The development sector is undergoing a paradigm shift due to the increasing influence of technology. Non-profits and CSR programs encounter complex social challenges—ranging from education and healthcare to environmental sustainability—that require tailored technological solutions. At the forefront of this technological revolution is Dhwani RIS, a pioneering social enterprise that empowers organizations with innovative ICT solutions designed to enhance efficiency, accountability, and scalability.
With nearly a decade of experience and over 400 social impact projects, Dhwani RIS has collaborated with major clients like HDFC Bank, Reliance Foundation, and the Mahindra Group, impacting over 10 million lives across six countries. Their work addresses various challenges in education, health, agriculture, and more.
In this interview, TheCSRUniverse speaks with Mr. Swapnil Aggarwal, Co-Founder of Dhwani, to explore how these tailored tech solutions are meeting the evolving demands of the development sector and enabling nonprofits and CSR programs to create sustainable, measurable impacts.
Scroll down to read the full interview.
Q&A
Q. Can you provide an overview of Dhwani RIS, including its mission, core values, and the specific challenges it aims to address in the development sector through technology?
A. Dhwani RIS is a tech-driven social enterprise with a mission to empower social-purpose organizations by leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The core values revolve around creating sustainable social impact through customized, scalable technology solutions. Dhwani addresses challenges in data management, program monitoring, and social sector transparency by offering tailored solutions that enhance efficiency, accountability, and decision-making for NGOs, CSR foundations, and government program.
Q. Given the increasing complexity of social challenges, how does Dhwani RIS identify technological gaps in the development sector, and ensure that its custom tech solutions are effective and adaptable to evolving needs?
A. Dhwani RIS collaborates closely with social-purpose organizations to understand their operational needs and inefficiencies. Through field support, training, and system integration, Dhwani identifies gaps such as data handling, workflow management, and real-time reporting. Their solutions are designed to adapt to evolving social challenges by incorporating low-code/no-code software, which allows for quick modifications, enabling organizations to respond dynamically to changing needs.
Q. How does Dhwani RIS tailor its technological solutions across different sectors like education, health, and livelihoods, and could you share specific examples of how your approach differs for each?
A. Dhwani customizes its approach for different sectors by focusing on sector-specific needs:
- Education: Solutions like the Learning Management System (LMS) track teacher performance and student enrollment.
- Health: For health projects like HIV patient management, we create personalized counseling apps.
- Livelihoods: In agriculture, Dhwani's Paydash system expedites payment processes for MGNREGA workers.
Each solution is designed based on the sector's challenges and requires a combination of MIS, mobile apps, and custom dashboards to manage large datasets.
Q. Can you share a success story where your custom tech solution has significantly impacted a social development project, and what metrics do you use to measure the impact of these solutions?
A. A notable success story is Dhwani's Bihar Agriculture Growth & Reform Initiative (BAGRI), where they developed a dashboard to track training, enrollment, and financial performance for 67,000+ farmers and 3,000+ producer groups. Key metrics included farmer enrollments, market linkages, and financial outcomes tracked in real time.
Q. How do you balance the need for custom solutions with scalability and replicability, and how do you integrate these solutions with existing government or organizational systems?
A. Dhwani ensures scalability by using open-source tools and modular platforms that can be replicated across multiple regions while still customizing solutions to the specific needs of each project. For example, our mGrant platform is used by 300+ NGO partners for grant management, providing a scalable yet tailored solution for each organization.
Q. In what ways does Dhwani RIS engage with local communities to ensure that the technological solutions provided are relevant and effective in addressing their unique challenges?
A. Today, people working in the field are overwhelmed by a flood of apps, each asking them to collect data or perform various tasks. At Dhwani, we believe that the voice of these field workers is crucial. That’s why we prioritize creating user-friendly, women-centred designs and customized applications, ensuring that the field workers—our true heroes—are at the heart of everything we develop. Their input is essential because, ultimately, they are the ones who will use these tools.
One of the major challenges in this sector is getting people in the field to adopt new technology. In an office setting, employees can be easily incentivized or motivated by HR, but for field workers, it's different. If they don't see value in the app, there’s no incentive to use it. We aim to bridge this gap by ensuring that the technology we create aligns with their needs, making adoption easier and more meaningful for them. Dhwani RIS ensures that its solutions are relevant by directly involving local stakeholders in the design process, offering training, and providing field support to ensure the technology is effectively adopted.
Q. How does Dhwani RIS support capacity building within social purpose organizations to ensure they can effectively utilize the technological solutions you provide?
A. We believe that just as organizations progress through various stages of organizational maturity, they also go through phases of technical maturity. This journey is part of the organizational lifecycle, particularly for small and mid-sized nonprofits. To support them, we begin with a discovery study or an initial needs assessment from a technology perspective. This assessment helps us understand where the organization currently stands in terms of technology, what their expectations are, and how we can help them navigate their digital transformation journey.
Based on this, we create a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap that addresses the organization's immediate and long-term technological needs. One of the most common challenges we observe is that many organizations struggle with program MIS (Management Information Systems), meaning they lack clarity on the ins and outs of their program operations.
Additionally, many nonprofits face difficulties with donor reporting, where they cannot efficiently track and report outcomes to donors. Beyond that, even basic systems like HRMS (Human Resource Management Systems), accounting tools, and website management can pose challenges for smaller nonprofits.
By conducting a thorough needs assessment, we can pinpoint where these gaps are and craft a tailored plan that addresses their specific requirements.
This roadmap outlines the next steps for digital adoption, helping nonprofits build the technical infrastructure needed to scale their operations and improve program management, donor relations, and internal processes. Our goal is to ensure these organizations can operate efficiently and grow sustainably using technology.
Q. What key challenges and opportunities do you face in collaborating with CSR foundations and government bodies, and how do you address these?
A. Working with large entities like CSR foundations and government bodies often involves navigating complex bureaucracies and ensuring strict compliance. Dhwani addresses these challenges by offering streamlined grant management systems and reporting tools that help organizations stay compliant while scaling their impact.
One of the major challenges we face, however, is the turnover of key leadership. Often, a project is driven by a particular leader who has a deep understanding of the initiative. When this person is transferred or replaced, we encounter difficulties onboarding the new leadership, as they may not have the same historical knowledge or context about the project.
This transition phase can delay progress as the new leader takes time to understand the initiative, which affects the momentum of the project. Ensuring continuity in such cases is a persistent challenge.
Q. Can you discuss any feedback or lessons learned from the implementation of your solutions that have led to improvements in your approach or offerings?
A. When developing any system in this context, it's essential to ensure that the main driver of the system is the field person on the ground. Too often, system designs don’t take into account the needs of these users, and instead, solutions are imposed on them. As a result, when field workers are expected to enter data or use the system, they find it difficult and frustrating. This leads to inefficiencies, where organizations end up constantly chasing field teams to input data, which wastes time and resources for everyone involved.
However, in cases where the field workers, as the primary users, are involved in the system design from the beginning, they feel more empowered and confident. When they have a say in the process, adoption becomes more natural, and there’s no need to push them for data entry or system usage.
Another critical issue in the social sector is the obsession with data collection. Often, organizations collect vast amounts of data without clarity on what they truly need to analyze. Instead of starting with data collection, the focus should be on determining the key metrics required for evaluation, monitoring, and analysis, and then collecting only the necessary data. In this way, data becomes a by-product of meaningful activities rather than the main focus.
Finally, when it comes to digital transformation, there are three key stages: requirement gathering, building the technology, and adoption. Unfortunately, most of the effort tends to go into building the tech, while not enough attention is paid to the first and third stages, which are arguably more important. Proper requirement gathering ensures that the system is built to meet real needs, and focusing on adoption ensures that the technology is effectively utilized.
Q. What role do emerging technologies like AI, data analytics, or blockchain play in your offerings, and how do you plan to integrate them further into your solutions for social impact?
A. Dhwani integrates AI and machine learning in our platforms, such as predictive analytics for fundraising and chatbots for awareness and support. These technologies help automate repetitive tasks and provide insights for optimizing resource allocation. Their roadmap includes further expanding AI-driven tools for impact analysis
Q. Given the often limited resources of social purpose organizations, how does your organisation ensure the long-term sustainability of its tech solutions?
A. We don’t fully agree with the idea that the resources available in this sector are always limited. While it's true that, compared to the corporate world, many don’t want to spend as much on social impact projects, the cost to provide quality service remains the same.
Whether we’re developing technology for a commercial enterprise or for a nonprofit, the effort, resources, and commitment required are no different. Scalability, quality, and long-term impact demand the same kind of investment, regardless of the sector. We’re fortunate that many donors, CSR initiatives, philanthropic funds, and high-net-worth individuals recognize this. They understand that if an FMCG company needs a robust technology application to manage their sales teams, an organization working in menstrual hygiene or any other social cause needs the same level of commitment and quality for their field operations. Building effective, scalable solutions for the social sector requires the same dedication to time, effort, and cost as it does for any commercial project.
Q. What are your future expansion plans regarding geographic reach and service offerings, and what opportunities do you see for further collaboration between Dhwani RIS, social purpose organizations, and other stakeholders in the tech ecosystem to drive innovation and impact in the development sector?
A. When discussing nonprofit work in regions like Southeast Asia and Africa, it's clear these areas face similar challenges to those within India. However, one of the major issues is the tendency of organizations to reinvent the wheel rather than consolidate what already exists. We need more nonprofits that focus on adopting and refining existing solutions instead of constantly building new systems.
This is where forums like ‘CTO for Nonprofits’ come into play. It’s a space where organizations are educated about available tools and systems. Nonprofits don’t always need to hire someone to build a system from scratch—there are countless solutions already developed and tested. The community encourages organizations to reach out to others who have been there before and learned from experience, whether it's choosing between different platforms or apps for managing their programs.
Dhwani plays the role of a moderator in this forum, where funders, nonprofits of all sizes, and tech experts come together to collaborate. Participants ask questions ranging from which platform to use for building websites to what apps might work best for agricultural projects. This collective knowledge-sharing approach helps nonprofits streamline their operations and leverage existing technologies effectively.
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