Obviously this number changes dramatically depending on what you want to do, starting cash for an orphanage of around 10-30 kids (assuming you had the building already) shouldn’t be more than around US$10-30,000 to get completely registered and equipped. The hardest thing by far is getting the initial start-up money into India legally and the FCRA registration;  It can take anywhere from 6 months to 3 years to get permission to receive funds from outside India.