FUNDANEED FOUNDATION

The FundANeed Foundation will utilize the funding to implement sustainable change in helping poor children afford quality education. In addition to helping us expand our efforts into other parts of India and different countries, this funding and support will financially benefit children from underserved communities, help us conduct policy advocacy and bring awareness to the challenges children in underserved communities face in order to obtain quality education. 

Children of financially strained families under the Right to Education Act in India are under high cost and pressure environment. They receive minimal funding support in form of tuition only until the 8th grade. They receive no support for books, uniform and after school enrichment in terms of tutors or from educational resources when compared to their peers. Besides providing for books  through the existing initiative, this funding would also help us provide these children with Tablets  and will be especially useful for children who are at home in times of Covid and unable to take online classes. The funding will eventually help improve educational outcomes and prevent drop out of poor children from the school system.

Education is a fundamental right of every child. Lack of education leads to a society beset with problems of poverty, global warming, and gender inequality. Yet hundreds of thousands of children lack access to a quality education around the world. Only a baffling 50% of students in the fifth grade can read at the grade two level proficiency in India. Poor children are left behind because of lack of access to educational resources such as text books despite an enabling act called the Right to Education or RTE Act passed by the government which covers tuition. This is why we have started the FundANeed Foundation.

The FundANeed Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable trust that has launched the FundEd project, a crowdfunding initiative which transfers cash into the bank accounts of the parents through direct benefit transfer. Through FundEd, we provide donors with a trusted, accountable, and transparent platform to fund the educational needs of children. In the future, this platform will be expanded to meet other needs of these children including vaccinations, health check ups, and scholarships for higher education.

There are 4.5 million children in families with an income of upto Rs. 2 lakhs per annnum ($1.5 per day per person assuming an average family size of 5), who benefit quality education in private schools, under the Right to Education Act (RTE). While the Act provides  for tuition support, it  puts tremendous pressure on  parents, wanting to provide quality education, to provide for  stationary, uniforms, and books. Over 80% of these children have parents who are daily wagers, meaning COVID has disrupted their livelihoods. Our mission is to empower these children from underserved communities by bridging gaps in their educational needs to increase literacy, decrease dropout rates, and ensure a future where no child is denied access to quality education due to their financial situation.  

Through the FundEd Project by the FundANeed Foundation, we provide a crowdfunding platform that allows donors to fund the educational needs of individual students. We are also partnering with other NGOs and lobbyists to bring about long-term sustainable change at the policy level. Additionally, through partnerships with other NGO's, we aim to distribute tablets loaded with educational content for after school enrichment to these children helping them better cope with their peers.  

• Our approach is disruptive because it helps an identified set of children those who are falling through the cracks. With little support, they will get access to resources that will improve the educational outcomes.
• Partnering with  Government (Samagra Shiksha) we have accessed verified poor students. This allows us near 100% targeting of genuine beneficiaries. The Government also facilitates us for verification of bank accounts of the parents.
• Leakage of funds has been eliminated by utilizing Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT to the bank accounts of the parents).
• School principals will verify that each student has access to the appropriate educational resources once they have been funded allowing us to verify that the funds have been appropriately utilized. 
• Partnering with NGOs such as AIDIndia we will be utilizing their volunteer network to conduct outcome assessment for the assisted children. Unlike other initiatives focused on helping children where outputs but not outcomes are monitored, we will assess the impact of our initiative making further funding contingent upon skill improvement.
• The platform built for this initiative can be scaled both horizontally and vertically not only to expand coverage of children across the country but also to facilitate donation for other educational resources.

The FundEd Project focuses on access to quality education for underprivileged children. Education is the most fundamental need of every child - the lack of which is leading to a society that is more divided, has more gender inequality, racism, poverty, war, and terrorism. While this project directly helps in achievement of targets 4.1 and 4.5 of the UN SDG Goal 4 by supporting quality education to vulnerable and underprivileged children, the impact of this initiative will also be seen in reducing global poverty (SDG 1), hunger (SDG 2), improving well being (SDG 3), achieving gender equality (SDG 5), increasing economic growth (SDG 8), fostering innovation (SDG 9), reducing inequalities (SDG 10), and creating sustainable communities (SDG 11). Without the foundation of a quality education, it is impossible to achieve the goals outlined by the United Nations. 

Ability to provide quality education to their children gives hope and  a great sense of satisfaction to poor parents, who were devoid of access to education. Supporting children from economically weaker sections mobility with children from other strata of society would help holistic development of children and tolerant societies.