Change Engine Report Finds 80% of Nonprofit Unicorns in India Scale Through Government Partnerships

Gurugram, July 2, 2025: Change Engine, a nonprofit accelerator, has released a new report titled The Playbook for Nonprofit Unicorns, revealing that 80% of India’s most impactful nonprofit organizations have scaled by collaborating with government entities. These nonprofit “unicorns” are defined as organizations that have achieved meaningful impact for over a million people or at least 5% of their target population.

The report challenges the perception that engaging with the government is a barrier to growth for nonprofits. Instead, it highlights the state's extensive reach and infrastructure as key enablers of large-scale impact. According to the study, 41% of the featured nonprofits secured their first government partnership within a year of outreach, while 42% achieved this through cold outreach—approaching officials directly with relevant proposals and materials.

“The government holds unparalleled power to scale interventions; a single policy reform, a new institution, or a significant budget allocation can move the needle non-incrementally on societal challenges. To become unicorns, nonprofits must proactively partner with the government to create population-level impact,” said Varun Aggarwal, Co-founder, Change Engine.

The report analyzes 33 nonprofit unicorns selected from a broader list of 100 based on their scale and depth of impact. It found that 55% of them operate across five or more states, either by strengthening government programs or leveraging public infrastructure for service delivery.

Examples highlighted in the report include:

• Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, which has supported the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in legal reform and implementation.
• SaveLife Foundation, which reduced road crash fatalities by 58% on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and is now scaling its “zero-fatality” model to 100 highways with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
• Rocket Learning, which provides digital early childhood education content to over 150,000 Anganwadi workers across 150 districts in 9 states.

“The message to nonprofit founders is clear. To build scale, they need to think EPIC: build on Evidence, create Public goods, and scale high impact Interventions for Change. And to scale direct intervention, nonprofits need to partner with the government, engage with communities, or unlock the power of markets,” added Shubham Bansal, Co-founder, Change Engine.

Change Engine supports nonprofit founders in achieving product-market fit and scaling impact. Since its inception, it has worked with seven organizations and helped them raise over $2 million in additional funding, beyond its own catalytic support.