,” the man said, “on this stretch of the beach alone, there must be a hundred stranded starfish. Around the next corner, there must be at least one thousand more. This goes on for miles and miles – I’ve done this walk every day here for 10 years, and it’s always the same. There must be millions of stranded starfish! I hate to say it, but you’ll never make a difference.”
The boy picked up one more starfish, threw it into the sea, and said, “Well, I just made a difference to this one.”
Mukund Padmanabhan is that kid. He cares, and he wants to make a difference, however small, no matter the enormity of the problem of inhuman living conditions of millions of deprived people who lack opportunities to break away from their circumstances. So, in 2008, he started the Guru Krupa Foundation (GKF) on Long Island, New York, initially supporting just a handful of projects. With persistent and consistent work over the years, GKF's footprint now extends to three score and more projects in India and the US.
He shares with The South Asian Times his motivation: “I spent the first 22 years of my life in various cities in India. Poverty is endemic in India, and you frequently come upon children begging on the streets for food. I wanted to do something about these distressing situations.”
Serving the needs of seniors at the South Asian Council of Social Services in New York. (Photo courtesy: Guru Krupa Foundation)
“But before working on Wall Street, my resources were limited, and I did whatever I could by making small donations to organizations that helped the needy. Once I started making more money on Wall Street, I could expand the number of organizations I supported and the scale at which I supported them.”
He also realized that India does not have a monopoly on poverty and hunger, and many causes in his adopted country, too, deserved support.
To streamline his charitable activities better, Mukund decided to set up an organization instead of making individual donations to many charities. He would follow due diligence best practices, select charities in India and the US, and monitor the grants made to them. That is how GKF was born.
The selection process
But what is GKF's grant selection process? Mukund explains, “We have four main focus areas - i) Social, ii) Higher education, iii) Spirituality and culture, and iv) Environment. To a large extent, these focus areas are guided by my personal experience, and from the applications that we receive for support.
“I've always had sympathy for kids who are born into disadvantaged situations. So GKF activities started by supporting organizations that improved these kids' lives, such as non-profit schools and orphanages. Initially, all these organizations were in India, but now we also support organizations in the US that improve education outcomes in high-poverty schools by providing supplementary education, etc.”
GKF also supports organizations that help other disadvantaged categories such as disabled people, old age homes, and food pantries. These are all grants that fall into GKF’s 'Social' focus.
And how is the second category, “Higher Education” different from the “Social” category? Clarifies Mukund, “This second category focuses more on advanced study. I came to the US to study, as an international foreign student, fully supported on a scholarship. I thrived on the education I was able to get here and was able to make meaningful contributions to advance the state of art. Similar to me, many smart students in India have much to offer but are unable to avail of this route due to a lack of financial support. I wanted to open the doors of opportunity to this category of people by setting up scholarships at well-known universities and research institutions. “Social” projects address life-or-death situations at earlier stages of life, while “Higher education” projects serve to enable people to maximize their potential at a later stage of their lives.”
Opening doors to the future for rural kids through education. (Photo courtesy: Guru Krupa Foundation)
How did the arc of his focus extend to organizations such as the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and Flushing Town Hall (FTH)? Mukund, who always thinks things out, explains, “Though I have emphasized the importance and value of education, something even more basic than that is our sense of identity and community. Millennia of thought have been encoded in the cultural practices, spirituality, and value system of our community, and I believe that it is our responsibility to preserve these ideas and practices.
“At the same time, we must be cognizant of other cultures and seek to coexist with them and learn from them when appropriate. This leads to projects in our 'Spiritual/Cultural' focus, which support Hindu temples, patasalas and ashrams in India and the US, and cultural programs that showcase Hindu culture. HAF and FTH fit this bill.”
GKF’s fourth category of 'Environment' is a relatively new focus area and was born out of a sense of practicality. Mukund says. “I am from Chennai and still have family there. I remember the alternate periods of drought and floods, and many studies have pointed to environmental degradation as a primary cause of these calamities. For our survival, humans had better start looking into these issues. Consequently, we started experimenting with supporting projects that restore and clean up water bodies in the Chennai area.”
Promoting and preserving Indian culture and heritage. (Photo courtesy: Guru Krupa Foundation)
Feeding school children through Akshaya Patra. (Photo courtesy: Guru Krupa Foundation)
Implementing best practices
GKF is a private foundation that does not accept outside money, so they don't fundraise. Other than following IRS guidelines and filing tax returns, such organizations are not required to make any other information available. However, Mukund adds, “On principle, following best practices and being transparent about them is the right thing to do. Our best practices include hosting a website (https://guru-krupa.org/) that clearly states our priorities, lists our current and past projects, and outlines a well-defined procedure for organizations to apply for grants.”
The foundation prefers specific projects with measurable deliverables (rather than generic funding) and requires organizations to follow stringent accounting practices and incur minimal costs. These preferences make it easy to track the progress of projects and ensure that funds are spent for the intended purpose.
Funding is only given to organizations in India and the US. In the US, the applicant must have IRS 501(c)(3) status. Applicants in India must have 80G certification (public charity) and FCRA clearance (permission to receive money from outside India).
“Once we receive an application,” Mukund continues, “we check the organization’s references, their financials, and in many cases visit the organization to verify the scope of its project. Once we make a grant, we also require semi-annual reporting on its progress in most cases. I believe that following these practices will help GKF to provide maximum benefit with its grants.”
Besides Mukund, the three other trustees of the organization are: Lalit Bahl, Deepak Nayak, and Amit Maitra. Says Mukund about his board: “My trustees are people whom I have known for a long time and who share many of my values. They are people I respect immensely. Coincidentally, we are all from IIT Kharagpur, so you could almost call us an IIT-KGP organization. Two of us - me and Deepak - also share UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) as an alma mater. I am grateful to them for generously giving their time, pro bono.”
All four are highly educated and accomplished people who expect efficiency and results from the projects GKF supports.
In addition to Mukund, the trustees travel to India to visit projects funded on their recommendation in their home states. The GKF team includes Adithi Menon, the grants manager who tracks project progress. With such a minimalistic staff, Mukund admits that many weekends are spent on GKF work, but this leads to developing first-hand information about supported projects and organizations.
The grants
The Guru Krupa Foundation takes a holistic approach to charitable giving. Project categories range from basic needs—food, shelter, health, and basic education—to more esoteric ones, such as arts and culture, spirituality, and the environment.
GKF spreads its net wide; the grantees range from an old age home in a far corner of India to the world-renowned Wiki Education Foundation. In 2023, the organization gave over 70 grants, with around 80% focusing on social causes and a little over 10% in the Spiritual/cultural category. There are many smaller projects, particularly in the Social category, in India because a dollar goes a long way there.
Affirms Mukund, “Helping the impoverished people gets the most bang for the buck because, for them, it's a difference between not having a future and opening the door to a future. That is where it feels more like a duty rather than charity. Just to be able to do that is a great thing.”
In dollar terms, 40% of GKF dollars are spent in India, and they account for 60% of the overall number of grants.
Well-known grantees focusing on social issues in India have included, Ekal Vidyalaya, Akshaya Patra, CRY America, and those focusing on social issues in the US include First Book, City Parks Foundation South Asian Council for Social Services, Long Island Cares, and others.
Grantees focusing on Culture include Spic Macay in India and organizations like Hindu American Foundation, Religion News Foundation, Flushing Town Hall and Long Island Children’s Museum, among others.
However, to Mukund, no GKF project is greater or lesser in importance. UCLA and, to a lesser extent, IIT Kharagpur have been his biggest projects. At UCLA, he has established Fellowships and faculty Chairs and contributed to capital campaigns. At IIT Kharagpur, he has contributed to the newly instituted Academy of Culture and Fine Arts (ACFA) and established student scholarships.
Once GKF selects an organization for a grant, the grant generally continues in subsequent years, leading to a long-term association with good causes and organizations.
Kanchi Shankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswati propounding religious knowledge at a patsala supported by GKF. (Photo courtesy: Guru Krupa Foundation)
The impact
And what is the impact of all this giving?
In the “Social” category, the number of direct beneficiaries is in the thousands, with indirect beneficiaries probably numbering in the tens of thousands. In the “Higher Education” category, around 20-30 graduate students and around a hundred Undergrads have had their futures enabled through GKF Fellowships and Scholarships.
Beneficiaries in the “Spiritual/Cultural” category are harder to enumerate - what is the value of enabling activities that ensure that one’s Culture lives on ? What is the value of finding ways to live in harmony with the many different cultures that inhabit this planet? Says Mukund, “This is not something that can be easily quantified. Nor is it something that can be considered a charitable activity. This is a duty. We should not evaluate this through the benefits that accrue by doing our duty, but by the costs incurred by not doing it.” There is a shloka in the Bhagavad Gita that encapsulates this perfectly
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७
“Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,
Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani”
Despite the huge number of projects it supports and the total amount it has given, the Guru Krupa Foundation has remained low-profile. It may have to do with the reticent nature of Mukund Padmanabhan. A profile of GKF or Mukund is nowhere to be found in the media. GKF is not yet on the radar of Charity Navigator or a similar platform either. However, Trustee Amit Maitra told The South Asian Times, “The organizations who have worked with us are very, very happy.” The number of congratulatory messages received from the grantees compiled in these pages testify to that. Besides the funds received to run their projects, many are grateful to GKF and its trustees for visiting and giving advice and course corrections to improve their functioning.
Looking ahead
Where does GKF go from here? Replies Mukund, “From single digits in 2008, the number of grantees was over 70 in 2023. And these were both in India and the US. Almost all growth has been organic - we receive funding applications, and some align well with our priorities and values, so the number of grantees increases. I expect the assets of the Foundation to grow, and the number of grantees will also grow. We are always looking for new and worthy causes to support.”
Contact for Guru Krupa Foundation Inc: [email protected]