Impact Guru

Impact Guru is a crowdfunding platform that empowers anyone to give to nonprofits and social causes in India. It was incubated at the Venture Initiation Program at Harvard Innovation Lab, a leading startup incubator in the United States and now is also a part of PACT Incubator Singapore, a leading social enterprise incubator in South East Asia.

Impact Guru was founded in 2014, with the vision to empower individuals and companies to give to nonprofit organizations and social causes in India, NRI couple Piyush Jain and Khushboo Jain wanted to create a socially conscious technology start-up.

It is a daily struggle for the 3.3 million nonprofit organizations across the country to find alternatives to traditional forms of fundraising, which are often inadequate and quite expensive. Impact Guru's platform decreases the fundraising cost to less than 10%, helping nonprofits scale faster and increase their impact. Impact Guru's innovation, coined SMILE (Social Media Impact Linked Engagement), makes each Facebook sharing action worth up to Rs 1,000 (~$15) in donations to a nonprofit.

The platform launched in August, 2015.

Achievements

Impact Guru was incubated at the Venture Initiation Program at Harvard Innovation Lab in September 2014 and is now a part of PACT Incubator Singapore as of June 2015. In 2014, Impact Guru was the Social Impact Partner for Giving Back – NGO India 2014, an annual CSR conference organized by UBM India. Impact Guru also participated on a panel – “Role of Corporate in Inclusive Development” along with speakers from Guidestar India, Give India, Sahara India Pariwar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Delivering Change Foundation.

The Impact Guru’s team is mentored on various topics by global experts, including President of a Sequoia funded startup, David Back, and Managing Director of J.P.Morgan Hong Kong Investment Banking division, Calvin Zhang and the Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group, Anthony Oundjian.

References

• “Get the crowd, and its money, behind you" 1

• "Impact Guru accepted into Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Initiation Program" 2

• Impact Guru website 3