Our mission
To remove the practical obstacles — money, access, information — that stop capable people from finishing what they started, and to stay involved long enough for it to hold.
About us
We are a young foundation with an old-fashioned idea about how change works.
Slowly, with the same people, over years — not in bursts.
Section 8 non-profit
CIN U87300PN2026NPL253500
Licence No. 182113
Registered in Pune, Maharashtra
Our story
It started before the paperwork did
Long before there was a foundation, there was a decision to pay one child's school costs.
Manas and Vineeta Dalai had been supporting causes quietly for years — a fee here, a set of books there, the kind of giving that never gets recorded anywhere. In 2024 they took on the full costs of a Class IX student at a government school in coastal Odisha, and stayed with it: not a one-off cheque, but the whole year, and the year after.
What came back was a shelf of trophies and a Student of the Year award. That was the moment the informal thing needed to become a formal one. Ad-hoc generosity does not scale, cannot accept corporate CSR funding, and leaves nobody accountable. A registered foundation does, can, and does.
Manas Dalai Foundation was incorporated on 18 March 2026 under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 — the framework India reserves for organisations set up to promote social welfare and prohibited from paying profits to anyone.
Our vision
An India where a child's postcode, caste or family income has stopped being a reliable predictor of how far they get.
Our promise
Every rupee of surplus goes back into the work. No member of this foundation can be paid a dividend or a bonus — not as policy, but as law.
How we work
Five things we have decided about
Depth over breadth
We would rather carry ten students all the way through than hand a token to a thousand. Numbers make better press releases; depth makes better outcomes.
Stay for the boring years
The photogenic moment is the first cheque. The one that matters is the fourth year, when nobody is watching and the fees are due again.
Overheads are our problem
Our founders cover the foundation's administrative costs personally. Money given by others goes to programmes.
Say what actually happened
If a programme underperforms, that will appear on this website. Foundations that only publish wins are not telling you very much.
Local knowledge wins
We work through the schools, teachers and community groups already present. We are not going to arrive from Pune and explain a village to itself.
Dignity, not charity
Nobody we support has to perform gratitude for it. We keep names off things, faces optional, and consent genuine — particularly where children are involved.
The legal structure
Why a Section 8 company, and not a trust
India lets you set up a non-profit as a trust, a society, or a Section 8 company. The first two are simpler. We chose the third, which is the most demanding.
A Section 8 company is regulated by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. It files annual returns and audited accounts on a public register. Its constitution cannot be changed without the Registrar's approval. Its licence can be revoked. There is nowhere to hide.
That is precisely the point. If we are going to ask companies and individuals for money, the least we can do is operate under the framework that makes us easiest to check.
What Section 8 status legally requires of us
- All income and property must be applied solely to our stated objects
- No dividend, bonus or profit may reach any member, ever
- No member may draw remuneration beyond genuine out-of-pocket expenses
- Our memorandum cannot be altered without the Registrar's prior approval
- On winding up, remaining assets pass to another Section 8 body — never to members
- We may only merge with another Section 8 organisation with similar objects
Where we work
Registered in Pune. Working wherever the need is.
Our memorandum extends our objects to the whole of India, and our first programme runs in coastal Odisha — roughly 1,600 kilometres from our registered office. That is deliberate. We go where a small amount of money changes a great deal, not where it is convenient to be photographed.
As we grow we expect to concentrate in Maharashtra and Odisha first, simply because that is where we have people we trust on the ground.
Come and check our working.
Our registration details, board and compliance position are all published. Start there.