Suryoday Foundation

Suryoday Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation registered in 2014 under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. It is the Corporate Social Responsibility initiative of Suryoday Small Finance Bank, which has worked on the economic and social development of low income, unserved and underserved communities in India since before CSR became a statutory mandate. The Foundation describes its mission as building resilient communities by giving unserved and underserved families information, opportunities and access to financial, health, education, livelihoods and social security products and services, so that they can make informed decisions for themselves. Its stated vision is bringing smiles to the unserved and underserved by promoting inclusive growth and contributing to their economic and social wellbeing. It states its values as being people-centred, ensuring inclusivity, believing in excellence and focusing on impact. It aligns its work with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and currently operates in Maharashtra, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

Headquarters: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Major Areas of Work

• Financial, banking and digital literacy: Building the financial capability of low income households and equipping them to use banking and digital tools.

• Preventive and reproductive health: Health interventions for women and communities, delivered through camps and community-level engagement.

• Access to social security benefits: Helping families identify and enrol in government social security schemes they are entitled to.

• Career guidance for children and youth: Supporting young people aged roughly 14 to 20 to improve learning outcomes and think through career paths.

• Supportive livelihoods and community development: Livelihood support and broader community development work in the urban, rural and tribal areas where the Foundation operates.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Domestic workers programme: Financial capability building for domestic workers, a group that lost jobs or moved to partial employment during the COVID 19 lockdown and in many cases took on loans in the absence of savings.

• Rural and tribal children and youth programme: Work with young people aged 14 to 20 to strengthen learning outcomes, on the reasoning that values and learning take hold in childhood.

• Rural and tribal families programme: Engagement with parents alongside their children, positioning children as partners in building the digital and banking literacy of the household.

• Bank product and social security linkages: Connecting community members to bank products and to social security entitlements, tracked by the Foundation as a distinct outcome of its work.

• Community cadre model: Local staff deployed within communities so that programmes run on a community-based approach and continue beyond a single intervention.

The Foundation redesigned its programmes in 2020 after a third-party impact study and the COVID 19 pandemic. Before that, its activities centred on financial literacy, health camps and environment work designed largely for women in the communities. The redesign narrowed the focus to three specific vulnerable segments: domestic workers, rural and tribal children and youth, and rural and tribal families.

Impact

Suryoday Foundation reports its results across five categories: financial literacy, health, community engagement, bank product linkages and social security linkages, covering the period December 2019 to March 2022. It states that it partners with NGOs, government bodies and community-based organisations for technical assistance and programme implementation, and that it uses technology to reach communities and to equip them to use technology themselves.

Leadership

• Dr. Sheela Bhide, Chairperson
• Baskar Babu Ramachandran, Trustee and CEO, Suryoday Small Finance Bank
• Srinivasan Sundar Swamy, Independent Director

Working here suits someone who wants to see financial inclusion practised at the community level rather than described at a policy level. The work runs across urban, rural and tribal settings in three states and is built on a local cadre model, so field exposure is direct and continuous. Because the Foundation sits inside a small finance bank, its programmes connect literacy work to actual products and entitlements, which gives staff a clear line between an intervention and a measurable linkage. It fits people interested in financial capability, community health, youth learning outcomes and social security access, and who are comfortable with programmes that get redesigned when evidence says they should be.