We areLiftEd.

On a mission to transform foundational learning in India. ​

children

Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) are often taken for granted. We want children across India equipped with FLN, the basic building blocks of learning.

students

we are Impacting

4 million children

RAISING

$20 million

over

5 years

We’re working in alignment with the Government of India’s NIPUN Bharat Mission, launched to equip every child in India with Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) skills – the cornerstone on which a child’s learning journey is built.

Driving collective action, finance, and innovation, we’ve convened leaders in education across the private sector and civil society to form an ‘impact multiplier’, bolstering the government’s commitment to India’s education goals.

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How LiftEd works

LiftEd uses innovation, collaboration and scale through a dual approach:

1

Development Impact Bond (DIB) to improve in-school learning outcomes

school

Who:

Our on-ground education partners are Kaivalya Education Foundation, Language and Learning Foundation, Peepul, and Pratham Education Foundation.

Where:

Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi NCR, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.

HOW:

We’re taking a ‘systems change’ approach, working with stakeholders who influence education at scale. Our on-ground education partners work with state governments and school facilitators to train and build their capacity to improve FLN levels. By working with block and district officers, school principals, and teachers, our partners will impact more lives across a longer period of time due to the ripple effect.

The DIB uses the principles of outcomes-based financing, where the flow of funds is linked to the achievement of predetermined targets (validated by third-party evaluators). This puts learning outcomes for children at the heart of its focus.

2

EdTech Accelerator to improve at-home learning outcomes

writing-boy

Who:

Our at-home education partners are Amira Learning, Chimple, Mindspark, Pratham Education Foundation, Rocket Learning, Sesame Workshop India, ThinkZone, and Top Parent.

Where:

Pan-India

HOW:

Our EdTech Accelerator is designed to support education partners develop high-quality and contextually relevant EdTech solutions for children from low-income communities. Each of our partners is focusing on solving specific anchor challenges such as: unlocking pathways for scale and engagement, product contextualisation for low-income students, and building sustainable models. 

Support is provided through avenues such as mentorship, capacity building workshops, and showcase events. Each partner also receives funding for their solution, and based on impact assessments, two solutions with the most promising impact that demonstrate the highest potential to scale unlock additional funding support.

Meet the partners
powering LiftEd

Founding partners

atlassian
usaib
ubs

Programme leader

british-asian-trust

Design and technical partners

central-square-foundation
dalberg

Education partners

On-ground

pratham

At-home

chimple
mindspark
pretham
rocket-laerning
sesame
think-zone
tough

Evaluation partners

convegenius
ds
ei
sambodhi

Prof Tarun Jain 
(IIM Ahmedabad) Principal Investigator for EdTech Accelerator

legal partners

freshfields
nishith-desai
girl-and-boy

By working together, our vibrant and diverse coalition is strengthening India’s education ecosystem. We’re unlocking young India’s potential, and improving foundational learning and life chances for up to 4 million children!

Hear what the coalition has to say

1/11

“We’re inspired by LiftEd because it incorporates many of the elements we believe can have an incredibly positive impact on education outcomes: a focus on impact, rather than activity, active government involvement, and the scaling of proven approaches, delivered by a first-rate team. We look forward to LiftEd and its partner organisations delivering life-changing FLN outcomes for millions of children across India.”

Mark Reading

Head, Atlassian Foundation

2/11

“We’re hugely excited about the potential of LiftEd. By working to improve basic literacy and numeracy skills at a systems level, we believe it can have a transformative impact on the lives of millions of children in India over the next four years, while also helping to shape the future of education in the country. LiftEd is also a great example of the power of partnerships in creating and scaling effective solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Bridges is delighted to be able to contribute what we’ve learned from over a decade of delivering outcomes-based projects, and we’re really grateful to our partners on the SDG Outcomes initiative for helping us to bring this pioneering collaboration to life.”

Amit Shah

Investment Director, Bridges Outcomes Partnerships

3/11

“LiftEd will strengthen foundational learning skills for millions of children, setting them up for success later in life. By steering this initiative from conception to implementation and convening a coalition of experienced global partners, the British Asian Trust has created an opportunity to strengthen foundational learning in a scalable and sustainable manner. Applying our learnings from previous successes in education in India, we recognised the value of aligning with the Government of India’s goals, embedding a systems-change approach and unlocking the power of technology early on.”

Bharath Visweswariah

Executive Director India, British Asian Trust

4/11

“LiftEd aligns closely with Maitri’s strategic goals to improve primary school systems and foundational literacy and numeracy attainment, offering significant opportunity to make meaningful improvements in learner outcomes on a large scale. The initiative’s focus on systemic shifts, tying changes within the education system back to their subsequent impact on the child, could prove game changing for future systemic capacity building programmes. With ambitious targets to positively impact 4 million children, we believe joining this collaborative initiative will accelerate progress far beyond what we could achieve in isolation.” 

Luke Aspinall

CEO, The Maitri Trust

5/11

“The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is proud to partner with LiftEd consortium, which is a bold ecosystem initiative to improve and mainstream foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes in government schools. This will be the first development impact bond where the nonprofit organisations involved are achieving outcomes by building capacities in the government school system rather than implementing interventions directly. The Dell Foundation has always been supportive of such innovative projects which help the system achieve outsized impact on the lives of children. We look forward to the success of all the partners embarking on this journey.”

Prachi Jain-Windlass

Senior Director, India Programs, The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

6/11

“Providing children a strong start to their learning journey ensures them a bright future where they can fully realise their potential. Reliance Foundation shares this vision with all the consortium partners who have come together to launch LiftEd to foster learning and innovation in foundational literacy and numeracy. Bringing together the consortium’s collective strength and experience and aligning with the Government of India’s NIPUN Bharat, LiftEd could prove life-changing for millions of children across India.”

Jagannatha Kumar

CEO, Reliance Foundation

7/11

“As a company whose Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ethos includes investment in development of the regions where we operate, being a part of LiftEd is a clear pathway towards our goals. Through this unique initiative, we will strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy, identified as the highest priority of the education system by the Government of India, for millions of children across India, generating far-reaching, long-lasting impact.”

Karuna Bhatia

Head of Sustainability, Standard Chartered Bank India & Global Business Services

8/11

“In our experience, outcomes-based finance can be a powerful way to improve learning outcomes for millions of school children around the world, including India. Building on a strong track record of outcomes contracts in education in India, we are delighted to come together with our partners to launch LiftEd and strengthen basic numeracy and literacy skills using both classroom-based and home-schooling tools.”

Dhun Davar

Head, Social Finance UBS Optimus Foundation and Head of Social Impact & Philanthropy, India and Middle East

9/11

“Around the world, USAID supports quality education and literacy programs, paving the way for a more equitable and prosperous global future. In India, USAID partners with the government, civil society, and private sector to promote innovative and scalable solutions that will have local reach and can have global impact. USAID is pleased to support LiftEd to invest in the future of India and the world.

Veena Reddy

Mission Director, USAID/India

10/11

“LiftEd resonates closely with CSF’s core mission to improve FLN outcomes at scale in India, both in schools and at home. A key component of LiftEd is nurturing the development of high-quality EdTech solutions through the EdTech Accelerator. Among the numerous EdTech organisations in India, only a small proportion focus on foundational learning, and even fewer are built for low-income users. The LiftEd Accelerator adopts a unique approach to solving this by catalysing the supply of diverse, innovative EdTech solutions and by galvanising demand for at-home learning, hence meaningfully contributing to achieving NIPUN Bharat’s learning goals.”

Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja

CEO & MD, Central Square Foundation

11/11

“While the pandemic exacerbated India’s learning crisis, there is now an extraordinary window of opportunity to accelerate outcomes on foundational learning through the government’s NIPUN Bharat Mission. LiftEd rides on this momentum to scale effective school-based solutions and innovative home-based EdTech solutions. Dalberg is excited to be a part of this ambitious initiative – unprecedented in raising the stakes for outcomes while working through government systems. I believe it is our best shot at achieving impact at scale.”

Dayoung Lee

Partner, Dalberg

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Interested in learning about Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) and why it matters? Watch this 101 explainer from our partners at the Central Square Foundation.

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