Geneva Global, Inc.

Investment-Quality Due Diligence Makes It Possible for Funding of the Best Local Aid Agencies in Rural India

One of our clients was interested in placing grants in India, but wasn’t sure which issues or geographical areas would allow their grants to make the greatest impact. Geneva Global’s staff met with the client to better understand his funding preferences, then began identifying areas where the client’s interests meshed with good development practices and critical issues, creating opportunities for his funding to achieve the maximum impact.

Geneva Global then worked with its India-based consultants on the ground to provide the client with a list of potential issues. After discussing the options, the client decided to work with Geneva Global to create two focused Funds. The first Fund seeks to prevent human trafficking in India’s impoverished states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Porous borders with Nepal and Bangladesh, high poverty rates and flood zones increase that region’s vulnerability to slavery and trafficking. Millions in debt bondage face involuntary servitude in brick kilns, rice mills and factories within the borders of these two states. Young women and girls by the thousands are forced into the sex trade in the many brothels across the region.

The second Fund focuses on improving community health, and reducing infant and maternal mortality rates. The Fund would also focus on Bihar, where more than 158,000 newborns and infants die annually, and where maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the country. The needs in Bihar – one of India’s poorest states – are great. But its location, far from regional centers like Delhi or Mumbai, coupled with a lack of infrastructure, a history of lawlessness and violent caste clashes, mean that only a small fraction of international aid sent to India makes it to Bihar’s remote and needy communities.

In spite of roadblocks preventing many from working in Bihar, Geneva Global’s network of community development experts and field-based consultants were able to identify 22 effective, locally based organizations. All were committed to protecting local residents from human trafficking, or worked to improve community health.

As a result of Geneva Global’s efforts, the client’s philanthropic investment into these grass-roots organizations improved lives in the most remote and needy communities – where international funding rarely makes it. In its first year, these two Funds impacted more than 75,000 lives, and are expected to have an even greater impact annually in the next two years.

Access to the most remote and least-served communities. The confidence that comes from knowing the measurable difference your giving makes. That’s what Geneva Global provides for all our clients.