Back to resources

Learning the Art of Giving

Strategic Philanthropy | Sep 4, 2006

For Rohini Nilekani, making the money was the easy part. The Bangalore-based wife of Infosys CEO Nandan
Nilekani, Rohini owns 1.67% of the Indian outsourcing company, and her personal fortune soared to about $300 million along with the meteoric rise of its stock. She calls her windfall “a quite frightening amount of money.” And as soon as it started rolling in, the social activist and journalist began to look for ways to give enormous sums away.
That’s been the hard part. With little guidance available for the country’s would-be Rockefellers, Nilekani became a self-taught philanthropist, building two foundations from the ground up. So far, she has provided a total of $37 million to Akshara Foundation, which is dedicated to education, and the Arghyam trust, which tackles water
issues.

View PDF

More like this

Civil Society  |  Strategic Philanthropy

Rohini Nilekani on the Secret to Successful Governance | Grand Tamasha

Rohini Nilekani is an author and philanthropist who has worked for over three decades in India’s social sectors. She is the founder of Arghyam, a foundation for sustainable water and sanitation, and she also co-founded Pratham Books, a nonprofit which aims to enable access to reading for millions of children. With her husband Nandan, she […]
Oct 5, 2022 |

Strategic Philanthropy

Nandan Nilekani, wife Rohini to donate half of their wealth under Giving Pledge: Here's why they are doing it

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and wife Rohini will donate 50 percent of their wealth under Giving Pledge- a movement initiated by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Melinda Gates. With this, the Nilekanis have joined the list of other Indian billionaires like Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, Biocon Chairman Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, and Sobha Ltd Chairman PNC […]
Nov 20, 2017 | Personality

Strategic Philanthropy

Building the Indian philanthropic sector - what can we learn? | India Conference at Harvard 2021

This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s conversation with Mona Sinha, co-founder of Raising Change, at the Harvard India Conference 2021. In my work over the last three decades, I’ve tried to put together a theory of change and what I have realised and tried to communicate is that in the continuum of society, […]
Feb 21, 2021 |

Strategic Philanthropy

Karnas of Philanthrophy - Telugu - Eenadu

Nandan Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani have pledged half their wealth for Philanthrophy. View PDF
Jun 1, 2018 | Personality