Hurun Philanthropy List: HCLTech's Shiv Nadar is India's most generous, four Infosys co-founders emerge as biggest philanthropists

HCLTech founder Shiv Nadar retained the country’s most generous title for the third time in five years

Founders and family offices of major IT services companies including HCLTech, Wipro and Infosys found prominent mentions in EdelGive Hurun India’s Philanthropy List for 2023. HCLTech founder Shiv Nadar retained the country’s most generous title for the third time in five years, having donated Rs 2,042 crore.

This would be a whopping Rs 5.6 crore donated per day in the financial year 2023. Nadar was followed by Wipro’s Azim Premji and family who donated Rs 1,774 crore and Mukesh Ambani and family of Reliance Industries who donated Rs 376 crore.

According to the report, Hurun India found 119 philanthropists who donated more than Rs 5 crores in the financial year 2023, up by 11 from last year. There were 25 new entrants who debuted on the list, the ‘most generous’ among them were Infosys co-founder K Dinesh who donated Rs 47 crore.

In fact, four of Infosys’ co-founders featured in various categories including Nandan Nilekani who made it to the main top 10 list, ranking 8th with a donation of Rs 189 crore. Nilekani’s wife and philanthropist Rohini Nilekani was the only woman ranking 10th in the top 10 list who made a donation of Rs 170 crore.

The other two Infosys co-founders who got featured were Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal who donated Rs 93 crore and Rs 35 crore respectively, ranking 15 and 29.

Cumulatively, the top 10 philanthropists donated Rs 5,806 crore in FY23, as compared to a combined donation of Rs 3,034 crore in FY22.

Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun India, said, “This year is a record year for big philanthropy. In the past 5 years, the number of donors contributing over INR 100 crore has surged from 2 to 14, and those donating over INR 50 crore has risen from 5 to 24. Given India's potential for wealth creation and assuming a continued commitment to philanthropy by billionaires, I anticipate these figures to potentially double over the next 5 years.”

“Wealth creation is important for economic development, while philanthropy is equally important for economic prosperity. I am incredibly enthusiastic about the surge in personal philanthropy in India. Cumulative personal donations have increased by 60% to reach Rs 4,958 crore, constituting 70 percent of the total donations in the list,” he added.

Speaking to the media, Rahman also highlighted that if this list was to come out 20 years back, Rohini Nilekani and L&T Group’s AM Naik would have still gotten featured for their remarkable contributions and donations to the society back then. Naik has been a philanthropist since his teenage years.

Startup and VC ecosystem making a mark

The youngest philanthropist across lists was Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath at the age of 37. Along with his brother Nithin Kamath, 44, they donated Rs 110 crore in FY23 for climate and sustainability-related causes.

Accel Partners India’s Prashanth Prakash and wife Amitha Prashanth debuted on the list with a donation of Rs 9 crores, also marking the entry of venture capitalists into the top philanthropists list.

Other prominent entrepreneurs to find a mention include Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, who invested Rs 20 crore into education related causes through 3 State Ventures, Radha Vembu of Zoho Corporation who donated Rs 13 crore for rural development and serial entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala and wife Zarina who invested Rs 22 crore through Unilazer Ventures into education.