We began our journey with a simple yet powerful idea—creating a space for critical reflection on collectivisation. Sindhanai (சிந்தனை)—a Tamil word meaning "thinking" or "reflection"— emerged as both our guiding philosophy and our name. It stands for our commitment to shifting how we think about, talk about, and evaluate collective action.
 

Sindhanai is a knowledge-building platform that brings together grassroots collectives, grantmakers, practitioners, and evaluators to rethink traditional approaches to measurement. At its core, Sindhanai aims to co-create new systems of understanding that are grounded in the lived experiences, realities, and thought journeys of collectives and communities.
 

Rather than imposing rigid frameworks, Sindhanai encourages a dialogic process—one that listens deeply, questions openly, and learns collectively. Through publications, tools, community engagement, and peer-learning, this platform hopes to become a meeting point for those who seek to embed evaluation within the ongoing journey of collectivisation—not as a checklist, but as a reflective practice.

Our goal is to make this evolving body of knowledge accessible, relevant, and actionable for anyone working with or within collectives. We believe that evaluation can be a transformative tool, one that strengthens collectives and social action rather than simply assessing them.

We invite you to explore Sindhanai—its ideas, people and tools—and join us in reimagining what it means to measure change.