Daybreak - IITs, IIMs tell alumni at reunions: donate first, reminisce later

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

What happens when India's top institutes start treating reunions as fundraisers? The Ken's Santhom and Mutasim, both from IITs themselves, write about how one batch of alumni pledged Rs. 100 crores for a single idea, and look at the system growing around this kind of philanthropy like x-bankers that run development foundations, non-profit partners set in California taking donations in dollars. The result is that some alumni feel that donation floors are taking the sentiment out of reunions, making them feel less about the connection between students and campuses and more like manicured events. Host Rachel Varghese sits down with both reporters to explore what has changed with universities doubling down on this model, whether it will last and what both reporters are likely to do once their own 25th reunion comes around. Tune in.This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

I don't think anyone ever forgets their college hostel or dorm room. Aces that dripped or fans with missing regulators, a door with a lock that never fully shut, the way you decorated your wall, the kind of posters you had up, or the designated messy corner that you refuse to look at. Now, imagine if you could have your name on that room. Turns out, at IIT or the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, you can. for a price.

8 lakhs at IAT Bombay gets you a hostel room that's named after you for as long as the building stands. You just heard my colleague Santom Joseph, a reporter at the Ken. He told me that the name of the person

who donated goes on a coloured marker outside the room door. In fact, there was even a room at IIT Bombay with a marker that said Room 701, Jaydev Kulkarney.

And if you can't pay the full amount up front, there are installment options as well. And at IIT Delhi, a similar named hostel room costs a little more, just 10 lakh rupees. But rooms aren't the only thing on the list. You can also get, you know, less glamorous parts of the campus named after you, like a cycle stand. So at IAT Delhi, this is around 1.5 crore.

So rooms and cycle stands are just a part of a much bigger shift at some of India's top public institutes. You see, the IITs and IIMs or the Indian Institutes of Management are being encouraged to depend less on funds from the central government. And so, they are turning to their alumni. But even though this shift has been going on for about a decade, the latest playbook for the institutes is the Silver Jubilee reunion, when a batch comes together 25 years after their graduation. Here, the university can go several steps beyond an individual

donation. They can now turn an entire graduating batch into a fundraising pool. Santham and our colleague Mutasim worked on this story together. Both are alumni of the institutes they covered. Santham went to IIT Madras and Mutasim went to IIT Kanpur. And they're joining us today on daybreak to get into how the reunion became a fundraising machine and how not everyone is on board with this new wave. Over the last five years or so, So, alumni funding has grown into a serious revenue stream for the top IITs. So, I asked Santhoram, why that was the case now. The fundamental thing that's happening here is that universities,

these universities are trying to diversify away from central funding. So central funding comes with a lot of strings attached and it's dwindling anyway. So what these universities are doing is that they're trying to sort of recreate the Western model of endowments. So if you look at MIT or Harvard, they have these huge endowments. like massive endowments and the interest that you get on these endowments is enough for you to like, you know, start new projects in the campus. So this is basically what our institutes are also trying to do.

And so they're creating sort of like the institutional infrastructure that's required to ask for money, like, you know, development foundations and stuff. And alumni are also sort of more willing to, you know, donate because the culture is sort of getting, you know, recreated in the country and institutes are asking and alumni are giving. Mudasim and Satham went through the accounts of the oldest IITs, Madras, Bombay and Kanpur. They picked these institutes because their recent fundraising data was publicly available.

Data for IIT Kharapur was stated and most of the newer IITs were not old enough to have reached the Silver Jubilee milestone yet. IIMs, on the other hand, do not publicly disclose the 25-year re-rehearts. union fundraising figures, so a like-for-like comparison would have been difficult. And they found that while government funding is still the institute's largest source, philanthropy makes up around a fourth of what they get from the government.

In fact, the ratio has actually doubled in four years, from 9 to 14% in FI21 to 27% to 31% just last year. IIT Kanpur, for example, brought in 250,000. 26 crore rupees in philanthropic funding last year. Here's Muthasem's explanation for what that number includes. Even though we are tracking the change from 2021 to 2425, it's a 2425 numbers that are big with all these IAT. So for example, with the IAT Kanpur,

when you see a 265-curo number, out of that 100 crores came from a single batch, which was batch of 2000, for example. So it is these single batches that are contributing to a large part of this philanthropic. Can you imagine? Just one batch brought in more than a third of that total. But why is alumni fundraising concentrated around the 25th reunion? Well, a former head of the alumni relations cell at IIT Madras told Satham that part of the reason is because by the 10th year reunion, people haven't quite advanced in their careers enough. They're probably just middle managers. So, you'd probably

think the later the better, right? Santham explained to me why that was in the case. The 50th or say the 40th reunion, the turnout is usually lower because, I mean, like, people just pass away, I guess. Life expectancy isn't that great in our country. So that reduces footfall. And more generally, people are for whatever reason, less willing to turn out as like, you know. So, LM9 need to be advanced enough.

in their careers and well off enough to give back to their alma mater. Plus, they also have to be attached enough to the campus and a round to return. That's what makes the 25th reunion a sweet spot. But how does a badge actually end up racing as much as 100 crore rupees? Turns out, it starts with someone who doesn't even have an official title. So badge coordinator is an informal role. So any alumni who's like really enthusiastic about donating can take this up. So what they do is they reach out to other alumni.

These alumni are like sort of spread across all parts of the world right. US, UK, Europe. And so they create WhatsApp groups, create Excel sheets. And they are also the point of contact for the institute. The batch can then decide what to race for with the batch coordinator becoming a point of negotiation between the institute and the alum. I mean, so the institute also has like, they want something to be done. I mean, they need money for something to be done.

So they have something in mind. So they sort of pitch this to the batch through the alumni coordinator. Sorry, the badge coordinator. So yeah, it's sort of like a negotiation between the alumni and the institute as well. Amit Ray was the batch coordinator for IAM Kerkata's class of 2000. He and a few others were in constant touch with the institute. Rajin Maki Jani, another alum from the batch, told the ken that his batch received a priced menu of sorts. It included options like a named chair, which is basically a faculty seat or funding for their research or scholarships,

each with a specific price point. Ray explained that an item from a menu could only be picked after knowing how much the badge could raise. So, he first had them commit some numbers on paper and then they eventually opted for a named chart. chair. IIT Kanpur's class of 2000, meanwhile, took a different approach. Tamil Das was the coordinator for this one, and his patch decided that they would rather chase an idea than a number down. After they worked through some possibilities with Das consulting IIT Kanpur's director, the batch voted between two proposals. The clear winner was a center of society and technology. The fundraising amount was then calculated

backwards from that vision. Das told us that for a centre, you need a minimum of a hundred true rupees. And that's how the batch raised that amount. Das said that the fact that the alumni drove the initiative themselves was also what made it good fundraising, because they were not being pushed by someone else. But for a public institute, why was alumni fundraising necessary for a centre like this? Central funding also has a lot of strings attached to it. Like, you're supposed to use it for certain projects or to meet certain milestones. You can't just use it to like say build a school of technology in society or society and technology. Because like it has a certain destination, the money.

But with alumni funding, you can even donate to what is called the unrestricted fund. So this is the thing at IATI Madras that an alumni and corporate cell employee was telling me about. There's an unrestricted fund which is basically, you know, the institutes coffer for like doing whatever they want like they can tap into it if there's some shortfall in some other project

so alumni funding is very versatile in that sense compared to central funding. Which means philanthropic funding like this does help institutes go beyond what they'd be able to offer their students from just government funding and I was curious

so I asked Sanchum if construction for the centre had begun yet. The money was pledged last year, 2025. So it'll be built over the next four to five years or like maybe more than that. But like it's happening for sure. Remember how Sanchthon mentioned that these Indian institutes are trying to recreate something that American universities have? Well, it turns out that Angle is working quite well. Out of the $356 crore rupees that was raised in philanthropic funds by IIT Bombay in 2024 to 2025,

half of it came from the US. In fact, IIT, Bombay, Can'tpur and Madras all have not-for-profit partner foundations in California. Their major role is to raise money in the US and remit it to India. Mutasim explained to me why that works. In the US, for example, giving back to your alma matter is a very common place.

It's like there's also a lot of competition between different Ivey League quality. for example, where every year, you know, you sort of compare who raised the largest funds, etc. But the idea is that alums from the early 2000s, there was a lot more migration from India to the US at the time. For example, the batch of 2000 in IAT Kanpur that raised 100 crores. We were speaking to one of the alums there.

And he was very candid in talking about how, you know, this is very common. It's part of like unstable conversations or whatever. And these IAT alumni feel strongly that they should all. also bring this back home. And that might be why the gap between a big American university and an Indian one is so huge. For example, Harvard has the largest academic endowment in the world, valued at nearly $57 billion as of June 2025.

On the other hand, the allocation of the union budget for India's Ministry of Education for the year 26 to 27 is just a little more than $14 billion. That's for an entire country, by the way. Howard's endowment is partly driven by the fact that many American companies also match their employees' donation in full. In India, companies above a certain size have to allocate 2% of their profits to social causes. Education, of course, counts. And that is working in the favor of some of these institutes.

So a lot of alumni who are founders of large companies in the US or in India, instead of pledging from their own pockets, they will, they will for instance say that, okay, I will sort of allocate a percentage of the CSR spending that my company already has to do in this year to IITC. Part of this whole professionalization tendency

of these fundraising bodies also entails raising funds from non-alemni donors. For example, high net worth individuals. Or just you generally go to a company and say, okay, we are running an endowment fund, would you allocate some amount of your CSR to us? While these efforts have clearly been successful, considering how much philanthropic funding has increased,

these institutes don't want to leave this kind of racing to just volunteers. And so, they have started hiring. IIT Canpur's Development Foundation has a team of 44. They even have corporate style hierarchies. Kapil Kahl, the CEO of IIT Kanpur's Foundation, also used to work at places like HDFC Bank, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Anurag Rastogi, the former chief executive of IIT Delhys Endowment Fund, also worked before at HSBC, EY, IBM and the Mahindra group. This kind of hiring culture is also making this space feel even more financialized,

as Sancholm told me. So it's getting very financialized and commercialized. You're hiring like seasoned professionals to manage your fundraising, right? And people look at this and they feel that is it even about the reunion anymore? Like, they just want to tap into like a pool of funds.

Because the reunion, again, people come together and as opposed to individual donations, you have like a captive audience, you know, sort of do raise money from. Of course, it's not like everyone minds. Santham and Mutasim got two kinds of reactions when they were speaking to alums. Some alums were very excited. I mean, they were talking about giving back to the institute

that they came from and, you know, they didn't, they were not, you know, having any concerns about like, you know, basically donating. I mean, they were quite excited to donate, in fact. But there was also another type of response we got, both me and Mutasim, actually.

One aspect of the fundraise that produced a lack of enthusiasm was the donation floors. I.T. Kanpur's tas told us that the batch decided on a minimum pledge. Though he said it was not a very high, high one. IIT Delhi also took the floor approach. The Ken spoke to Rahul Shukla and alum from the class of 2000 who shared an uncomfortable experience he had with the floor. It started with a

misunderstanding. Shukla wasn't sure if a pledge meant whether he would have to pay immediately or not. So he donated what he called a relatively small amount because that's what he could manage then. The UK-based alumina representative he was in touch with did not receive that amount kindly. The chapter head's response was sort of like, I mean, if you can't even donate this much, then like, why bother, you know, after 25 years? So, yeah, that's, that's quite mean, yes. Yeah, so that, that is one thing he was talking to me about. That really sawed the experience for him. He still has, you know, he still doesn't have anything against the institute per se, because this is like, you know, alumni thing. And IIT Bombay alum who attended their 25th

reunion in 2024 even call this kind of focus on fundraising crass. Shukla told again, and I'm quoting here, the fact that I can't donate a crore should not be held against me or used to make me feel smaller. Meanwhile, a few other alumni miss how reunions used to feel before this shift, especially the ones who aren't able to pledge as much as the institution or batch coordinators might like. You'll see that a lot of these alumni, let's say don't have.

one crore to pledge. For them, the experience of the reunion becomes kind of weird because you have 20% of the batch who is engaging in all this conversation about pledging hundreds of crores of money and then you're there. You just want to, you know, meet people, meet students who are on campus and you want to enjoy. But that gets hijacked by conversations around funding. In fact, this is exactly what one source told us. He was of the opinion that, and he's an old source, a 1980 alumnus. So he's been attending reunions for a long time. And one stark difference he sees between reunions now and then is

he tells me that reunions earlier were a lot more student-led, which meant that they could connect with students studying there and they would know what is going on. But now since it's become so professionalized, student involvement is very less. It's all very event management-ish vibe in these reunions. So since at least some alumnice, unhappy about these kind of efforts,

I asked Muthasim if he thinks that this model will last for long. I mean, this model definitely, I think, is going to stick around. All these alumni, for example, let's say, Alamaya who graduated in 2005 or 2006. It is right around now that they will have, whatever, made it in life, or they are, they have big start-ups that they're taking public, and they have a big corpus. And this is a chance for them to, you know, embed,

their name in their institution's history or whatever. So I don't see any structural reason for why this should stop. It should only grow from here. But while this model grows for the big institutes, like IIT Kanpur, Bombay, Delhi and more, Sampam explained to me that there are several that get left behind. The risk is that the smaller institutes again, as I was talking about, like this is not a scalable model, right? Not every institute has alumni working in Silicon Valley that can donate, you know.

So the center would definitely need to keep supporting. the sort of weaker institutes, the smaller institutes, because yeah, it's unfair to expect them to, like, raise money by themselves or be self-sustainable, at least at this point in time. And considering that both Satham and Muthasem are alums from two of the institutes we discussed, I was curious to know what they would be likely to do when their 25th year battery union rolls around. Both noted that these institutes are already well-funded. And while Satham's answer is practical, Muthasem's aligns.

with the beliefs of some alumni he spoke to, that there's other kinds of philanthropy his money could go to. What's clear from both their answers and what they heard from other alumni is that 25th year reunions at these institutes are never going to be the same again. Here's what they told me. If they have floors, then I'm definitely going to be below the floor.

I mean, I wouldn't mind. But again, I feel like these institutes are already some of the best funded in the country, right? They get large amounts of money from the centre in terms of grants. I mean, if there's a floor, I'm not going to donate. But I can deny some small amount, sure. I mean, God forbid, I've become a high net worth individual. I think there are much better avenues for me to donate rather than donate to already

very well funded, very well. Like, IITs are not resourced constrained relative to the rest of the country, right? If my donations come from a principle of actually wanted to support education and not from ideas of vanity or ideas of my identity being attached to this place, then I will not donate to an IAT. They're not getting one rupee out of my pocket. That's all I'll say. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken,

India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcasts. Head to the can.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by me, Rachel Wurkees and edited by Arna Prakash.