December 8, 2025

Yoga asanas for managing funding conversations

Good energy will flow, even if the funds don’t.

2 min read

1

an illustration of the yoga pose halasan, with this text: "Me bending over backwards to align my organisation's mission with the donor's values"--nonprofit humour

2

an illustration of the yoga pose dhanurasan, with this text: "Me ready to launch into phase 3 of the project when the donor has not even released the money for phsae 1"--nonprofit humour

3

an illustration of the yoga pose mayurasan, with this text: "Me trying to put my foot down when the donor says we will have to spend all the money on programme costs and none of it on organisational costs"--nonprofit humour

4

an illustration of the yoga pose badhpadmasan, with this text: "How I imagine the donor responding when I ask for unrestricted funding"--nonprofit humour

5

an illustration of the yoga pose ardhimatsendrasan, with this text: "Me looking away when the donor asks how we plan to scale the programme sustainably"--nonprofit humour

6

a composite of two illustrations. at the top, an illustration of uttanpadasan, with this text: "Me when I finally get an update on the status of our funding proposal"at the bottom, an illustration of the yoga pose shavasan, with this text: "Me when I learn that our application has been denied"--nonprofit humour

Picture courtesy: Counterclockwise via Flickr / CC BY  

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cincy Jose-Image
Cincy Jose

Cincy Jose heads editorial operations at IDR. She is involved in people, partnerships, and process management, and the projects she has led include setting up IDR Hindi, the multilanguage feature on IDR English, and IDR Answers–the first AI-powered search and analysis engine built to answer questions about social impact in India.Prior to entering the development sector in 2021, Cincy spent seven years in the publishing industry holding key editorial positions at Juggernaut Books and DK Books India. She has a master’s and bachelor’s in English literature from Miranda House and Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University.

Tanupriya Singh-Image
Tanupriya Singh

Tanupriya Singh is an editorial associate at IDR, where she’s responsible for writing, editing, and publishing content. Prior to joining IDR, she worked as a journalist at NewsClick and Peoples Dispatch, covering people’s movements, politics, and issues of social and economic justice across the Global South. Tanupriya holds degrees in political science and global studies, and is interested in critical development perspectives.

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