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Our 2023 impact report is out. Read the full report here. When it comes to impact, growth is a good thing. You can grow by expanding your scope, your reach, or the depth of your programs. In 2023, we expanded along all three dimensions. We reached new schools and communities, grew our scholarship numbers by almost 2x, and improved what we offer to our scholars. But growth comes with a paradox. Instead of things getting easier, as you grow, you encounter a whole new set of challenges. I want to talk to you about those challenges. One of the key questions we faced in 2023 was how to professionalize our fundraising. I don’t think I need to explain that as you grow, your budget grows as well. And I will be honest: we didn’t do enough to expand our fundraising last year. We’re incredibly grateful for the group of monthly and institutional donors that sustained us, and I am continuously impressed by the core group of supporters we have. But we need to get smarter about where we spend our time, we need to significantly expand our fundraising base, and we need to engage with our donors more often. Which brings me to the second challenge we face: how do we grow sustainably as an organization. With an expansion of scholarships comes a higher need for automating and improving our processes. It also means we need to continue to grow our team in India, which is why we emphasize our efforts to decentralize operations and push more decision-making to the team on the ground. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the reality: our team in Europe and the U.S. works on this project on a strictly voluntary basis and on the side of full-time jobs. If I think about our overall trajectory, I picture a plateau of sorts representing 2023. That doesn’t mean we didn’t grow. We actually grew quite significantly (more on that in a second). But now comes the hard part: building the infrastructure and team to take this organization to the next level, the next stage of our climb. Here’s what gives me confidence: we made enormous strides on the ground in 2023 with the same resources and capacity that we have had in previous years. We grew our Operations team, adding two new members. We gave 207 scholarships. And we made a big push to improve what we offer our scholars: starting a computer literacy program and expanding into career and life counseling. Most importantly, we kept the spirit that has defined this project from the start, the spirit that we push forward, we try new things, and we relentlessly focus on impact. So when I think about the paradox of growth, I am optimistic. Already in 2024, we have expanded the team further, both on the ground in India and with our group of volunteers in Europe and the U.S. We are working on professionalizing our fundraising operations. And we continue to push for improvements in our scholarship programs. It’s exactly the start we need to make 2024 another successful one on our growth path. Thanks for being part of our community, and keep your eyes and ears open for more news from us as we take on this new set of challenges.

Michael's visit follows the one that Alessandro made in November. Both are a demonstration of how we want the "facts on the ground" to drive our decisions. Michael visiting the home of one of our scholars "We have very strong local coordinators who are able to create real impact." Michael's Site Visit Report Getting Inspired Michael is one of our co-founders and has been to India several times. However, this is the first trip he has been able to make in several years. He was able to visit all three sites: Jammu, Chandigarh, and Delhi. And his mission was simple: to challenge the hypotheses and decisions we have been making with the facts on the ground. Michael came back from India full of inspiration and ideas. Some of the most important things he learned: We have been able to create strong local teams that drive true impact Our scholarships change lives but we need to continue to improve our targeting to ensure we are reaching the girls with the highest need Our focus should be on making girls independent and helping them thrive Many of these lessons are consistent with what Alessandro found in his visit back in November 2022. We will be working over the next months to turn these insights into impact.

As we continue to grow our programs and team, we feel that it is time for a step change. And one of the ways we want to get there is by leveraging the network and knowledge of people around us. Why Right Now is the Time for a Board The last time we had a Board of Directors was several years ago. At the time, we felt it was the right next step. We learned a lot from that experience, and as we restructured our program and teams over the last few years, we felt that a Board was unnecessary. The rationale was simple: we wanted to be as lean as possible and spend time experimenting to find how we could maximize our impact. And to a large extent that approach has been successful. It has limited our time spent reporting and maximized our time spent on driving impact. However, that approach also has its limits. As our organization has grown, we have come to realize that it's time to bring in outside, objective advisors and mentors. We are forming a Board because we want people to challenge us, to tell us that we're wrong, to push us to improve, and to help us get to the next level. How We Approach Board-Making Meet Adithya (pictured above). He is exactly the type of person we are looking to help form this new Board. He brings a wealth of experience working in education in India and around the world. He is passonate specifically about women's education. And he's an entrepreneur, someone who understands the highs and lows with forming and running your own organization. Adithya will join Priyanka as the initial members of our Board. We are also interviewing several other candidates, with our target being 3-5 members in this first year. We have signed agreements with these individuals regarding their role, and the challenge that we have given them and ourselves is simple: let's grow together.

From 0 to 100 Tracking our program's growth in Delhi At the start of 2022, we faced a difficult strategic question: do we expand our reach to other geographic areas or do we focus on growing within the area in Jammu where we had run operations for several years? We had finally settled on scholarships as our main project, and we knew we wanted to scale our operations. But the answer to the question of where was far from obvious. There are advantages to growing within the same area: we had built a network of schools and scholars in Jammu, we had learned a thing or two about local conditions and regulations, and our number of applicants was growing organically. But there are other reasons to grow beyond the geographic area that you know - it allows you to bring your model and impact to new areas and communities, it grows and diversifies your network, and it brings a host of new learning opportunities. So after spending a considerable amount of time assessing different locations, we decided to launch a pilot project in Delhi. We had already built up a considerable network there over the years, and we knew that there was a high demand for girls’ scholarships in the sprawling urban capital of India. We were fortunate to find exactly the right person to help us build the operations there. Sadiya Siddiqui. Sadiya applied for a position with education: access through the Teach for India portal, a network we have leveraged a number of times. Sadiya studied microbiology, and is pursuing a graduate degree in healthcare management. She also spent three years with Teach for India, is incredibly passionate about girls’ education, and has launched a number of social impact projects in the past. She immediately got to work helping build a vision for the pilot in Delhi, and helping us turn that vision into a reality. In our first year of operations in Delhi, we received 36 applications and selected 20 girls for scholarships.These girls belongs to different communities around the city (i.e., Sangam Vihar, Azadpur, Malviya Nagar, and Masjid Mod), but most of them are originally migrants from Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. All of the girls selected are studying in government schools, so they normally don’t have to pay fees for school. However, there are a number of “hidden” costs they face in obtaining a quality education. So we worked with Sadiya to identify a package of items and services that we thought could help. The chart below shows the amount per scholarship we are providing as well as a breakdown of how we calculated this amount. The girls’ parents come from difficult financial backgrounds, working as auto rickshaw drivers, vegetable cart vendors, and other similar jobs. During site visits we have taken over the last year, we have heard from them about the types of issues that they face on a daily basis: threats of domestic violence, alcoholism in their communities, unsafe routes to school, harassment, recurring medical issues, malnutrition, and so many others. But we also saw the gratitude of the girls and their parents, some of whom seemed to be putting everything they had into the prospect of education. These stories and so many others inspired us to convert our pilot project in Delhi to a new permanent site. In order to grow the project, we also decided to bring on a new team member. Soni Girsay is pursuing a Post Graduate Diploma in Management, and like Sadiya, has a fervent passion for making a difference in the lives of young girls through education. She has worked with Sadiya on managing the growing operations in Delhi. And two of the areas they have been focusing on recently are computer literacy classes and expanding into new communities. For the former, Sadiya and Soni identified a number of potential institutions running cost-effective programs. They eventually settled on Avsar Education, and 14 of the scholars in Delhi opted to take the three-month course they offer in basic computer skills. We worked with the girls to design a co-payment scheme, where education: access contributes some amount and the rest is paid from the scholarship that the girls are already receiving. This is part of our focus on helping our scholars build career and life skills. The second area of focus has been identifying new communities to work in. Masood, a new scholar selected in 2023, comes from one such community. She is a refugee from Afghanistan, and lives with her family in the Malviya Nagar Delhi community. Since her family has refugee status only, they don’t have proper work documents and have been struggling to find work. Her parents were grateful when Sadiya and Soni identified their daughter as a potential scholarship recipient. As our operations in Delhi continue to grow, the question is what’s next? And we are very clear on that point. Our goal is to grow our Delhi cohort of scholars to 100 girls this year. In addition, we want to continue to find opportunities to help the girls outside of pure financial support. The computer literacy classes are only the first step in that direction. We are looking forward to building on our successes over the past year, and supporting our passionate and driven team to make Delhi a new center for impact.

Three years ago, we set an ambitious goal: get to 100 scholarships by the end of 2022. We've dealt with an internet lockdown, global pandemic, and a lot more in between. But the best things in life never come easily. Read about how we overcame. "“All these girls are unable to pay their fees on time. When the deadline for payment of fees comes, sometimes the class teacher pays their fees, and sometimes all the students of the class together pay the fees by collecting money from their pocket money.” - Suntosh Soni 2022 was a year of great progress in spite of the many obstacles that came our way. We exceeded our goal of giving 100 scholarships, expanded to two new sites, grew our team, and broke yet another fundraising record. All of that was because of you. Read the 2022 Impact Report

December has traditionally been our biggest fundraising month and 2022 was no different. Learn about how we managed to turn holiday cheer into impact. A picture from our in-person Christmas fundraising event at Chelsea's in Vero Beach, FL "As a teacher at an all-girls school, I see first-hand how education makes a significant and enduring difference to the lives of young women. A donation to Education Access not only changes the trajectory of girls' lives in developing countries, but also the generations that follow them. - Carol Zortman Fundraising is Challenging In fact, we'd argue that is an understatement. In a way, nonprofits are almost running two businesses: one is dedicated to creating impact and the other is occupied with finding the funding to make that impact possible. The question is always what is the right balance? Our team has tried to leverage our backgrounds in finance and business management to help us answer this question. So our focus over the past years has been to grow in terms of fundraising even more quickly than we have grown our programs. We are starting to see tha strategy pay dividends as well, as it gives us the flexibility to make the right investments to create a sustainable growth path. We Couldn't Do This Without You Count that as the second understatement of this article. The central tenet of this strategy is retaining a core of committed supporters and donors. And we have been lucky enough to find that. Some of our donors have been supporting us since the start. Many have decided to donate monthly. And of course in December ever year so many of you show up to demonstrate that. We're proud to announce that we raised over $8,000 this December, an increase from our already-significant sum last year. That amount alone translates into about 50 scholarhips. 50 more girls can go to school for an additional year because of you. If that's not an inspiring way to close 2022, I don't know what is.

Alessandro made a visit to our three locations in India, the first time a member of our Supporting Team has been since pre-COVID. He brings back insights, ideas, and inspiration. Alessandro and Monika leading a meeting of scholars and their parents in Chandigarh "We need to stop thinking of this opportunity as just helping girls finish school. We need to start thinking about it as helping girls become independent" - Site Visit Report November 2022 Why These Visits Matter One of our North Star principles as an organization is that we want the details on the ground to guide our decisions. Our entire organizational model is based on this. We try empower the women we hire as Operations Coordinators to make the decisions, while our role is to support from the background, raise funds, and help set the strategic direction. Why? It's fairly simple actually. Because our view on development is that it has to come from the ground up. These women know their communities much better than we do. They speak the local language and understand the customs of the people around them in a way that we simply cannot. And as a result, we believe that they are in the best position to lead and drive our programs forward. All of this might lead you to question why we would then need to have any visits in the first place. But the thing is that if we are going to serve as effective partners, we need to see the impact ourselves. We need to speak to the scholars and their families to understand their triumphs and their failures. We need to know what we are doing well and where we are falling short. And we need to build relationships. And all of those things can only occur in person and on the ground. That's why we do these visits. What We Learned This visit was particularly important, since it's the first time someone from our Supporting Team has been to India since before COVID. The last years were tough, and one of the challenges as an organization was being separated from seeing the facts on the ground first-hand. The good news is that I learned lot in my time in India. Here are a few things we learned: Three things to know: Most girls are finishing high school and many girls are going to college. However, there is a huge opportunity in terms of getting these girls into a position where they can actually be independent. This means linking their education and skills to the job market. Our girls would benefit from support services (i.e. technology classes, mental health, career guidance, etc.). There are partnerships “on the table” that we should leverage to roll these out. We currently don’t have a lot of data on our scholars and are thus unable to respond to conditions on the ground or measure our performance. If you have ideas or thoughts on these learnings and how we can translate them into action, feel free to reach out.