Making the Difference (MTD)

Making the Difference (MTD) is an Indian NGO working across health, education, women's empowerment, environment and hunger relief. It has been operating since 2015 under founder Deepak Vishwakarma. MTD frames its work around outcomes rather than activity, stating that it measures success in girls who stay in school, women who live with dignity, forests that grow greener and families who no longer sleep hungry, not in funds raised or events conducted. Much of its delivery is funded through corporate social responsibility partnerships, and it positions itself as a partner that designs, delivers and audits CSR programmes aligned to the Companies Act, 2013. It maps every programme it runs to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and states that it actively advances 14 of the 17 goals.

Headquarters: Mira Road East, Thane, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

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Major Areas of Work

• Education and skill development: School infrastructure, digital learning and learning resources for children in underserved communities.

• Women's health and empowerment: Menstrual health awareness, hygiene access and health screening for women and adolescent girls.

• Health and medical access: Medical infrastructure, health camps, dialysis support, eye care and community wellness drives.

• Environment and sustainability: Urban forestry, tree plantation and community climate action, alongside reuse and recycling of donated material.

• CSR programme design and measurement: Community need assessment, programme design against a company's CSR priorities, implementation, impact measurement and compliance reporting.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Project Gyandaan: School infrastructure, digital learning labs and learning resources for underserved children.

• Project Lajja: Menstrual health awareness, reusable hygiene kits and health screenings for women and girls.

• Project Sanjeevani: Medical infrastructure, health camps, dialysis support and community wellness drives.

• Project Miyawaki: Miyawaki-method forests, tree plantation drives and community climate action programmes.

• Khushiyon Ka Box: Collection and redistribution of pre-loved clothes, books and household essentials to families who need them.

• Project Roshni: Preventive eye care, vision screening and assistive technology for people with limited access to eye health services.

Project Miyawaki is the most visible of the six and is closely tied to the founder's public identity as "The Oxygen Man of India". It uses the Miyawaki dense-planting method to create small urban forests, combined with wider plantation drives and community climate action, and MTD tracks sapling survival rather than saplings planted as its measure of success.

Impact

MTD states it has reached over 16 lakh beneficiaries. Its own site cites 77,000 or more saplings surviving out of 91,000 planted, 42,000 or more kilograms of material reused and recycled, 27,000 or more girls educated on menstrual hygiene, 11,000 or more beneficiaries screened for eye health and 2,800 or more girls screened for anaemia. It reports working with more than 45 CSR partners and maintains partnerships with Fiserv, UWM, PPFAS, Interise, Tarz (Chalhoub Group), IGI, Inorbit, eClerx and GIC Re.

Partners

Fiserv, UWM, PPFAS, Interise, Chalhoub Group, IGI, Inorbit, eClerx, GIC Re

Leadership

• Deepak Vishwakarma, Founder

A job here means running social programmes end to end, from assessing need on the ground through delivery to audited outcome reporting back to a corporate funder. The portfolio spans six distinct causes, so the work gives exposure to education, public health, menstrual health, eye care, urban ecology and material reuse rather than a single vertical. Because CSR funding drives most of the delivery, roles carry real accountability for monitoring, impact measurement and compliance, which suits people who want their fieldwork tied to numbers they have to defend. MTD also runs structured volunteer and internship tracks for students, fresh graduates, working professionals and retirees, making it accessible to people entering the development sector as well as those already in it.