1. family and parenting
2. children

MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION
2010 GIVING REPORT
a message
from our founders
What does it take to change the lives of millions of impoverished
kids? Heroism alone isn’t enough. Neither are dollars. But we
know that transformation is possible. That’s why we started this
work in 1999.
MICHAEL AND SUSAN DELL - FOUNDERS
Since that time, we’ve partnered with more than 650 organizations working to
improve health and educational outcomes for children worldwide. In our first
year of operations, our giving totaled just over $580,000. In 2010, our grants and
program-related investments totaled almost $96 million, while the foundation’s
total committed giving since 1999 reached over $730 million. And as our grantmaking has increased, the global environment we work in has changed as well.
In the second decade of the 21st century, it’s no longer sufficient to fund established, low-risk or local institutions. Our philanthropic role in 2010 was to do what
the market couldn’t. It was to incubate promising new approaches that needed
time and support to prove themselves out and become self-sustaining. It was
to extend the immediate impact of best practices from the field so we can help
more children every day. And it was to foster cross-sector partnerships among
non-profits, governments and businesses to achieve greater impact.
Above all, it was to hold all players, including ourselves, accountable for measurable results while also maintaining the long view of the ongoing efforts required
to achieve lasting change.
We aren’t naïve about the challenges we all face in this work. We know that some
efforts will fail, while others won’t grow as we’d hoped. But we also know that if
we partner well, invest wisely, actively learn from our efforts and remain open to
new ideas, we’ll continue to find far-reaching solutions in surprising places.
Michael & Susan Dell, Founders
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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where we make a difference
Inspired by a shared desire to improve the lives of children living
in urban poverty, Michael and Susan Dell established the Austin,
Texas-based foundation in 1999.
In its early years, the foundation’s work focused on improving education and children’s health in Central Texas. Since then, our reach has expanded, first nationally
and then globally. As of the end of 2010, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation had
committed more than $730 million to assist organizations working in major urban
communities in the United States, India and South Africa.
CAP FOUNDATION - HYDERABAD, INDIA
UNITED STATES
The achievement gap that separates rich and poor students in the United States is
profound. By age 24, some 95 percent of American students in the top quartile of
family income have graduated from college, while only 23 percent of those in the
lowest have. Meanwhile, the percentage of children who are overweight or obese
is skyrocketing. The foundation’s U.S.-based efforts seek to address those issues by
providing urban children with access to quality educational opportunities, by ensuring that educators have the insights and tools they need to address each child’s
needs, and by helping researchers and communities understand and address the
root causes of complex childhood health issues like obesity and related diseases.
INDIA
With eight to 10 percent projected gain in gross domestic product year over year
for the coming decade and an unusually young population, India is poised for
enormous positive growth. But the possibility of unbridgeable rifts between the
country’s poor and its growing middle class is real. In 2006, we began working in
India, targeting six major cities with 18 million slum inhabitants including some
7 million children. Our efforts focus on urban programs that improve education
and use microfinance to promote family economic stability and health. Our goal in
India is twofold: We’re seeking immediate positive impact on individual children’s
lives, and also working to ensure that our investments support organizations
capable of scaling their reach and sustaining their operations over time.
SOUTH AFRICA
The foundation opened its South Africa office in 2009. A mix of factors—including
steady economic growth, radical income disparity, a well-developed infrastructure
and political system, and the ability to exert positive influence across sub-Saharan
Africa—make South Africa an environment ripe for interventions that can scale
exponentially. With an eye on helping to catalyze systemwide reforms, our work
in 2010 focused on health issues among the nation’s orphaned and vulnerable
children, and on creating high-quality educational opportunities for underserved
students with an ultimate goal of increasing the numbers who attend top-tier
universities, graduate and, ultimately, find employment.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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geographic focus
WHERE WE WORK
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation works around the world providing support to critical programs that help
lift millions of children out of poverty. The foundation has outlined several priority geographical areas where
our support is the most needed and where, based on economic trajectory, demographic trends and political
environments, we can realistically improve long-term outcomes. Learn more about us @ www.msdf.org
UNITED STATES
SOUTH AFRICA
INDIA
POPULATION:
POPULATION:
POPULATION:
POPULATION
UNDER 15:
POPULATION
UNDER 15:
POPULATION
UNDER 15:
LIFE EXPECTANCY
AT BIRTH
LIFE EXPECTANCY
AT BIRTH
LIFE EXPECTANCY
AT BIRTH
INFANT MORTALITY
INFANT MORTALITY
INFANT MORTALITY
(PER 1,000 LIVE BIRTHS):
(PER 1,000 LIVE BIRTHS):
(PER 1,000 LIVE BIRTHS):
CHILDHOOD
OBESITY RATE:
CHILDREN LIVING
WITH HIV/AIDS:
CHILDREN LIVING
WITH HIV/AIDS:
GDP GROWTH
(2009-2013):
GDP GROWTH
(2009-2013):
GDP GROWTH
(2009-2013):
50 Million
308 Million
20%
1.2 Billion
31%
79
31%
54
8
64
43
17%
29
5.6%
2.4%
3.5%
3.4%
8.7%
Sources:
www.msdf.org
World Health Organization
World Bank
India Institute of Medical Sciences
Centers for Disease Control
International Obesity Task Force
Education Equality Project
Indian Human Development Report
Institute of Applied Manpower Research
Children's Institute
University of Cape Town
United Nations Development Programme
United Nations World Population Prospects
McKinsey
International Monetary Fund
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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a message from our
executive director
The foundation’s mission—transforming the lives of children living
in urban poverty through better health and education—is big,
aspirational and the North Star for everything we do.
JANET MOUNTAIN - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
But our day-to-day efforts are inspired by two more direct demands: 1) achieving
measurable results for children, and 2) the roll-up-your-sleeves work of building
the processes, models and standards that our partners and grantees need to scale
and achieve systemic change. Sometimes that means building tools ourselves.
More often it means helping our grantees build analytical rigor into their DNA,
and then providing them with additional resources to help them achieve even
greater results.
In 2010, we began operations in South Africa, which, in the second decade of its
democracy, still has the opportunity to make major shifts in closing persistent
opportunity gaps. In India, we focused on creative ways to ensure that each rupee
we contributed had exponential impact. We sought to catalyze new market
sectors focused on expanding access to basic sanitation, affordable housing and
reliable financial services. We collaborated with government to ensure that more
children get higher quality instruction. We also helped to train unemployed youth
for higher-paying jobs, and continued working to support scalable initiatives to
provide India’s urban children with access to basic health services. In the United
States, we continued to support a variety of quality education options at both
district and charter schools. We supported the development of the Texas Student
Data System, and from that, began a national effort to give teachers across
the country easy access to actionable information about student performance.
The work in Texas helped accelerate the ongoing development of an education
data standard, now called Ed-Fi, that launched in 2011.
On the health front, our efforts to combat childhood obesity and related diseases
taught us that there are no easy answers: Sustained community-by-community
efforts, and partnerships among dozens or even hundreds of stakeholders are the
precursors to widespread success.
Through the end of 2010, the foundation had committed more than $730 million
to assist organizations working with impoverished children in urban communities
in the United States, South Africa and India. Throughout the year, our partners
inspired us with creative solutions, amazing results and critical insights. Their
work points the way forward, giving us the information we need to continue to
test and refine creative approaches to complex challenges.
Janet Mountain, Executive Director
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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a word about data
As a foundation, we’re always looking not for the biggest problems,
but for the problems with the biggest opportunities – and we firmly
believe that taking full advantage of those opportunities depends
on evidence-based analysis of what works and what doesn’t.
LORI FEY - POLICY INITIATIVES
For us, data about performance are the only litmus test of whether our mission
is being served or not. No matter what portfolio we’re working in – health,
education or microfinance – we have to understand how the children and
families we’re trying to affect are actually doing. So we invest a huge amount
of time, energy and resources in understanding data about the initiatives we
support. It’s in our DNA.
This conviction spans our work in all geographies. But while our belief in data
is consistent, our approach to data varies depending on context. For instance,
the US is data rich, while India and South Africa are data poor. Ironically, both
situations have the same net effect: It’s hard to extract actionable information
that points the way forward. And that syndrome is true on the frontlines of
our partners’ work as much as it’s true in our boardroom.
BARUN MOHANTY - INTERNATIONAL & INDIA
For us, data always has to have a practical purpose. Just collecting statistics is
not enough; just publishing reports is not enough. The goal is always action
and improvement, which is why we work closely with our partners not only to
identify the right data to capture, but also to develop the right processes and
systems to ensure that data drives a cycle of continuous, scalable, measurable
improvements in the lives of impoverished urban children and their families.
The quality of these children’s outcomes is the gold standard for us. And the
data give us the confidence to know when we’ve met that standard, to assess
when we need to double down and do more, and to evaluate where we need
to direct our resources next.
Lori Fey, Policy Initiatives
Barun Mohanty, International & India
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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a focus on
higher education
A college degree is by no means the only road to a productive and
successful life, but it is both critical and proven, especially for young
people who have grown up in marginalized environments. For us,
that’s a call to action.
OSCAR SWEETEN-LOPEZ DELL SCHOLARS PROGRAM, US
We launched the U.S.-based Dell Scholars Program in 2004, with the goal of
supporting low-income, high-potential scholars through college graduation.
Since then, we’ve worked closely with nearly 2,000 scholars. In 2010, we
launched a sister program, Dell Young Leaders, in South Africa.
The key to both programs is a holistic approach that views scholarships as more
than checks and students as more than GPAs. In addition to financial support
and academic counseling, we provide scholars and their families with access
to a diverse range of services, including crisis counseling, legal and financial
consultation, health and wellness services, and more. In South Africa, we’ve
adapted these supports to address the more intensive needs of students
going through the transition from life in townships to life at top-tier universities.
THASHLIN GOVENDER DELL YOUNG LEADERS, SOUTH AFRICA
The Dell Scholars Program has made significant breakthroughs in the U.S. As of the
end of 2010, our six-year graduation rate (at 78 percent) for low-income students
outpaces the national rate by 300 percent. Some 95 percent of our 2009 freshman
class persisted to their sophomore year, a critical leading indicator for successful
graduation. Eleven percent of our graduates are pursuing advanced and professional
degrees. Our 350-plus graduates carry an average debt load equal to only 28 percent
of what their peers have to shoulder. Our South Africa program is in its earliest
phases: The initial cohort of 25 Dell Young Leaders enrolled at the University of
Cape Town in 2010 and is expected to graduate in 2013. By 2015, the program is
expected to include 400 scholars attending multiple institutions.
We’ve learned from our scholars in both countries that grit, tenacity and character
are critical to success in higher education. From a foundation perspective, we’ve
worked to distribute that lesson through formal channels. We’ve created and
shared tools to predict success; coordinated with secondary and post-secondary
institutions to increase the supports they offer; and participated in key conferences
about college persistence. But when it comes to scale and impact, our scholars
may well have the more critical role: Each graduate stands as a concrete example
of success in communities where higher education and its rewards often seem
totally out of reach. And in that, we see enormous power.
Oscar Sweeten-Lopez, Dell Scholars Program (US)
Thashlin Govender, Dell Young Leaders (South Africa)
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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microfinance:
transparent solutions
India is home to one-third of the world’s poor. By 2030, an estimated
590 million people will live in its cities — an increase of 300 million
residents in fewer than 30 years. It’s a complex environment that
breeds complex problems: high rates of school enrollment at low
quality schools; massive slums that lack basic sanitation and infrastructure; lack of access to reputable financial institutions.
GEETA GOEL - MICROFINANCE
On its own, philanthropy can only do so much to combat those challenges. But in
combination with reputable social-enterprise solutions such as microfinance – a
key strategic focus of our work in India – there’s enormous potential to catalyze
sustainable, systemic change.
2010 represented a critical juncture in our microfinance work. In India, we worked
with urban MFIs to structure and manage scale, and to introduce technologyenabled cost efficiencies, product diversification and customer protections. We
also supported innovative, early-stage institutions focused on affordable urban
housing solutions (a previously neglected space.)
And at the level of infrastructure, we helped promote and drive adoption of
standardized tools and metrics. We supported work to enable pricing transparency
in Indian microfinance; in the wake of that effort, *MFIs representing approximately 77 percent of India’s active borrowers and 80 percent of the nation’s
total estimated gross loan portfolio began routinely reporting on their interest
rates. Meanwhile, at the global level, we spearheaded the integration of industrystandard social performance indicators with the Microfinance Information
Exchange’s widely used database of financial and operating indicators. Our goals
are to ensure increased industry accountability, transparency and a truer measure
of the ways MFIs work to impact the lives of the clientele they serve.
We understand the risk inherent in market-based solutions, but we don’t believe
risk alone is a reason to walk away. It’s a reason to redouble our efforts and to
make smart, measured choices that will help ensure that, as the microfinance
sector scales both in India and globally, it remains rooted in the core principles
of sustainability, transparency and serving the social good.
Geeta Goel, Microfinance
* These market share figures are estimates based primarily on data from the MIX market. As the
true scale of the Indian microfinance market is unknown, these figures are approximations.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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CAITLIN BARON - SOUTH AFRICA
KEVIN BYRNE - US EDUCATION
GEETA GOEL - MICROFINANCE
DR. ALIYA HUSSAINI - HEALTH
DEBASHISH MITTER - INDIA EDUCATION
an active approach
to grant management
The foundation takes an active approach to grant management:
Program officers help grantees set project milestones; establish
and track relevant measures of success; analyze data about results;
and make recommendations to strengthen best practices and
eliminate weak ones.
To better direct the complexity inherent in this approach, we group our efforts
into several key portfolios: In the United States, India and South Africa, they
include education and health. In India, we also focus on family economic stability
as a baseline precursor to good childhood health and academic success.
Within and across these portfolios, we invest in programs that tackle multicomponent problems. For instance, our health efforts address complex issues
like childhood obesity at multiple levels, with support for grassroots, communitybased initiatives alongside support for sophisticated, research-oriented institutions
that have an international reach. Likewise, our educational work reaches children
and youth in school from kindergarten through university graduation, and includes
both after-school and wrap-around support programs. Where appropriate –
for instance in India – we layer health efforts on top of educational programs
to reach those who might otherwise slip through the cracks.
2010 saw the acceleration of efforts to ensure critical connectivity among staff,
grantees and other stakeholders working on these multilevel initiatives. Over
the course of the year, we implemented new grant management processes and
tools that decrease administrative tasks and give grant officers more time to
focus on thoughtful analysis and research. These new techniques have increased
transparency foundationwide, allowing us to more easily make connections
between lessons learned in one portfolio and ongoing challenges in another.
We recognize that dollars are only one tool that we have at our disposal. Others
include knowledge, networks, expertise, influence, technical assistance and
tools to build capacity. In that context, connecting the dots allows us to unearth
new insights that we can then share with grantees, policy experts, regulators,
socially innovative businesses and others to drive exponentially greater gains
for exponentially greater numbers of children.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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a message from our
chief financial officer
The foundation’s mission of transforming lives of children in urban
poverty is one that will require a sustained effort over generations.
As faithful financial stewards, we have a twofold mandate: 1) supporting our
grant-making staff as they address the challenges posed by ongoing global
economic volatility; and 2) safeguarding the foundation’s ability to support
innovative, life-changing solutions in the future.
LORENZO TELLEZ - CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
To those ends, we maintain rigorous and thorough financial controls, while also
making grants at nearly twice the rate required by the Internal Revenue Service.
In 2010, the foundation awarded grants and program-related investments of
almost $96 million.
We are pleased to report that while our grant teams continue to disperse
substantial funds for immediate, on-the-ground impact, the foundation
remains financially well positioned to address the shifting global landscape
of opportunity and need among children living in urban poverty. Despite the
turbulent economic times and the foundation’s robust giving levels, the
foundation has ended 2010 with investment assets of $906 million.
Lorenzo Tellez, Chief Financial Officer
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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board of directors
PROFILE: SUSAN DELL
A mother of four, Susan is the driving force behind the Michael & Susan Dell
Foundation’s health and education initiatives to positively impact the lives of
urban children around the world. Additionally, she serves as a trustee of the
Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas and is a board member of
the Cooper Institute in Dallas. An elite-level athlete who competes in marathons,
triathlons, and cycling races, Susan was also a member of the President’s Council
for Physical Fitness and Sports. Susan holds a degree in fashion merchandising
and design from Arizona State University.
PROFILE: MICHAEL DELL
SUSAN DELL - FOUNDER, BOARD CHAIR
Michael Dell is the chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer
of Dell, the company he founded with $1000 in 1984 at age 19. Notably quoted as
saying that “technology is about enabling human potential,” Michael’s vision of
how technology should be designed, manufactured and sold forever changed the
IT industry. In 1992, Michael became the youngest CEO ever to earn a ranking on
the Fortune 500.
Today, Dell Inc. is comprised of more than 100,000 team members who serve the
IT needs of global corporations, small and medium businesses, governments,
healthcare providers, education institutions and home computing users. From PCs
and smartphones to the infrastructure and services that power the world’s most
complex data centers and cloud computing environments, Dell’s broad range of IT
services and solutions has helped millions of customers around the world achieve
the outcomes that are most important to them.
In 1998, Michael formed MSD Capital, and in 1999, he and his wife established the
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to provide philanthropic support to a variety of
global causes.
MICHAEL DELL - FOUNDER
Michael serves on the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, the executive committee of the International Business Council and is a member of the U.S.
Business Council. He also serves on the Technology CEO Council and the governing
board of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India and is a board memberelect of Catalyst.
PROFILE: DR. ALEXANDER DELL
Dr. Alexander Dell ran a private orthodontic practice in Houston, Texas from
1964-1998. He received his B.S. from City College of New York in 1955; his D.D.S.
from Columbia University’s School of Dental & Oral Surgery in 1959; and his MS in
Orthodontics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1964. Dr. Dell is a
Diplomate of the America Board of Orthodontics.
DR. ALEXANDER DELL - BOARD MEMBER
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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leadership team
JANET MOUNTAIN - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
LORENZO TELLEZ - CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
KEVIN BYRNE - US EDUCATION
BARUN MOHANTY - INTERNATIONAL & INDIA
LORI FEY - POLICY INITIATIVES
CAITLIN BARON - SOUTH AFRICA
TYANN OSBORN - HUMAN RESOURCES
MEGAN MATTHEWS - COMMUNICATIONS
LORA ZARBOCK - TECHNOLOGY
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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consolidated
financial highlights
grant payments &
program-related investments*
(IN $ MILLIONS)
2000
5.5
2001
7.4
2002
14.4
2003
20
23.8
2004
58.8
2005
69.7
2006
95.9
2007
2008
110.8
2009
110.1
95.6
2010
* Does not include direct charitable activities
2010 grant payments &
program-related investments
(IN $ MILLIONS)
INT’L GIVING
COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY
21.285
9.817
2.024
DOMESTIC VS.
INTERNATIONAL
MICROFINANCE
CHILDHOOD HEALTH
U.S. GIVING
U.S.
INITIATIVES
74.228
15.3
EDUCATION
3.836
INTERNATIONAL
INITIATIVES
CHILDHOOD HEALTH
4.776
49.111
EDUCATION
10.649
investment assets
year-end balance
(IN $ MILLIONS)
2000
224.3
2001
466.8
2002
463.1
1136.5
2003
1172.9
2004
1222.8
2005
1326.9
2006
1393.4
2007
2008
2009
2010
935.2
957.1
905.5
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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2010 HIGHLIGHTS
urban education
Denver Public Schools
Jason Martinez
Director of Assessment Technology & Accountability
for Denver Public Schools (DPS)
When we set out to design the data tool, we made sure our user groups
didn’t just include high-end users. We included educators who said,
“I’m really not comfortable with technology; I’m really quite fearful
of it.” Our goal was to hear what they needed and to design a tool they
could and would use.
JASON MARTINEZ
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Denver, United States
SUMMARY:
Denver Public Schools (DPS) is a high-needs
urban school district serving almost 80,000
students. Plagued by persistently low
graduation rates, DPS rolled out web-based
teacher and administrator portals during
the 2009-2010 school year as part of an
effort to provide educators with immediate
access to critical data about student needs.
Part of the district’s Digital Door project,
the portals have enabled teachers and
administrators to make on-the-spot
adjustments that help students achieve
better results.
13%
2010 INCREASE IN DPS SENIORS
WHO GRADUATED OVER THE
PREVIOUS YEAR
93%
ATTENDANCE LEVELS ACHIEVED
ACROSS DENVER PUBLIC
SCHOOLS IN 2010
It was also to break down the silos that have grown up throughout
the education sector. We all remember teachers saying, ‘Oh, that’ll be
on your permanent record!’ Well, that permanent record has always
been something called a cumulative file. It’s a large file which includes
a student’s household information, family contact information, and
academic record, including schools, teachers and performance. That
data is very confidential information, so it’s traditionally kept in a
locked cabinet in the main office. And, in the past, as soon as the
school secretary left for the day, the information was inaccessible;
it was in a locked file cabinet, behind a locked door. So, if I was a
classroom teacher who needed information quickly, I couldn’t get it.
With the Digital Door, that all changed; all of that essential information
has been digitized, and all of it is accessible 24x7. So a teacher can pull
up a child at any moment in time, and get the essential information
they need to effectively teach that child at any moment in time.
Nicole Veltzé
Principal, Skinner Middle School
My team and I use the tool to monitor attendance data on a daily basis.
So if we see that, ‘Oh my gosh, we slipped to 89% today, what happened?
Let’s get on it. Who’s out?’ We make a plan of attack to intervene instead
of waiting to the end of the year to find out at that, ‘Oh, our attendance
happened to be this percentage.’ Our social worker got access to the
portal, so he’s living on a cloud right now. He has access to all this data
that he’s utilizing on a daily basis to conference with families.
I also use the data to motivate kids. For instance, if a grade level gets an
average of 93 percent attendance for the month, they get a free dress
day. So every morning, I announce how grade-level attendance is tracking.
Every morning I’ll say things like, “Seventh grade, you’re at 92.44 percent.
Just a couple more days, you can do it!” This year, we’ve seen tremendous
growth in attendance, and we attribute that to our ability to access the
data, and to create incentives and interventions along the way. Kids’
academic performance is also increasing. We believe that attendance
data drives that academic growth, because if kids are here, they’re
learning, and that supports their increased academic achievement.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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UPLIFT Education
Noah Moya
7TH Grader, Heights Preparatory Academy
When I was little, I wanted to know, ‘What’s school like, and why do I have
to go?’ My parents said, ‘You have to go to a good school to get a good
education. And you have to get a good degree to get a good job. Then you
can earn money and buy a house like ours.’ They didn’t go to college.
I didn’t like my old school. When I started 6th grade, I didn’t want to go
back, but I had to. Then one day, my mom picked me up and told me about
Heights. The teachers at this school are different. At my old school, I had a
math teacher who taught us one way, and I didn’t get it. But our teacher
this year makes a picture in your head by telling us, ‘A fraction is like a
stick figure, and if it has a big head, it’s probably an improper fraction.’
And I get it.
NOAH MOYA
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Samantha Moya
Dallas-Fort Worth, United States
Mother
SUMMARY:
I grew up in West Dallas where Heights is located. So I know the type of
households a lot of the students at Heights come from. It’s not always a
bright and happy picture. When I had Noah’s older brother, I was 16.
His father and I had major financial struggles. I remember crying and
saying, ‘I wanna live like normal people. I wanna have a bank account
and credit cards.’ Little did I know! Now I’m pushing 40, and I’m still
working on a degree.
In 2007, only 11% of Dallas ISD students
met the definition of college ready. The
racial achievement gap was staggering:
46% of white students versus 5% of
African American students and 8% of
Hispanic students. With foundation
support, Heights Preparatory opened
in 2010 as one of Uplift Education’s
Dallas-Fort Worth network of charter
schools. In its first year of operations,
the school achieved an exemplary rating,
something only one other school in the
neighborhood had achieved since 2007.
19%
80%
TEXAS SCHOOLS RATED AS
EXEMPLARY IN 2010
My older son is a product of the Dallas Independent School District. I
wanted something different – something more – for Noah. When he got
accepted to Heights, I felt like he’d been accepted into Harvard – then I
was worried because academics at his previous school were so bad. I was
biting my nails that he wouldn’t be able to keep up. But the teachers
worked with him at his level, and now he’s just blossoming.
Kris Thibault
6TH Grade Social Studies Teacher, Heights Preparatory Academy
UPLIFT SCHOOLS RATED AS
EXEMPLARY IN 2010
I first saw Heights in 2010. There were broken windows and trash all over
the place. I thought, ‘Wow, this building that’s completely trashed out
and that hasn’t had a positive effect in a long time is going to turn into
something really positive.’ It was completely energizing. Noah was in my
first group of six grade students. I remember thinking that whenever I
called on him, I had to be prepared to answer anything. If there was a
situation in school that he wasn’t sure about, if there was a fact that he
wanted to know about, he’d raise his hand. He wasn’t scared to make a
mistake. If he had a wrong answer, he’d just move on and learn from it.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
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Dell Scholars Program
Students from high income families focus on academics
while students from low-income families focus on survival;
the results play out nationwide in six-year graduation rates
from college. In 2009, 98% of students from the top income
quartile graduated by age 24, compared to fewer than
one in five students from the bottom quartile. The Dell
Scholars Program takes a holistic approach to support
that has helped our scholars outpace the national six-year
graduation rate for low-income students by 300 percent.
Rosie Hernandez
ROSIE HERNANDEZ
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
United States
SUMMARY:
$20,000 scholarship plus student and
family access to services such as 24/7 crisis
counseling, legal consultation, financial
consultation, health and wellness services,
and referrals to campus- and communitybased resources.
78%
90%
SIX-YEAR GRADUATION
RATE AMONG DELL SCHOLARS
RATE OF PERSISTENCE AMONG
DELL SCHOLARS BY YEAR 6
22, Dell Scholar, California State University Fresno Class of 2010
I lived in 10 different homes before high school graduation, sometimes
with relatives, sometimes in Section 8 homes. It was pretty brutal; we
didn’t have much stuff, but people would still break in a lot and steal
something, like the vacuum cleaner. But I did have a family that always
encouraged me.
When I was growing up, people in the community would always say,
“You’re not going to do anything. You’ll wind up getting pregnant.” It was
demoralizing. But getting the scholarship made me believe I could do
more; it made me think, “My community doesn’t decide what I do.”
I remember I was all suited up for gym class the day I found out I won
the scholarship. I didn’t think I’d get it. The coach said my name, and I
thought I was in trouble, but instead he congratulated me!
When I got to CSUF, I was used to a heavy workload. But commuting was
difficult, and between gas and hundreds of dollars for textbooks, it was
a lot of money. I worked the whole way through. Being able to depend
on my scholarship for financial support has been a real stress reliever.
Now I’m using the last of my scholarship funds to study for my masters
in clinical therapy social work, and I’m the gang prevention outreach
coordinator at the Boys & Girls Club. I also run a “college-knowledge”
program to help kids understand more about financial aid, and
become educated and successful.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
17
Bodh Shikshsa Samiti
Yogendra Bhushan
Director, Bodh Shiksha Samiti, Jaipur
I was an activist as a student. After graduation, I spent a year exploring
the Jaipur slums, and I finally landed in one small community where
the people were keen to start something of their own to address the
issue of education. They were deprived of educational opportunities
and facilities, and were just making ends meet, so they couldn’t dream
very big. But they knew that basic literacy would keep them from being
cheated in even simple, day-to-day exchanges. And they knew it would
help their children avoid deprivation.
YOGENDRA BHUSHAN
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
SUMMARY:
Bodh Shiksha Samiti community schools
were launched in 1987, as the result of
a unique partnership between residents
of Jaipur’s Gokulpuri urban slum community and a group of like-minded men and
women. Today, Bodh has both urban and
rural schools, and acts as a resource agency
for providing training and other support
for schools seeking to improve the quality
of education available to underprivileged
children. Overall, Bodh reaches out to
more than 26,000 deprived children
through bodhshalas and government
schools in the state of Rajasthan.
26,110
309
STUDENTS REACHED
BY BODH IN 2010
SLUMS EXPECTED TO BE REACHED
THROUGH BODH/GOVERNMENT
PARTNERSHIPS BY 2013
During those days, the government was only concerned with education
in rural communities. Our view was different. From the very first day,
we said that urban children needed both access to and quality in schools.
And over the years, Bodh has been recognized for having among the
most progressive curriculums and highest quality schools for deprived
urban communities. Today, urban children have comparatively far better
access to government schools. But quality is still a big problem. So we’ve
been invited to do several major projects for the government of Rajasthan.
One project supported by the UN established 200 formal schools working
in Rajasthan slums. Another effort that the foundation is supporting
is a sort of R&D exercise where we’re looking at how to implement
comprehensive and continuous assessment, and a progressive, childcentered curriculum, into government schools. The pilot is in 60 schools.
The goal is to take the learnings and implement the program in all
government schools in Rajasthan.
Akhtar Ali
Community Leader
I’ve been associated with Bodh since the time when the first Bodh teacher
started teaching a small group of 13 or 14 children. Establishing the school
was difficult. This is a slum area – you often have two families sharing one
room. In such a scenario, where is the land to build a school? We told the
people living where the school is, “Unless our children study, they will end
their lives as laborers.” And then we started having classes there. But there
was resistance. Someone went and reported illegal activity, and the police
came and booked quite a few of us.
Although I myself am uneducated, my children have all studied. All are
graduates, and my daughter is a teacher in a government school. Today,
there is hardly a child in our community who does not attend school. It’s
probably less than 5 percent. But earlier, in this very community, there was
a time when a girl of 10-12 years was not even allowed out of the house;
forget about educating her.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
18
CAP Foundation
Nalini Gangadharan
CEO, CAP Foundation
NALINI GANGADHARAN
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
India
SUMMARY:
Launched in 2003 to address the challenges faced by children working in hazardous
jobs, the CAP Foundation seeks to provide
underprivileged youth with the academic
and vocational training to move out of
poverty. Over the course of an initial
two-year pilot grant from the foundation
(later followed by a two-year matching
grant,) CAP helped thousands of vulnerable
students, ages 13 to 23, pass their grade
10 and 12 exams. Many of those students
continued on into higher education while
others obtained jobs in the organized
sector or continued to both work and
study further.
8362
66%
Enrolling students in this program demands massive mobilization efforts.
We rely heavily on a door-to-door contact strategy. We build very deep
relations with the community, its leaders, school head masters, self-help
groups, mothers committees, local and religious leaders, and our own
alumni. One big challenge we’re dealing with is the way many people look
at learning in India today -- it doesn’t really lead to equal access to job
opportunities. For instance, the kids we work with come from poor and
challenged backgrounds. These kids have visions, dreams, energy, potential
and ideas, but they still drop out of school, because school as traditionally
structured doesn’t help them move from learning to livelihood. The connectivity is missing; neither they nor their families see any value in continuing
education through the secondary level. So we’re trying to create a bypass
route to get kids back to school – both higher education and vocational
training – via multiple entry options. We start with the accelerated learning
program for high school completion and offer basic employability skills
training for entry-level job access.
We try to get students to realize that if they don’t complete class 10,
they can’t continue with higher education. Our students sometimes have
difficulties convincing their parents that continuing with school is the right
thing to do. We often have to do a lot of counselling. If there is a girl in a
family, for instance, we have to address the fact that her education might
not be a priority. What we try to do is to get her in to some short-term program where she can gain some skills, and then earn some money, and then
convince her family that, ‘Yes, she has a reason to go for higher education. ’
Similarly, once these students complete high school and acquire skills to
access entry level jobs, we encourage them to go for higher education and
training to access better jobs, higher salaries and an improved quality of life.
Prasanna Tanuku
CAP Student
AT-RISK CHILDREN AND
YOUTH EDUCATED VIA
CAP GRANT
CAP 10TH YEAR STUDENTS
WHO CONTINUE IN HIGHER ED
When I was in 7th standard, I had to drop out of school. I stayed at home
for 2 years without any work. But I saw all my friends studying, and I started
feeling very bad. I wanted to be something.
I knew that getting back in to mainstream studies would be difficult, but I
also knew if I could take some short term courses, there was a chance that I
could get job. So I requested that my brother enroll me in a computer course
at CAP. After I joined, a faculty member encouraged me to pursue additional
studies. Initially my brother rejected the idea; he wanted to marry me off.
But I wanted to work, and I was 15 -- not mature enough to get married.
A faculty member visited my brother to get his support, and my mother
helped convinced him, too. She always says her life went out of control
because she was illiterate, and she’s banking on me to succeed.
First I passed my 10th board examination. Then, in a two-year vocational
course, I secured 86 percent marks. Now I am in first year of my bachelor’s
degree, and I’m working as a data entry operator. Eventually, I’ll get my
MBA. I want to be a strong woman who can support her family even if
there’s a problem.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
19
Save the Children India
Shimul Javeri
Trustee, Save the Children India
When the foundation first met up with us, we were running a number of
study centers, and we were functioning fairly simply. We were using guide
books and attempting to get the child to try and pass, do a little better,
all of that. It wasn’t really scientific. In the old format, we didn’t know
children’s baseline learning level, so we were often trying to drill grade-five
information into a child who might only have a grade-two learning level.
SHIMUL JAVERI
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Mumbai, India
SUMMARY:
In spite of dramatic increases in school
enrollments among Indian school children
at every income level, educational quality
remains highly inconsistent. In Mumbai,
Save the Children India runs more than
110 study centers to help improve the
educational standards of slum children
between the ages of six and 14. With
foundation support, Save the Children
India revamped their teaching techniques
to more effectively address the individualized needs of every child and began using
third party assessments to gauge academic
growth and improve outcomes.
110
15%
20%
STUDY CENTERS
OPERATING IN MUMBAI
IMPROVEMENT IN
MATH SCORES
IMPROVEMENT IN
LANGUAGE SCORES
Then the foundation came in and said, ‘We want measurable improvements
in outcomes.’ They wanted us to look beyond existing school tests that
measure rote learning, and work with third-party evaluators to test children’s comprehension and application. I still remember my first meeting
with our CEO and our project head where they said, ‘We have 50 children
to a study center. How is a teacher meant to improve learning levels in the
dramatic way that the Dell family foundation wants? The school and
external assessments test different skills – how do we bridge both?’ And
obviously, what we wanted was for the child to be able to comprehend
first principles, and then be able to show improvement through
comprehension and application.
So we started baseline performance evaluations of each child to help us
measure their grade levels, and we also went all over the country looking
at different pedagogies. Of everything we saw, the River pedagogy – put
together by the J. Krishnamurty Foundation at Rishi Valley – was the most
child-centric. It depends on a ladder system using very child-friendly cards.
So, the first level is the rat and the last is the elephant. You graduate to
each animal -- when you finish with the rat, you wear a little rat crown,
and then you move on. It gives the child a sense of accomplishment,
and then he can move to the next step himself. It’s not so dependent on
the teacher.
The foundation has also pushed us to think about sustainability and a fiveyear strategy. We don’t plan to open more study centers; our goal is to reach
larger numbers of children. We want to take the model and package it into
a tight system, then disseminate it to affordable private schools, where
quality is still so suspect. They’re packing 60 to 70 children into a classroom,
and there is no accountability about quality. As a first step to our strategic
plan to scale up, we’re partnering with Mumbai government schools,
adapting the River pedagogy to their needs and helping to train their
teachers to systematically build child-centric learning into their approach.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
20
LEAP
Bonisile Ntlemeza
Principal & Life Orientation Teacher, Leap 1, Langa
BONISILE NTLEMEZA
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
South Africa
SUMMARY:
LEAP Science & Maths Schools was founded
in 2004 by educator John Gilmour to provide a low-cost, high-quality education to
some of South Africa’s most impoverished
communities. LEAP offers small classes and
small schools, double contact time in key
subjects like math, English and science,
and values-focused life orientation classes.
In 2010, 61 percent of LEAP graduates
qualified for university entry, compared
with the 14 percent average in the communities from which students are drawn.
Seventy-four percent of those graduates
continued their studies.
45%
GLOBAL PASS RATE FOR
NATIONAL GRADE 12
MATHEMATICS EXAM
98%
LEAP PASS RATE FOR
NATIONAL GRADE 12
MATHEMATICS EXAM
In the mid-90s, post-apartheid South Africa, the government had a grand
scheme of education opportunities for all. But what that looked like was,
‘Black kids, we’ll get as many of you as we can into our privileged schools,
and we will transform you.’ You know, fine, it’s a step. But it creates a
movement away from the core of where children come from­—there’s a
vacillation between going to school and living one way during the day,
and then going home and living another way at night. And even though
my students are in a township school with all black kids, that still exists.
They still get told, ‘Oh, you go to the white school.’ Or ‘you wear security
guard jackets.’ There’s always a little peer-level stab, and there are big
risks for kids who internalize that.
So at LEAP, we try to teach these children to own who you are and embrace
that no matter where you’re standing. As part of our life orientation
program, we have 40 minutes each day where kids have facilitated conversations about those issues. We teach them to be problem solvers, and to
work through things like, ‘How do you respond when people tell you things
you don’t want to hear? How do you tell someone else something they
don’t want to hear?’ Those interactions—those moments in life where you
get and receive feedback—are powerful. They build character. And kids can
apply those skills when they go back home to the township every night, or
when they have job interviews, or when they become bosses in the future.
John Gilmour
Founder & Director, LEAP Science & Maths Schools
Schools like LEAP Science and Maths are showing that past assumptions
around what township children can do and what a society can expect from
them are completely unfounded. They’re showing that we need to shift our
expectations completely. Together with our children, we work very, very
hard to deal with the issues of their feelings and their personal emotional
growth as well as their cognitive development, so that they can cope at any
university environment and go beyond that to become productive citizens
and good family members. And with the foundation’s support, we’re
exploring the idea of replication and scaling to really show that this is a
model that can work in any given context.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
21
Dell Young Leaders
While the 1994 end of Apartheid brought an equalization of
government spend across black and white students, it has
not closed the gap in education quality or outcomes. Overall,
only one percent of South Africa’s students graduate from
university. Among students of color, the rate is far lower. In
2003 only 55 African language entrants for the final school
examinations in the Western Cape (where Cape Town is located)
achieved scores necessary for higher study in science and math.
Bongeka Ndlovu
Dell Young Leader
BONGEKA NDLOVU
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
South Africa
SUMMARY:
The foundation launched the Dell Young
Leaders Program in 2010 to provide highachieving, underserved South African
students of color with comprehensive
support to help them complete university
and enter into the professional sector.
The first cohort included 25 students from
townships across South Africa; by 2014,
the program is expected to serve 500
students at multiple top-tier universities.
25
400
STUDENTS SERVED
IN 2010 COHORT
PROJECTED STUDENTS
SERVED BY 2014
Growing up, I lived with my father’s family. Then in 2006, my father died.
His family couldn’t keep us, and my mother lived in a single-room. So my
brother and sister and I went to live with her uncle in another township
nearby. I call him my grandfather.
Then, when I was in high school, I looked around and said, ‘I don’t have a
father, and my mother isn’t working. If my grandfather dies, it would be back
to square one. We’d have nothing and no place to go.’ So I told myself, ‘I’ll
make sure I get high marks so I can get an education and a job.’ I wanted to
go to school at the University of Cape Town, but it was really going to be a
burden on my grandfather to further my studies. So I started going online
in the deputy principal’s office after school and looking for bursaries.
Jiba Ngcobo
Minister, Umlazi Township
The township where Bongeka grew up -- it’s a basic, basic kind of a place,
including the schools. One big problem that affects all the youth is the
scourge of AIDS. It disintegrates our hopes. Too often, we pinpoint somebody
as a great leader in the future, and this disease comes along and knocks
them down. But we have high hopes that the disease will not reach
Bongeka. You always worry when a child like Bongeka is doing well. You
think, ‘Hey, how is she going to continue her studies to achieve the highest
goals that she has in her heart?’ That’s always a worry all the time. When
the news broke that she’d managed to get this bursary, we saw it as an
answer to our prayers.
Mahalingham Padayachee
Principal, Reunion Secondary School
This school services 100 percent historically disadvantaged learners. When
Bongeka did her grade 12 matric, we were all really anxious and eager to
get her results, because we knew that she was our high flyer. But when the
results came out, her grades had been switched with another girl with the
same name. We had to go through massive amounts of paper, thousands of
documents, to get it sorted out. But now that Bongeka is making it at UCT,
she can make it at any university in the world. And once the young people
see that someone from this township, can succeed, there will be others
striving to follow her. When I address the great halls or the assembly, it’s
Bongeka that’s the example that we speak about as someone who had a
very clear vision, who believed in herself and who is successful.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
22
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
health, wellness
and safety
Michael & Susan Dell
Center for Healthy Living
Dr. Alexandra Evans
Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences, Dell Center for Healthy Living,
Lead Researcher, Sprouting Healthy Kids Evaluation Project
I believe in data: The data show me what’s been successful. And the data
from the Sprouting Healthy Kids study showed that the children who have
gone through the program eat significantly more fruits and vegetables
than children who did not participate. But beyond that basic finding, what
was really interesting was what we learned about each of the program’s
components. We could look at them individually and determine which
really made the difference. And we found that, statistically, only three of
the six components were really important. That’s incredibly valuable
information; it allows you to say, ‘If we were to implement this program
broadly, if we were to drive some policy around it, could we focus on the
big three components and still get significant results?’
DR. ALEXANDRA EVANS
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Austin, United States
SUMMARY:
The Michael & Susan Dell Center for
Healthy Living works brings worldclass researchers together to focus on
evidence-based methods of preventing
and controlling childhood obesity. The
center works with community-based
organizations to evaluate and increase
the effectiveness of their programs,
then works with policy makers
to craft policies that promote healthy
behaviors among children. In 2010, the
center conducted a study on an Austin,
TX-based initiative called Sprouting
Healthy Kids, which takes a multicomponent, school-based approach to
trying to increase fruit and vegetable
consumption among adolescents.
1IN5
TEXAS ADOLESCENTS
(10-17) ARE OBESE OR
OVERWEIGHT
300%
The ultimate goal of this work – the work of the center overall – is to drive
policy changes either at the city level, the state level or the federal level.
But it’s also to get the information back to the local organizations that we
work with so they can adjust future programming, because it makes no
sense to be spending money on strategies that don’t work, even though
they feel good.
Dr. Deanna Hoelcher
Director, Dell Center for Healthy Living
Most of the time, people in the research world will conduct an NIH
(National Institutes of Health) study and not extend their findings into
real-life practice. We try to flip that around. So, for example, we look at
innovations that come out of the community, try to strengthen certain
components, and then put rigorous design around testing those
innovations. Then we extract evidence about what works and what
doesn’t. After we do that, the next question is always, “How do we
help sustain momentum?” Because what we’re trying to do is design
and test scalable, evidenced-based practices. So besides applying
evidence-based research methods to community-based initiatives,
a major part of what we do is translate our findings to policy makers
so they can craft sound policies around childhood obesity and other
childhood health issues.
RATE OF INCREASE IN US
CHILDHOOD OBESITY
SINCE THE 1980’S
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
24
Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC)
Janece Simmons
Health Community Development Planner,
West Humboldt Park Development Council
I work with 34 block clubs in West Humboldt Park. The walkability study and
tool really helped the block clubs address safety issues that other processes
didn’t. One big problem that got fixed was pedestrian lighting. There are
lights on the streets, but the trees blocked them, so it was still too dark to feel
safe. Another block used the assessment as the launch point for turning an
abandoned lot into a community garden for edible plants. On another block,
the priority was to block sidewalk access to an empty lot, so cars that parked
there wouldn’t just drive over the sidewalk to get to the street. Now there are
posts there and people can walk safely. Kids can ride their bikes.
JANECE SIMMONS
Dr. Adam Becker
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
Chicago, United States
SUMMARY:
Founded in 2002, the Consortium to Lower
Obesity in Chicago Children is a datadriven, Chicago-wide initiative aimed at
coordinating local residents working to
fight obesity among the city’s children.
Recognized as a model prevention effort
by the Centers for Disease Control and
others, the organization works with more
than 3,000 individual partners from over
1,200 organizations to achieve impact,
and to gather data about initiatives that
are needed and initiatives that work. In
2009 and 2010, the foundation supported
the development of a walkability assessment tool and training so that CLOCC and
partners could systematically measure
and improve the obstacles to safe walking
and biking in certain low-income Chicago
neighborhoods. The CLOCC Neighborhood
Walkability Assessment initiative became
an important foundation for a large federal
grant from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
10%
22%
Executive Director, CLOCC
When you think about the complexity of a problem like obesity, citywide
environmental changes have the potential to impact the greatest number of
people. But often, identification of the bigger issues comes from our understanding of the challenges faced in smaller communities. For example, people
in one neighborhood may have a big beautiful park that they never use. Why?
The only way to get to it is across a high-speed road with broken traffic lights
and no crosswalk. That type of information informs us about the changes that
need to occur at broader levels – changes such as “complete streets” policies
that guide citywide street and sidewalk infrastructure development.
There’s also another challenge: Funders, policy makers, and even individual
taxpayers want to be able to tie environmental change to individual outcomes. They want to know, ‘You changed the environment; so has overall
BMI gone down?’ But the reality is that it’s difficult to tie an environmental
outcome like ‘we added some streetlights and built some crosswalks’ to a
health outcome like ‘people on that block lost an average of 2.2 pounds.’
The levels of change you have to measure are complex. So, one big part of
our work has been trying to get our partners in the community even thinking about evaluations and measurement. To get them asking questions like,
‘What do we want to change, and how do we measure that?’ The goal isn’t
to get them to become scientific evaluators, of course. But we do want
them to be skilled at using basic tools.
Miguel Morales
OBESITY RATE AMONG US
CHILDREN AGES 2-5 (2008)
OBESITY RATE AMONG
CHICAGO CHILDREN
AGES 3-7 (2008)
Community Networker, West Town, CLOCC
The main goal of the walkability project was to give people tools to facilitate
environmental changes and make outdoor activity safer. So for instance, some
residents of West Humboldt Park perceived walking in the neighborhood to
be unsafe because of drug activity on corners, abandoned housing and other
issues. As part of the project, block club members and other residents used
our assessment tool to answer detailed, block-by-block questions. Then once
residents identified barriers to walkability, the second part of the tool offered
information about facts and rights. It helped people understand how to
access city government to make changes in the neighborhood. Then the
information gathered in those initial assessments can later serve as a
baseline for measuring processes effectiveness and environmental change.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
25
2010 HIGHLIGHTS
family economic
stability
Micro Housing Finance Corporation (MHFC)
Rajnish Dahll
Managing Director, MHFC
When we started this business, we faced a Catch-22: Developers have
known for a long time that there’s massive latent aspiration to buy a
home. But no one would step forward and finance the carpenters, the
mechanics, the plumbers, the drivers, the maids, the small shopkeepers
and others who need better homes. In the developers’ minds, there was
a question: ‘What’s the point in building for them?’ Aspiration is not real
demand. So what Micro Finance Housing Corporation did was landmark;
we gave the whole ecosystem of low-income housing a push. Workers
in the informal sector could finally get mortgages, and developers could
finally see real demand. And the foundation’s role early on was critical,
especially in terms of adding credibility to a project that others
viewed as risky.
RAJNISH DAHLL
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
India
SUMMARY:
India faces a housing crisis not seen
anywhere else in the world. A shortage of
at least 25 million homes disproportionately affects the residents of the country’s
52,000-plus urban slum communities.
These families often spend up to 25 percent
of their income on illegal apartments that
lack basic sanitation and offer few legal
protections. Five decades of government
intervention to address the problem has
been ineffectual.
Micro Finance Housing Corporations
(MHFC) began operations in 2009 and,
with foundation support, ramped up
operations throughout 2010. By enabling
access to housing finance for low-income
urban residents, MFHC seeks to reinforce
developer confidence in building homes
for this population -- and to ultimately
create a sustainable, market-based
solution to the housing gap among
India’s working urban poor.
1200
0.0%
HOME LOANS
ISSUED
DEFAULT
RATE
So far we’ve made about 1,200 loans. Most of the houses cost about
$10,000 and most of the buyers make $250 to $400 a month. We’ve had
no defaults. Unfortunately, we’re one company. Even if we double our
number of loans every year, what we can do on our own is just a drop
in the ocean when you’re talking about a housing shortfall of 25 million
homes. But, five years from now, even if we’ve only made 50,000 total
loans, we’ll still be happy. Because we can still be a proof of concept for
other housing finance companies to come in and say, ‘Yes, this is a
segment that can take a loan and pay it back. We didn’t think about it
or didn’t believe it was possible, but MHFC has gone out and shown
that this segment is perhaps even better than high-income or
middle-income segments.’
Tanaji Thombare
Loan Officer
Before I started this job, I thought it would be difficult work. I felt, working
with this sector, will I be able to do business? What about defaulters?
But then I gave it a try. Since then, I’ve worked with around 170 customers.
They typically live in very small houses in congested areas, basically slum
areas, with maybe six to seven family members in 150 to 175 square
feet. They stay in chawls (tenements) or even in illegal houses. They
want something better for their families.
It’s very difficult to handle each and every person in the same manner –
they all have different situations. Sometimes we deal with businesses
we are familiar with, like fruit or vegetable vendors. Or sometimes we
deal with professions that we don’t know much about, like web or
graphic designers. So we have a lot of discussions with customers to
learn about their professional incomes. We also visit the neighbours
and ask them about a customer’s behavior and work. What I’ve found
is that people working in the unorganized sector are very good
customers. Not even one customer has defaulted in these two years.
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
27
Janalakshmi Financial Services
Jaya Rupanagunta
VP Products and Marketing, Janalakshmi Financial
Services & COO, Janalakshmi Social Services
One of the biggest challenges for the microfinance industry right now is
client protection and governance. With smart cards, the moment the
customer swipes on the terminal, there is an online feed that documents
the transaction; it brings far more transparency and accountability to the
system, and my customer knows it. She can walk out with a receipt proving
that she has got this transaction done. And that’s independent of any one
person out there.
Another issue is sustainability. To make any solution scalable or sustainable,
you can’t run on charity driven institutions; it’s just not sustainable. So
the balance we’re trying to achieve is providing market-based solutions
without losing sight of the social character of our agenda.
JAYA RUPANAGUNTA
GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:
VS Radhakrishnan
Urban India
CEO & Managing Director, Janalakshmi Financial Services PVT. LTD.
SUMMARY:
Founded in 2006, Janalakshmi Financial
Services is one of the first microfinance
institutions (MFIs) focused on providing the
urban poor with a wide range of financial
products that extend well beyond groupsecured loans. Janalakshmi was the first
MFI in the country to launch biometric
smartcard technology as a transaction
device, and its introduction of savings
accounts to low-income urban clients
has the potential to significantly reduce
their long-term economic vulnerability.
70%
136M
NEW JOBS GENERATED
IN CITIES
ESTIMATED NUMBER
OF URBAN RESIDENTS
WHO LACK ACCESS TO
FORMAL BANKING*
What we are seeing is that 70 percent of Bangalore does not have bank
accounts, despite there being a bank on every corner. Basically, your drivers,
your maid servants, etc. -- no traditional bank is willing to work with them.
But they have a financial need. Moreover, once they come in they don’t
want just loans, which is what many microfinance institutions offer. They
want other solutions, starting with a simple saving product. So if we can
address these customers through a savings bank account approach, then
over a period of time, based on their financial behavior, we can look at
giving them loans, mortgages, and other products such as micro pensions
where your maid can pay $2 a month and get a pension when she retires.
And the fact that we offer customers multiple products makes the
relationship that we have with our customers much stronger. It minimizes
risk and it serves customers, since most of these services aren’t available
to the urban poor today.
Manjula
Loan Recipient, Small Business Owner
My husband is a laborer. He lays tile. I run my own business out of my
house. Taking loans from any other place I would have to pay a very
large interest, but with Janalakshmi, I got the loan at a very low interest.
I first took a loan to buy my own sewing machine and to start my
business and then after paying it back, I took another loan to expand
my business. I also have a micro pension account with Janalakshmi,
and I have a savings account so I can educate my son. I want him to
be a doctor.
(SOURCE)* “Working with the market: Approach to reducing slums in Urban India,” World Bank,
2010 India Retirement Earnings & Savings Survey, Ministry of Finance; “India’s urban awakening,”
McKinsey Global Institute
MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION 2010 GIVING REPORT
28
our employees 2010
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Janet Mountain
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FINANCE AND OPERATIONS
Lorenzo Tellez
Meredith Cunningham
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