Pinkishe Foundation’s SSE Journey
Introduction
As Pinkishe Foundation prepares for its upcoming Social Stock Exchange (SSE) issue, we spoke with Mr. Arun Gupta, Founder and President, about his experience with the platform, his expectations from the evolving ecosystem, and his message for NGOs, investors, regulators, and corporates.
Pinkishe Foundation has spent nine years working on menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls and women across India, reaching over 700,000 menstruators in 29 states through its flagship Shakti Shala programme. The Foundation is now pursuing a ₹2.2 crore ZCZP instrument listing on the NSE Social Stock Exchange to fund Shakti Shala in Sarangarh, Chhattisgarh — covering 100 government schools and reaching 20,000 girls and 5,000 community women. Mr. Gupta’s perspective reflects confidence in the long-term potential of the Social Stock Exchange while also highlighting the ecosystem-level efforts needed to make it a mainstream funding avenue.
- What is your overall view of the Social Stock Exchange?
The Social Stock Exchange is a welcome and much-needed step for India’s social sector. It introduces greater transparency, accountability and governance into the nonprofit ecosystem while creating a structured avenue for raising social capital.
A particularly significant development is the May 2026 amendment permitting companies to allocate up to 10% of their CSR expenditure through the Social Stock Exchange. This has the potential to become an important catalyst for the growth of the ecosystem, and organisations like ours — who work with 50-plus corporate partners — see this as a genuine opportunity to deepen those relationships in a more structured way.
However, as with any new framework, adoption will take time. Many CSR teams are currently taking a “wait and watch” approach. Several companies have already allocated their CSR budgets for the current financial year, and additional contributions through the SSE may only come towards the end of the financial year when unallocated funds become available.
This cautious response is natural during the early stages of any new initiative. Confidence will improve as more successful issuances demonstrate the platform’s effectiveness.
- Why did Pinkishe Foundation choose the Social Stock Exchange?
For us, the Social Stock Exchange represents much more than a fundraising platform. We believe an SSE listing enhances an organisation’s credibility, visibility and public trust in a way that few other mechanisms can.
Being registered and listed signals that an organisation has undergone rigorous scrutiny and follows strong compliance practices. For a Foundation that has invested nine years in building credibility infrastructure — from 12A and 80G to FCRA, CSR-1, CAF USA, and now NSE SSE — this listing is a natural next step in that journey.
The visibility associated with an SSE registration alone can open doors to international donors and FCRA-based funding, as global donors gain confidence that the organisation follows robust governance and reporting standards. That is a meaningful advantage for any NGO that is serious about long-term scale.
- How has the SSE listing process benefited the organisation?
Honestly, one of the most valuable things about this process has been what it has done to us internally — not just what it signals externally.
The NSE compliance review is meticulous. It pushed us to revisit and strengthen our documentation, our governance practices, and the design of our programme itself. For our Sarangarh issuance — which will fund Shakti Shala across 100 government schools in Chhattisgarh’s Sarangarh-Bilaigarh district — we had to clearly articulate how we would reach 20,000 girls and 5,000 community women, what our monitoring and evaluation framework looks like, and how we would report measurable outcomes to investors. That discipline has made our programme stronger.
We also noticed that compared to the initial SSE issuances, compliance teams are now placing even greater emphasis on the quality and robustness of proposed projects rather than merely checking documentation. That evolution is healthy — it means the SSE is maturing as a platform and will only attract more credible organisations over time.
For Pinkishe Foundation, the process itself has become an exercise in organisational improvement. We came out of it sharper.
- What more needs to be done to increase participation on the Social Stock Exchange?
Creating supply alone is not enough. Building investor awareness is equally important. NSE and BSE have done well to encourage NGO registrations, but I feel equal effort must now be directed towards educating potential investors about what the SSE is and what it can do for them.
Awareness campaigns need to happen at a scale similar to the Mutual Fund Sahi Hai initiative. Retail individuals, family offices, charitable trusts and family foundations all need to understand how the Social Stock Exchange works and the kind of measurable impact they can create by participating in it.
The true potential of the SSE lies in unlocking a much larger pool of philanthropic capital from the broader investing community. We have barely scratched the surface of that.
- Why is investor awareness critical for the success of the Social Stock Exchange?
The Social Stock Exchange has the potential to unlock larger pools of capital for the social sector and support organisations that genuinely aspire to scale their impact. Greater investor participation would enable NGOs to undertake larger, deeper projects — the kind that create systemic change rather than just incremental progress.
Take our own example. Menstrual health has historically been underfunded relative to its impact on girls’ education, health, and dignity. The SSE gives us a platform to make this case to a wider audience of investors, not just CSR teams. A well-informed investor ecosystem will help the Social Stock Exchange realise its objective of becoming a sustainable source of social capital. As awareness increases and the ecosystem matures, the value proposition of the SSE will only grow stronger.
- What is your long-term outlook for the Social Stock Exchange?
I am a firm believer that the Social Stock Exchange is the future of social finance in India. It will take time to mature — every new market mechanism does — but the direction is right and I have no doubt about where this is headed.
Early adoption may be gradual, but sustained efforts from regulators, exchanges, NGOs and investors will build confidence over time. What gives me hope is that the rigour of the SSE process itself is attracting the right kind of organisations — ones that are serious about governance, measurability, and long-term accountability.
As more organisations join the platform, I also believe the sector will become more collaborative. Increased transparency will help reduce duplication of projects in the same geographies and encourage organisations to work together where it makes sense — which ultimately means better utilisation of resources and greater social impact for the people we all serve.
Conclusion
Pinkishe Foundation’s SSE journey is, at its core, the story of a nine-year-old organisation deciding to hold itself to the highest possible standard of public accountability. The ₹2.2 crore issuance for Sarangarh is not just a fundraising exercise — it is Pinkishe’s statement to the social sector that menstrual health deserves the same scrutiny, rigour, and investor confidence as any other development cause.
With continued investor awareness, regulatory support and growing participation from NGOs and philanthropists, the Social Stock Exchange has the potential to become a significant channel for mobilising capital towards large-scale, high-impact social development across the country. For organisations willing to do the hard work of transparency and governance, the SSE is a platform worth believing in.
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