CSR & corporate partnerships
CSR partnership with Scapex Foundation
A registered Section 8 non-profit in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, designing and delivering CSR projects across every Schedule VII activity — education, healthcare, skill development, women's empowerment, environment, rural development and relief — with agreed unit costs, quarterly utilisation reporting and auditor-certified accounts.
Partnering with Scapex
One accountable partner for the whole of Schedule VII
Partnering with Scapex Foundation means working with a professionally governed non-profit that treats every corporate social responsibility project as a commitment to be measured, documented and reported rather than a story to be told. Incorporated under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 and registered under Sections 12A and 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961, the Foundation brings programme design, on-ground delivery and financial reporting together under a single accountable structure, so that a company's CSR committee deals with one counterpart from concept note to endline.
We work across the full range of activities permitted under Schedule VII rather than a single cause. Education and literacy, healthcare and nutrition, vocational skills and employment, women's self-help groups and enterprise, child welfare, elderly care, disability inclusion, environmental sustainability, water and sanitation, rural infrastructure, disaster preparedness and relief, animal welfare, and the promotion of arts, culture and sport are all within our operating scope. For a company this means that whatever its CSR policy prioritises — a school programme in its plant catchment, health camps for a workforce community, skilling for local youth, or restoration of a village water body — the project can be designed, staffed and reported by one organisation to one standard.
Our commitment to compliance, transparency and measurable outcomes runs through every engagement. Each project is mapped to its Schedule VII head before the first tranche, carries a defined cohort, a baseline and a cost per outcome, and is reported to the partner every quarter with a utilisation certificate and, at year end, a statement signed by our statutory auditor. Additionally, our partnerships team provides a named point of contact, site-visit access and timely documentation for the partner's board report and Form CSR-2, making Scapex a dependable implementation partner for companies that need their CSR expenditure in Gujarat to be both effective on the ground and defensible in the boardroom.
What a partnership includes
Built for a CSR committee's checklist
Everything below is standard on every Scapex CSR project, not an add-on. It is the documentation a company needs under Section 135 and the CSR Rules, produced as a matter of course.
Schedule VII mapping
Every activity is mapped to its Schedule VII head and to the company's own CSR policy before approval, so the project is eligible expenditure from day one.
Local-area delivery
Projects are designed around the company's plant, office or supply-chain catchment in Gujarat, honouring the local-area preference in Section 135(5).
Baseline and cost per outcome
A household listing or learning assessment sets the baseline; a unit cost is agreed per child, per trainee, per structure — before the first tranche is released.
Quarterly utilisation certificates
Fund utilisation is reported every quarter with supporting vouchers, giving the company's CFO what Rule 4(5) asks them to certify.
Employee engagement
Structured volunteering — mock interviews for skilling cohorts, reading sessions, health-camp days — with site visits open to the partner's team on request.
Annual impact statement
Endline results published whether they flatter us or not, with the year's accounts audited and an auditor-signed statement for the partner's annual CSR report.
Ways to partner
Six routes, from a single project to a multi-year programme
Project funding
Fund a defined project — a learning centre cluster, a skilling cohort, a school WASH programme — as a one-year or multi-year “ongoing project” under the CSR Rules, with milestones tied to each tranche.
Implementation partnership
Where a company undertakes CSR activities itself, Scapex serves as the on-ground execution and knowledge partner: field staff, community mobilisation, measurement and reporting, under the company's own CSR project.
Infrastructure and in-kind
School sanitation blocks, libraries, digital classrooms, assistive devices, water recharge structures and disaster-relief stock — built or supplied against a specification and handed over with a maintenance plan.
Employee volunteering programmes
Structured, repeatable engagement for a company's workforce, designed so that volunteers add capacity to a programme rather than a photograph to a newsletter.
Cause-linked and matching grants
Payroll-giving, employee-matching and cause-linked campaigns, with 80G receipts issued to each individual contributor and a consolidated statement to the company.
Philanthropic grants outside CSR
Foundations, family offices and companies below the Section 135 threshold can fund the same projects as charitable grants, eligible for 80G, with identical reporting.
Compliance position
Stated plainly, before your due-diligence team finds it
Scapex Foundation holds every registration a CSR implementing agency needs except one, and the missing one is a matter of time rather than eligibility. Rule 4(1)(d) of the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 requires a Section 8 company acting as an independent implementing agency to be registered under Sections 12A and 80G and to have an established track record of at least three years in undertaking similar activities. Scapex has not yet completed that three-year record. Our 12A and 80G registrations are in place; our Form CSR-1 registration as an independent implementing agency will therefore follow once the three-year record is complete, and the CSR Registration Number will be published on this page the day it is issued.
Until then, three fully compliant routes are open to a company that wishes to work with us, and we set them out here so that no partner discovers a constraint after a board resolution has been passed. First, a company may undertake its CSR activities itself, as Rule 4(1) expressly permits, engaging Scapex as its on-ground implementation and knowledge partner. Second, a CSR-1 registered agency may act as lead implementing agency with Scapex as its field partner in Gujarat. Third, a company or foundation may fund the same project as a philanthropic grant outside the CSR mandate, eligible for deduction under Section 80G. In every case the reporting Scapex provides is identical.
How a partnership runs
From first call to audited endline
Enquiry and fit
A call with the company's CSR lead to understand the policy, the preferred geography and the Schedule VII heads in scope. We say early if a request is outside what we can deliver well.
Concept note and budget
A short concept note: cohort, location, indicator, timeline and a line-item budget built from unit costs, with the Schedule VII mapping written in.
Agreement
A memorandum of understanding setting milestones, tranche schedule, reporting format and the monitoring rights the company's board needs under Rule 4(5).
Baseline, delivery, quarterly reporting
Baseline within the first month; delivery through locally recruited staff; a utilisation certificate and narrative report every quarter; site visits on request.
Endline, impact statement, audit
Endline measurement against the baseline, an impact statement for the company's annual report, and an auditor-signed utilisation statement. Projects of ₹1 crore or more are structured to support the independent impact assessment Rule 8(3) may require of the company.
The scale of CSR in India
Where the money goes — and why Gujarat
Figures are reported by India CSR from the Fulcrum CSR Performance Report 2026; company-level filings are on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' National CSR Portal. For the law itself — who must spend, how much, and on what — read our plain-English guide to the CSR fund and Section 135.
Questions CSR teams ask
Before the first meeting
All of the heads a Gujarat-based implementing organisation can reasonably deliver: (i) eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting health care and sanitation, and safe drinking water; (ii) promoting education, employment-enhancing vocational skills and livelihood enhancement; (iii) gender equality, women's empowerment, homes and hostels for women and orphans, old-age homes and facilities for senior citizens; (iv) environmental sustainability, ecological balance, animal welfare, agroforestry and conservation of natural resources; (v) protection of national heritage, art and culture; (vii) training to promote rural sports and nationally recognised sports; (x) rural development projects; and (xi) slum area development. The activity-by-activity mapping is here.
Not yet, and we say why rather than leave it to be discovered. Rule 4(1)(d) requires an independent implementing agency to have a three-year track record; Scapex has not yet completed that three-year record. Our 12A and 80G registrations are in place. Until CSR-1 is issued, a company can work with us by implementing its CSR project itself with Scapex as execution partner, through a CSR-1 registered lead agency, or through a philanthropic grant eligible under 80G. The CSR Registration Number will be published on this page on issue.
There is no fixed minimum, but a project has to be large enough to measure. In practice a learning-centre cluster, a skilling cohort or a school WASH programme starts at a few lakh rupees for a year, and the concept note will show the unit cost so a company can size the project to its budget rather than the other way round.
Yes. Section 135(5) asks companies to give preference to the local area of their operations; a company with a plant, warehouse, port operation or supplier base in Gujarat can direct that spend here. We deliver in Gujarat only, deliberately, so the work is close enough to be visited.
A signed MoU; the concept note with Schedule VII mapping and budget; quarterly utilisation certificates with vouchers; quarterly narrative reports; baseline and endline data; an annual impact statement; an auditor-signed utilisation statement; and our audited accounts, CIN, Darpan, 12A and 80G certificates for the company's due-diligence file.
Yes, and we prefer them: a three-year project is what most outcomes actually need. Ongoing projects are structured to the CSR Rules' definition so that unspent amounts can move to the company's Unspent CSR Account and be drawn against milestones over the following three financial years.
Start a conversation
Request the CSR partnership note
A four-page note covering our programme divisions, unit costs, reporting format and compliance position — everything a CSR committee needs for a first discussion. Your contact is Prem Panchal, Director & CEO: prem.panchal@scapexfoundation.com · +91 99255 22674. Due-diligence documents are listed on our reports and disclosures page.
Contact the partnerships team