Musicians' Benevolent Fund
The IFCM was the first organisation in India to come up with a scheme like this as early as 1994. Founder Ravikiran's vision was to start giving substantial awards to artistes who had contributed at least a few decades as performers/gurus/composers to the field. Called the Musicians' Benevolent Fund (MBF) Scheme, the IFCM blazed a trail and set new standards in terms of cash awards given, in a period when typical prize monies, from most pre-eminent institutions ranged from Rs 3,000-10,000.

The IFCM revolutionised this trend with its frrst awardee, Shri Calcutta Krishnamoorthy receiving Rs 25,000 in 1994. Subsequent awardees such as Shri Tanjavur Shankara Iyer, Shri Kumaraswami Iyer (disciple of Shri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer) and Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan were honoured with Rs 100,000 while the Fund-raising efforts for Vidwan Shrirangam Krishnamurthy Rao netted Rs 300,000.

Even though the main aim of MBF is to present a one-time-award of reasonable magnitude, several other deserving artistes including Kumbhakonam Rajappa Iyer, Calcutta Anantarama Iyer and Jalatarangam Seetha Doraiswami have been felicitated with the IFCM Gold Medal for Excellence and IFCM Merit Certificates. A few students and survivors have been given monthly pensions and scholarships as appropriate and support has also been extended to select festival organisers over the years. The IFCM was the first organisation in India to come up with a scheme like this as early as 1994. Founder Ravikiran's vision was to start giving substantial awards to artistes who had contributed at least a few decades as performers/gurus/composers to the field. Called the Musicians' Benevolent Fund (MBF) Scheme, the IFCM blazed a trail and set new standards in terms of cash awards given, in a period when typical prize monies, even from pre-eminent institutions ranged from Rs 3,000-10,000.

The IFCM revolutionised this trend with its frrst awardee, Shri Calcutta Krishnamoorthy receiving Rs 25,000 in 1994. Subsequent awardees such as Shri Tanjavur Shankara Iyer, Shri Kumaraswami Iyer (disciple of Shri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer) and Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan were honoured with Rs 100,000 while the Fund-raising efforts for Vidwan Shrirangam Krishnamurthy Rao netted Rs 300,000. The happy outcome across the board was that almost every major sabha soon after increased the amounts of their own awards.

Even though the main aim of MBF is to present a one-time-award of reasonable magnitude, several other deserving artistes including Kumbhakonam Rajappa Iyer, Calcutta Anantarama Iyer and Jalatarangam Seetha Doraiswami have been felicitated with the IFCM Gold Medal for Excellence and IFCM Merit Certificates. A few students and survivors have been given monthly pensions and scholarships as appropriate and support has also been extended to select festival organisers over the years.

The IFCM has so far not gone into a formal fund-raising drive for this but relied on voluntary contributions of like-minded philanthropists interested in partnering with it in supporting or recognising specific artistes or the artistic community in general through donations to its Corpus Fund, which can eventually enable it to scale up such activities.

Music Camps
IFCM regularly conducts camps and courses on Carnatic music led by expert musicians and teachers as detailed in the Education and IFCM-USA pages.

Other Activities
Though the IFCM has consciously tried to steer clear of activities that are synonymous with music organisations, it has, at times, organised public events. A case in point is the 10-day Navaratri 92 Festival, arguably the first of its kind in Madras, in Sept-Oct 1992. In 1997, a unique Question-Answer session in collaboration with Hamsadhwani, received wide acclaim.