Mon Ami Foundation - Blogs ##Sustainable Crafting

CSR Dashboards: Making Transparency Work for Communities

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:01:00 +0530

Open any company’s CSR report today and you’ll likely find a dashboard: neat charts showing donation amounts, volunteer hours, and the number of communities “reached.” It looks like transparency. But pause for a moment—transparent to whom?

Most CSR dashboards are designed with investors and regulators in mind. They exist to prove compliance under laws like Section 135 of the Companies Act and to reassure stakeholders that social spending is real, measurable, and accountable. That is a legitimate need. Numbers build trust, and trust is hard to earn without evidence. A well-designed dashboard can also help companies identify which programmes are working and redirect resources faster than a year-end report ever could.

Yet here lies the gap: a dashboard full of impressive totals can still tell a beneficiary nothing about whether their own life has changed. A village may appear as a data point in a “communities reached” figure while having no way to see what was promised, what was delivered, or whom to approach if it fell short. Transparency often flows upward to boardrooms rather than outward to the people it claims to represent. This is where accusations of “CSR-washing” arise—numbers that look accountable while the people on the ground remain unheard.

For transparency to genuinely serve communities, dashboards must include the community’s own voice, not just administrative figures. That means:

Beneficiary feedback integrated into reporting.
Outcome tracking at an individual or household level.
Accessible formats that allow communities to question and engage with the data.

The MAMTA Institute for Mother and Child’s beneficiary feedback pilot in Kaushambi District shows what this can look like in practice. By giving communities, a direct channel to raise issues and see them addressed, feedback volumes rose sharply, and most respondents reported real improvements in service delivery.

A recent Times of India report underscores the scale of the challenge. Despite CSR spending crossing thousands of crores in a single year, a nationwide study found that most NGOs—especially smaller ones—still struggle to access those funds. The disconnect between intent and impact remains stark.

At Mon Ami Foundation, we try to bridge this gap. Rather than reducing an artisan’s progress to a single number, our impact stories highlight each woman’s tangible gains in skill, income, and confidence. A dashboard can show that a hundred artisans were trained. A story can show what that training actually meant for one of them. Real transparency probably needs both: the dashboard’s scale and the story’s honesty.

Works Cited

MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child. Beneficiary Feedback Mechanisms Case Study: India. World Vision UK, 2016, feedbackmechanisms.org/public/files/MAMTAIndia.pdf.
Clear White Space. CSR Washing. Clear White Space, www.clearwhitespace.com/post/csr-washing. Accessed 12 July 2026.
CallMyCA. CSR Section 135 Companies Act 2013 Explained. CallMyCA, callmyca.com/blog/csr-section-135-companies-act-2013-explained. Accessed 12 July 2026.
Rupera, Prashant. Corporate Intent vs Community Impact: Big CSR Spend, Small Impact. The Times of India, 25 Aug. 2025, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vadodara/corporate-intent-vs-community-impact-big-csr-spend-small-impact/articleshow/123488897.cms.

Contributed by Shreya Mangla, student St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-mangla-03486124a/

Virtual Volunteering: The Future of Employee Engagement

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:27:46 +0530

For years, employee engagement followed a familiar playbook: team lunches, birthday shoutouts, an annual off-site. That worked when everyone sat in the same office. It works far less now, with teams split between home offices, co-working hubs, and cities apart. Into that gap steps virtual volunteering—and it is quickly becoming the next major shift in how companies keep people invested.

What Virtual Volunteering Really Means

At its core, virtual volunteering is simple: giving your time and skills to a cause from wherever you are, using nothing but a laptop. As Katherine Gorman puts it, “Volunteering takes place on your couch, with your coworkers, during your workday.” That could mean mentoring a student over video call, writing website copy for an NGO, or teaching digital skills to someone who never had access before.
Unlike an office party, virtual volunteering scales across a whole company at once. That scalability is exactly why it is shaping the future of engagement.

Purpose Overtakes Perks

The real driver here isn’t perks—it’s purpose. As Joshua Harris notes, “Employee volunteering is no longer just about social good; it’s a strategic business advantage.”

That shift explains the rise of Volunteer Time Off (VTO), treating giving back as paid work, not a weekend Favor. It also feeds directly into CSR strategy, building trust with stakeholders and compounding results over time rather than creating one-off PR moments. Technology now matches employee skills to real needs, ensuring impact is both authentic and measurable.

Artisan Incubation Model: Mon Ami Foundation

Our unique AI model demonstrates how this works in practice. Backed by CSR partners like DCM Shriram Foundation, HCL Foundation, Dalmia Bharat Foundation, and Synergy Consulting Inc., it has:

Trained over 1,000 women artisans across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi NCR, and West Bengal in crafts like zardozi and crochet.
Paired IIT Roorkee research students with the camel-herding community in Rajasthan, exploring new uses for camel dung, wool, and milk by-products—skilled volunteering feeding directly into livelihood innovation.
Extended impact inward through initiatives like a Dental Health Camp for school staff in NCR, showing how volunteering can strengthen an organization’s own workforce.

This is not yet a finished success story. Mon Ami’s reach is still concentrated in a few regions, dependent on year-to-year CSR funding. Projects like Pastoral Livelihoods and Project Ektara need deeper market linkages to scale. But the proof is clear: expert time and CSR partnerships already work, even as honest ground remains to cover.

The Road Ahead

Virtual volunteering is more than a stopgap for remote teams—it is a blueprint for the future of employee engagement. It aligns purpose with productivity, scales across geographies, and embeds CSR into everyday work.
So, the next time your company mentions virtual volunteering, recognize it for what it is: not a trend, but the trajectory of engagement itself.

Contributed by Shreya Mangla, student St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-mangla-03486124a/

AI in Philanthropy: How Technology is Redefining Impact Measurement.

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:34:46 +0530

Artificial Intelligence is continuously redefining the virtual world, from grant writing to coding. This compelling change in technology has not left philanthropy behind. Almost 80% of foundations report some degree of AI usage, though only a small fraction (around 4%) has integrated AI systematically across their organizations.

For decades, the social sector has relied on activity reports, numbers of people trained, events held, products sold, and so on. But these numbers only tell us what was done, not what changed. Measuring real impact, the actual shift in someone’s quality of life, income or dignity, has always been the harder, more difficult question. It is also complex because how does one measure social change? Quality of life is subjective and differs from person to person. For one, QoL can be having three proper meals a day but for another, it can be the freedom to follow passion. Or how does one measure, did these women feel more confident? Or do they feel less alone?

“According to Impact management Project (IMP), it’s a 4-step procedure” (Bartalucci et al. 31),

1. Normative Basis: What do we believe is good? What are our goals?

2. Impact Chains: How does our work lead to those goals?

3. Indicators: How do we measure whether those changes happened?

4. Calculate Impact: What is our overall impact score? (SROI analysis or normalised impact score)

This is where Artificial intelligence redefines its value in philanthropy. It’s starting to help organisations figure out what to measure and how. There are thousands of social indicators like wellbeing, health, confidence, QoL, etc., and already built tools and surveys to measure them in abundance. No small team can read all of them and pick the right one. So, AI does it instead. It reads through everything, spots the patterns, and surfaces what matters most in a fraction of time.

Mon Ami Foundation keeps pace with the growing technology and benefitting from it. AI doesn’t just simplify the foundation’s empirical, evidence-based evaluation process but also helps the donors and CSR partners to make rational decisions as they can now access the impact their investment is creating. AI helps identify our contributions to global challenges (impact on SDGs). Our project aligns with UN SDG goals, Decent work and Economic Growth (#8), Responsible Consumption and Production (#12), Partnerships for the Goals (#17). Today, Mon Ami has successfully supported 1500+ artisans, 6000+ families and created an economic impact of Rs. 10 crores+. It engages in direct surveys with its beneficiaries to measure different indicators of impact and AI helps calculate the overall impact.

When impact measurement becomes this accessible, something important shifts. Smaller organisations can fully tell their story. Donors can invest with more confidence. And the women whose lives are changing get the recognition they deserve.

Because at the end of the day, the goal was never to count training sessions. It was always to change lives. Now we have better tools to prove that it’s working.

Works Cited

Bartalucci, Simone, et al. "Measuring Meaningful Change: AI-Enhanced Impact Measurement in Philanthropy." The Routledge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Philanthropy, 1st ed., Routledge, 2024, pp. 29–50. DOI: 10.4324/9781003468615-4.

Hosseini, Sam. “AI in Philanthropy: From Donations to Data Driven Impact.” Paralleliq, Paralleliq.ai, https://www.paralleliq.ai/blog/ai-in-philanthropy

Coffman, Julia. “Artificial Intelligence and Philanthropy.” Johnson Center for Philanthropy Blog, 10 Dec. 2025, https://johnsoncenter.org/blog/artificial-intelligence-and-philanthropy.

Contributed by Shreya Mangla, student St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-mangla-03486124a/

Last Mile Impact and Collaboration

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:40:12 +0530

When we talk about impact assessment, the conversation often stops at numbers—beneficiaries reached, income generated, or funds disbursed. These metrics, usually compiled by third-party agencies, satisfy regulatory requirements but rarely capture the deeper story. True last mile impact is not about ticking boxes; it is about long-term transformation in habits, aspirations, and community resilience.

Consider hygiene practices, food choices, education, or even gender sensitivity. These are not easily quantified, yet they define whether an intervention has genuinely shifted the trajectory of a community. Unfortunately, field staff conducting assessments often lack emotional investment. Their reports emphasize scale over depth: 1,000 people earning ₹1,000 each is rated higher than 50 individuals consistently earning ₹10,000. But which scenario truly breaks cycles of poverty?

Real change happens when projects create role models—individuals who embody possibility and inspire others. Numbers alone cannot measure hope, dignity, or the courage to challenge entrenched norms. Communities need aspirational frameworks, not handouts. They must see that escaping poverty is possible but also recognize that the responsibility lies with them to take charge of their own progress.

At Mon Ami Foundation, our Red Earth Model is built on this philosophy. We nurture community resource persons who act as catalysts, encouraging peers to adopt new practices and envision brighter futures. For us, impact is not an entry in an Excel sheet—it is the ripple effect of one person’s transformation inspiring many others.

Collaboration, therefore, must go beyond compliance-driven assessments. It requires empathy, storytelling, and a commitment to measuring what truly matters: sustained behavioural change, strengthened social fabric, and the emergence of local champions. That is the essence of last mile impact—where numbers fade but hope and agency endure.

Insights into Handmade Craft Buyers – Research by IIM Raipur MBA Students

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:38:13 +0530

Handmade crafts have always carried a sense of heritage, but recent research conducted by IIM Raipur MBA students in collaboration with Mon Ami Foundation reveals how modern buyers are redefining authenticity and connection.
1. The Story Matters Most
Across age groups, respondents consistently highlighted the story of the artisan and the cultural heritage behind a piece as the first thing they look for. Buyers don’t just want a product—they want to know who made it, where it comes from, and how it ties into tradition. This emotional connection is seen as adding “immense value.”
Read more about our artisan stories at www.monamifoundation.com

2. Preferred Crafts
Terracotta pottery, wooden carvings, and traditional paintings like Madhubani or Pattachitra emerged as the most loved categories. Interestingly, younger buyers leaned toward eco‑friendly materials and sustainability, while older respondents emphasized heritage and uniqueness.
3. Shopping Habits
Local melas and exhibitions remain the most trusted spaces for buying authentic crafts. Government emporiums also hold credibility, especially for those worried about fake or mass‑produced items. Social media platforms like Instagram are gaining traction among younger audiences who prefer direct access to artisans.
4. Budgets and Barriers
Most buyers spend between ₹1,000–₹3,000 on special pieces, though some are willing to go beyond ₹7,000 for truly unique items. The biggest turn‑off? Doubts about authenticity. High shipping costs and poor website design also discourage online purchases.
5. Building Connection
Respondents suggested handwritten notes, artisan videos, behind‑the‑scenes glimpses, and certifications as ways to strengthen trust. Many emphasized that showcasing the artisan’s livelihood and community impact makes the purchase feel more meaningful.
This research highlights that the future of handmade crafts lies in blending tradition with transparency. Buyers want authenticity validated, stories told, and artisans celebrated. For small brands, this means going beyond selling products—crafting experiences that connect heritage with modern expectations.
These insights are basis the research done by IIM Raipur MBA students in collaboration with our team. To support the Artisans and to buy authentic handmade products, do visit www.crafstaq.com

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The Shift to Sustainable Crafting

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 18:42:00 +0530

The Shift to Sustainable Crafting

Of late, terms such as renewable products, biodegradable material, sustainability, circular economy and decreased carbon footprint, are common-place. The whole cycle of production and consumption is moving from being linear(use and throw) to circular (resource regeneration).

In India, craft traditions have always been produced in a sustainable manner. Having evolved within local communities, traditional knowledge has been passed on for generations, making them resource-efficient and in-sync with local ecosystems. For example, the Ajrakh technique of hand block printing with natural dyes, the moonj baskets woven from moonj grass in the villages of Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand and kala cotton production in Kutch, Gujarat, where cotton is cultivated using minimum water and pesticides free.

Today, consumers are also making a conscious shift to sustainable living by opting for ecologically conscious products and aligning themselves with brands that reflect these values. How has the product been manufactured? Where was it manufactured? What materials were used? in addition to production cost, what is the social and environmental cost?

At Mon Ami Foundation, we are committed to setting up the largest Crochet movement in the country. Our vision is to help build a socially responsible ecosystem by creating sustainable opportunities that will improve the quality of life for women in marginalised communities. Two questions we ask ourselves:

Are we doing the right thing?
Are we doing the thing right?

Our products resonate with customers who want products produced sustainably. Our core drivers are:

Linking sustainability to craft design: Philosophies such as up-cycling, waste minimisation and material optimisation lie at the heart of traditional craft. These aspects, which define sustainability, are intrinsic to the continuity of womens craft.
Supporting vocal for local: The clarion call is for India to become atmanirbhar. Along with promoting traditional crochet craft, we are focussed on the well-being of the craftspeople.
Creating local ecosystems, reducing carbon footprint: We skill migrant women to earn a sustainable livelihood through online skill building sessions ensuring that our products have a negligible carbon footprint. We endeavour to link products to markets by encouraging self-sustaining mechanisms.
Creating customised products: As opposed to mass manufacturing, every single one of our products is handmade and hence, tells a unique story. With the purchase of every product, an inexplicable emotional connect is formed between the maker and the user

contact@monamifoundation.com