"To share or give your knowledge is one of the best gifts and perhaps the highest form of daana or giving,” says Noshir Dadrawala about the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy’s (CAP’s) new offering, danaVidya, a free, vetted resource to answer compliance and legal questions from nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) teams. "danaVidya aims to assist them in deepening their impact and reaching even more beneficiaries,” says the CAP program director, legal and CSR.
The app can provide answers to questions in the area of income tax, CSR, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and the newly set up Social Stock Exchange. Dadrawala, an erstwhile Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustee, told Parsiana that there are "a couple of hundred” questions for which answers are available already. "Every automated response has been vetted by Dadrawala,” states their press note dated August 16, 2022. "For any other questions not already in its vast question bank, the application prompts a human volunteer to respond to the unique query within 24 hours of the user’s question.”
The application, which uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to answer user questions, has been created by CAP jointly with Aria CFO Services, an organization offering financial services to the social sector, Glific, a WhatsApp based open source communication platform and danamojo, a payment solutions platform.
Noting that it is far more complex and complicated running a non-profit organization in India than a for-profit, Dadrawala reiterated that NGOs are regulated at multiple levels by different regulators and many of the laws and amendments made to them are frequent and often confusing… danaVidya hopes to help NGO leaders navigate through this maze of complex legislations and ensure compliance.”
To initiate the service danaVidya users must send a Hi to +91 7777035895 on WhatsApp.