Make A Difference

MAD delivers a 18-year-long intervention to Children in Need of Care & Protection (CNCP) in India that has the proven capability to enable them to break the cycle of poverty in a single generation. MAD has pioneered a community-powered social protection system that mobilises the community to provide high-touch and highly scalable, age-appropriate progression mentoring.

History: Started in 2006 in 1 city with 70 volunteers & 120 beneficiaries, today, Make A Difference (MAD) is a network of over 2,000 volunteers mentoring 3200 children & youth across 18 cities, annually.

Over the last 18 years, we’ve mobilised over 20,000 volunteers who have played their part in helping India’s most vulnerable children succeed academically, socially, and professionally.

 Vision: Children born into intergenerational poverty are able to break the cycle in a single generation.

Mission: Empower communities to take radical responsibility for their most vulnerable children and ensure they get the care & support needed to break the cycle of poverty permanently in a single-generation

Goal:

Our goal is to eradicate poverty in our lifetime. We achieve this by building a nationwide network of empowered communities that act as safety nets and springboards for children in need of care and protection.

Through our proven Progression Mentoring Program, communities can provide step-by-step guidance, empowering children to cross the life-changing empowerment threshold of $360 (INR. 30,000) per month and leave poverty behind, permanently.

 

Activities:

Progression Mentoring is MAD’s award-winning 18-year-long high-touch intervention model for children born into intergenerational poverty. It is a community-powered, volunteer-driven program for age-appropriate growth & development that enables a group of young people in the community to self organise to provide the required care, skill building and resource to the most vulnerable children in the community.

One-on-one mentoring by young individuals, guiding children through critical life stages, has the highest success rate in healing from ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and bridging the gap left by struggling parents.

 It’s also the fastest way for India’s vulnerable children to break free from poverty permanently. While it typically takes 7 generations for a family to escape poverty in India, with personalised mentoring, it can be achieved in just one generation.

Program Delivery:

MAD delivers Progression Mentoring through a Community Organising model, empowering young leaders to mobilize community members into active citizens. Community Organisers do this by forming chapters of 200 volunteers and children. Each chapter provides weekly mentoring to 200 vulnerable children from the age of 10 to 28 at no cost to the child.

 Our service-based leadership development curriculum, led by Community Organisers (CO), guides chapter leaders in sourcing, recruiting, onboarding, managing, and retaining mentors.

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty at Scale

The Challenge

• India has the world's highest number of children in extreme poverty

• 350,000 vulnerable children urgently need care and protection

• Current systems reach less than 1% of those in need

 

Our Solution: Scaling for Nationwide Impact

1. World-Class Community Organizer Incubator

MAD would be able to double the number of children we support every year if we can enable young people to set up and run healthy MAD chapters in their communities. MAD Incubator creates an enabling environment for this to happen.

2. Revolutionary Tech Platform

MADapp is an Experiential leadership Development tool that enables a young person to pick up high value skills by setting up and running a MAD chapter.

Our Impact measured over the past 6 yrs

• 90% of children reach college (vs. 15% national average)

• 95% secure formal jobs within 6 months

• Beneficiaries join top 10% income bracket by age 28

 

The Opportunity

Partner with us to scale our proven model nationwide. Together, we can end intergenerational poverty in our lifetime.