Two directors, one household, no salary.
Manas and Vineeta Dalai are the foundation’s only members and its first directors.
Manas Kumar Dalai
Manas is the founder and Chief Executive of InvestSphere. He grew up understanding the specific arithmetic that decides whether a bright child in a small town continues their education, and he has been quietly paying other people’s school fees for years.
The foundation is the formal version of something he was already doing informally. His incorporation documents list his occupation as social service.
Vineeta Manas Dalai
Vineeta is a co-founder and director of the foundation, and a subscriber to its memorandum. She is closely involved in the parts of the work that decide whether it succeeds — the relationships with families, the follow-through between one academic year and the next.
Her incorporation documents also list her occupation as social service.
Nobody needed to persuade us that education changes a family’s direction. We had seen it. What we had not seen was how small the obstacle usually is. — On why the foundation exists
Two directors is a starting point, not a destination
Right now the board consists of the two founders. We are not going to pretend that is ideal governance. A board of two people from one household has obvious limits, and any serious institutional donor will notice.
So we will say it first: bringing independent directors and an advisory board onto this foundation is a priority for its first full year, ahead of any significant institutional fundraising. If that is a conversation you would want to be part of, we would like to hear from you.
- No salary or director’s remuneration
- No dividend or bonus — prohibited by law for Section 8 members
- No benefit in money or money’s worth beyond genuine out-of-pocket expenses
The foundation’s administrative and running costs are met personally by the founders, so that funds raised from others go to programme work.
Join the table.
We are actively looking for independent directors and advisors with sector experience.