Serving nonprofit satire
since 2025.
An independent satire collective of development practitioners, nudging the social sector to laugh at itself, listen better, and do better.
We talk about
- Work Culture
- Pay & Parity
- Power & Governance
- Impact & Funding
- Values & Contradictions
The social sector is talking. We're listening.
What Woke On Paper does
We love the sector. That's why we keep poking it.
Woke on Paper uses satire, stories, questions and conversations to hold up a mirror to India's social sector and ask whether we are practising the values we preach.
Read our story →Pinch the sector
Using satire, humour and uncomfortable questions to poke at the contradictions of a sector that promises so much, while occasionally forgetting to look in the mirror.
Change how we work
Pushing the sector to take work culture, equity, pay, power and wellbeing as seriously as the change it wants to create outside its walls.
Change the way change happens
Making the case for organisations that listen to their own people, advocate for systemic change and stop treating communities as delivery targets.
83% of nonprofits struggle to get their real costs funded
83% of NGOs surveyed said they struggle to secure funding for indirect costs such as HR, finance, technology, communications and other essential organisational functions.
Source: The Bridgespan Group, Building Strong, Resilient NGOs in India, 2021.
COMMUNITY
What the community is talking about.
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FROM THE ARCHIVE
Things we can't stop thinking about.
The Theory of Change vs The Change
What happens when the beautiful diagram meets actual life?
The NGO Hospital
When the nonprofit sector becomes the answer to every public problem.
Let's Discuss the Partnership First
Sometimes we spend more time designing the collaboration than doing the work.
Impact vs Instagram
What happened on the ground and what happened on social media are often two different stories.
Authentic Stories, Carefully Edited
We want the complexity of the ground, but please remove anything complicated.
LONG-FORM
Hot takes on power, politics, and work culture of nonprofits.
Almost 80,000 People Flew to New York to Talk About Climate Change
Their flights to Climate Week NYC could emit 220,000 tonnes of CO₂e. Would cancelling the event itself be a climate action?
Before Childhood Became a Marketplace
The internet is nostalgic for an AI-free, less commercialised '90s childhood. What exactly are we missing?
Who Is a 100-Page Annual Report Really Accountable To?
Why most NGO annual reports read less like public accountability and more like donor-facing institutional storytelling.
How Government and Public Narratives Shape Which NGOs Are Allowed to Exist
An excerpt from the EU System for an Enabling Environment for Civil Society (EU SEE) report on India, 2025.
Is the Oxfam GB Turmoil Really About Dr Halima Begum?
Or is it exposing a deeper crisis in nonprofit work culture?
Congratulations.
You might be a bad NGO worker.
- You ask questions.
- Want fair pay.
- Have a life outside work.
- Refuse unpaid overtime.
Honestly, what is wrong with you?
HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY?
Got a story the sector would rather not hear?
We probably want to hear it.
Work culture horror story? A pay gap that makes no sense? A brilliant idea that deserves more attention? Send it our way. We're always looking for stories, experiences and questions that make the social sector look in the mirror.
Work Culture
The things we call “part of the job” that probably shouldn't be.
Pay & Parity
Who gets paid what, who decides and why is everyone so secretive about it?
Power & Governance
Who really gets to make the decisions?
Impact & Funding
When the money shapes the work, who gets to define impact?
Values & Contradictions
Tell us about the gap between what the sector says and what it does.