Texas philanthropists Aradhana and Raj Asava had long focused their giving internationally — particularly in India, where they both were born. Aradhana, who goes by Anna, says they were “occasional donors and occasional volunteers” to the North Texas Food Bank, but that changed five years ago, when they began researching hunger in Plano, Tex., where they live.
After retiring from successful careers in information technology, the couple reflected on an Indian scholar’s teaching that life has three phases: “learning, earning, and returning.” Raj and Anna started thinking about how they could spend their retirement on that last phase by stepping up their philanthropy.
The Chronicle explores what it takes for nonprofits that have long relied on white supporters to connect with donors of color.
Not only have they done that through their own giving, but they pioneered an ambitious approach to get people of color to give that is now being copied in other cities. The Asavas decided to focus on hunger after Plano Mayor Harry LaRosiliere, whose election campaign Raj had supported, asked him for financial support for a local government program to provide schoolchildren in need with backpacks full of dry goods to feed them over the weekend, when they couldn’t count on school breakfasts and lunches.
Raj says he was floored to learn that children at the same schools his kids had attended would be among those receiving backpacks of food. After lunch, he told Anna what he’d learned. He says she responded: “It couldn’t be happening in our neighborhood,” noting the number of corporate headquarters in the area and the ubiquitous luxury cars in Plano parking lots.
“You’re looking at all this affluence, and we don’t at all see homelessness,” Anna remembers thinking. “And for some reason, we’ve always associated hunger with homelessness. This whole thing seems kind of surreal.”
The couple contacted the food bank to learn more, eventually hosting a dinner with the organization’s chief philanthropy officer, Mayor LaRosiliere, and some of Raj’s fellow board members at the Texas Indo-American Physicians Society. The couple hoped to call the doctors’ attention to childhood hunger. The physicians society and the Asavas donated to the food bank after the dinner, and Raj says the chief philanthropy officer’s presentation inspired him and Anna to ask the food bank how they could do more. The group invited Anna to serve on a committee that engaged community members to raise money from their peers.
In 2017, after Anna’s two years on the committee, the couple gave the food bank $100,000. But they wanted to do more. They approached the food bank with the idea of using their connections among Indian Americans in the region to spur more donations and recruit volunteers.
“Just like we were not aware of the hunger issue, there’s a very good likelihood that other friends of ours from the Indian community were not aware of the hunger issue,” Raj says.
The food bank encouraged Anna and Raj to be their ambassadors to Indian Americans. Food- bank leaders said that if the couple devised a plan to get more people involved, the food bank would carry out their ideas. That led to the creation of the Indian American Council, which encourages Indian Americans to give and volunteer at the food bank.
The Asavas were motivated to help the food bank, but they also had another goal in mind: They wanted to persuade Indian Americans to think differently about their giving. Too many, they felt, focused only on giving to religious institutions or to charities in their home country. “The Indian community was not visible and not engaged in local giving,” Raj says. The couple hoped raising awareness about local hunger could channel some of that generosity toward funding 1 million meals for the food bank.
He and Anna pledged to spend three years getting the council off the ground. They spoke about hunger in Plano at celebrations of the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, and other gatherings, helped organize food drives, and appealed for donations.
Seven months after starting the council, they met the million-meal goal. Raj says their appeals were successful because they could speak to people as peers rather than paid fundraisers or other outsiders.
He and Anna understood the mind-set that charity was something that went abroad; they encouraged people to “give where you live.” The couple says that appeal resonated with other Indian Americans.
“When they send money to India for a charity, all they can do is give money,” Anna says. “They can’t engage their other senses. And here, when they come and volunteer, they have the camaraderie. They are touching food that is going to go to somebody who is hungry.”
Donors to the council also encouraged their employers to give to the food bank or plan volunteer events there. In less than six months, the council exceeded its fiscal year 2019 goal to raise $150,000 in contributions from new donors.
Buoyed by its success in North Texas, the Indian American Council has expanded its model to food banks in Houston, New York City, and Seattle. The couple is also sharing their approach with Chinese American and Filipino American donors to help them recruit others like them to give. The Indian American Council worked with the Food Bank for New York City to identify ways the food bank could fine-tune its efforts to reach Indian American donors and volunteers. It also identified ways it could work with donors and volunteers the food bank wasn’t reaching.
“We didn’t want to reinvent something,” says Lamont Wray, individual giving manager at the New York food bank. The group doesn’t have deep pockets, so relying on the Indian American Council’s expertise saved a lot of time and money, he says.
A year in, the collaboration in New York is already making a difference. The council brought in pledges from 100 new donors and paid for 1.6 million meals. In 2020, the food bank hopes to pay for 3 million meals through the council.
The model inspired the food bank to double down on its efforts to attract donors of color. “It’s giving us lessons,” Wray says. “It’s letting us know that we need to make sure that we represent the people that we’re targeting in our communications better. We need to make sure that we’re using language that makes sense.”
The Asavas hope the council’s growing success opens charities’ eyes to the power of getting people of color involved in a cause. “Writing checks is OK,” Anna says, “but I think more than writing checks is the fact that we become visible in civic engagement.”
