India: mPokket, one of India’s leading digital lending platforms, has released a full year of outcomes from two of its core CSR programmes – teacher salary support for a free school in Birati, and infrastructure support for a women’s livelihoods centre in Kolkata. mPokket’s core CSR spend for FY 2025-26 anchors these two flagship programmes: Knowledge Prabhat School in Birati, run by the Birati Globe Vision Society (BGVS), and the Dakshini Prayash Empowerment Centre in Madurdaha, Kolkata, built in partnership with Dakshini Prayash and SVP.
mPokket’s CSR spend goes into the infrastructure that makes everything else possible – teacher salaries, floor space, physical capacity. The return on that funding doesn’t show up in a single number. It shows up across a community – in classrooms that stayed open all year, in women who moved from occasional income to steady monthly earnings, and in the confidence and household stability that follows. It is the model mPokket wants its CSR spend held to fund the precondition, not the photograph.
Rajani Jalan, Chief Mentor at mPokket, said, “At mPokket, we think about CSR the way we think about credit, the invisible groundwork matters more than the visible moment. A teacher’s salary and a production floor aren’t glamorous line items, but a year on, the numbers show they’re the ones that compound. That’s the standard we hold our CSR spend to.”
That compounding shows up clearly at the Dakshini Prayash Empowerment Centre. Women’s earnings through the centre’s Self-Reliance Unit rose 176 per cent year-on-year in the first full quarter after the centre opened. Participation grew alongside earnings – the number of women engaged with the Unit rose from 13 to 30, and the number earning between ₹3,000 and ₹9,000 a month quadrupled, from 3 to 12. A three-part Financial Literacy Workshop series with YFLO, Dhanvesttor and SVP reached an average of 33 participants per session, 24 of them from Dakshini Prayash. Looking ahead, plans for the centre include rooftop solar panels and a 5,000-litre rainwater harvesting system, additions expected to bring down operating costs over time and support the centre’s long-term sustainability.
Anubhuti Prakash, President, Dakshini Prayash, said, The women who come through our doors don’t need a handout, they need a place to build from. This past year showed us what happens when that place is stable enough to grow.”
The same principle was held at Knowledge Prabhat School in Birati. The free, English-medium school charges families just Rs 11 a month and serves 172 students. mPokket’s CSR funding covered a full year of teacher salaries, keeping classrooms staffed without interruption through FY 2025-26. That stability reached the students directly, children from the school went on to compete at district- and state-level competitions this year.
Gopinath Paul (‘Chandan’), Secretary, Birati Globe Vision Society, said, “Quality education depends not only on providing children with access to a school, but also on ensuring continuity in teaching and learning. mPokket’s support towards total operating Cost for the throughout the year has helped us maintain this continuity at Knowledge Prabhat School for Underprivileged Students, allowing our teachers to remain focused on nurturing each child’s learning and development. We believe that sustained support for teachers creates a stronger foundation for children to learn, grow in confidence and realise their potential.”
The Empowerment Centre was built through a partnership between Dakshini Prayash, SVP and mPokket; the Financial Literacy Workshop series drew on YFLO, Dhanvesttor and SVP; and the wider network supporting these two programmes includes Young Indians, GRIRR, Help Us Help Them, PAPSVI and Little Smile Dental Clinic, which has supported health and dental camps for the community. mPokket’s approach in FY 2025-26 has been to fund the specific, foundational piece it is best positioned to fund, and to rely on this network of partners for the rest.
After serving various communities in West Bengal for 10 Years, mPokket is taking its CSR commitment to Bengaluru, partnering with MASS in Belgaum and Vedan Trust to tackle education, empowerment and sustainability. Through MASS, it aims to open doors for children from ex-Devadasi, Dalit and other vulnerable communities with higher education scholarships, child education support and youth empowerment, so that financial barriers no longer decide a student’s future. With Vedan Trust, mPokket is exploring a sustainable waste management project at Bengaluru’s KR Market, focused on better waste collection and segregation, vendor engagement and community awareness. Together, these efforts show a clear purpose: using education, community empowerment and sustainable development to create lasting social and environmental impact.