Transform Rural India (TRI)

Transform Rural India (TRI) is a development organisation founded in 2015, working to bring sustainable, systemic change to some of India's poorest rural areas. TRI operates on an approach it calls Thoughtful Tarakki, which focuses on strengthening local institutions, engaging markets, and improving public systems together, rather than running standalone projects. The organisation works with the government at central, state, and grassroots levels to design and scale policies and programmes for rural development. TRI currently operates across 8 states, 42 districts, 165 blocks, and over 20,000 villages in India.

Major Areas of Work

• Primary Education: Community learning centres that support foundational literacy and parent involvement in children's education.
• Health and Nutrition: Linking expectant mothers and children to essential health services and improving immunisation and institutional delivery rates.
• Farm Prosperity: Supporting agri-entrepreneurs and helping farming households increase income through better practices and market access.
• Jobs and Enterprises: Building youth hubs and mentorship networks that connect rural youth to employment and entrepreneurship.
• Local Governance and Gender: Strengthening women's leadership and inclusion in local decision making bodies.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Tarakki Blueprint: TRI's core development design framework, applied across all its geographies to combine community leadership, market engagement, and public system strengthening.
• Youth Engagement Programme: A network of youth hubs and Sarathis, or volunteer change leaders, that connect rural youth with mentors, counselling, and job or enterprise opportunities.
• India Rural Colloquy: A platform convening practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to exchange ideas on rural development.
• Certificate Programme in Public Policy in Action (PPIA): A fellowship and training programme for people who want to work on public policy and governance in rural India.

Impact

TRI's work has reached over 26,000 children through 1,421 community learning centres, supported by more than 2,200 community volunteers. Its youth engagement programmes have connected over 9,200 young people to mentors and helped more than 1,300 find employment, alongside 100 new entrepreneurs. Independent assessments show a 37% increase in the number of households earning over ₹1,00,000 annually, along with gains in health service access, immunisation, and school attendance across the areas TRI works in.

Leadership

• Anirban Ghosh, Managing Director
• Anish Kumar, Co-Lead
• Rashmi Shukla Sharma, Chair, Board of Directors
• Bharti Gupta Ramola, Chair, Advisory Board

Partners

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Azim Premji Foundation, Axis Bank Foundation, Tata Trusts, Standard Chartered, HDFC Parivartan, Hindustan Unilever Foundation, Walmart Foundation, Fidelity International, NABARD, Rites, World Resources Institute, InterGlobe Foundation, Firstsource, National Philanthropic Trust, Aspen Institute, Global Development Incubator, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Stanford University

TRI suits people who want to work on rural development at scale, combining fieldwork with policy design and government partnership. The organisation runs a large team of full time professionals, fellows, and community volunteers across hundreds of villages, offering exposure to both grassroots implementation and national level policy work. It appeals to people who want long-term, measurable impact on poverty, education, and livelihoods, working alongside government systems rather than around them.