NEW DELHI: Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment bank and active investor in India, announced the winners of the Goldman Sachs Gives Analyst Impact Fund competition.
This year a team from Bengaluru competed to secure a total grant of $50,000 for Operation ASHA, a New Delhi based non-profit organization dedicated to bringing tuberculosis treatment and health services to the poor of urban slums and rural villages.
Operation ASHA was awarded a grant of $25,000 for making it to the finals of the global competition and received an additional grant of $25,000 for being selected the “Fan Favorite,” equaling a total of $50,000.
The Fan Favorite award, a new category added this year, was selected on the basis of real-time voting by Goldman Sachs employees who watched and attended the finals from offices around the world.
The annual Analyst Impact Fund is an initiative that provides Goldman Sachs employees with the opportunity to collaborate with peers across global offices to win a grant for a non-profit organization of their choice and impact the communities where they live and work. The funding comes from Goldman Sachs Gives, a donor-advised fund through which Goldman Sachs and its current and retired senior employees provide grants to qualifying non-profit organizations globally.
This year, Goldman Sachs India employees were finalists in a competition featuring teams from around the globe who presented their applications to support 66 non-profit organizations around the world.
India has the highest number of tuberculosis cases in the world and the disease is one of the leading infectious causes of death locally. According to the World Health Organization, India accounts for about 32 percent of the number of people worldwide who succumbed to tuberculosis, making it the world’s largest tuberculosis epidemic.
In 2016, approximately 2.8 million patients across the country were estimated to have been infected by tuberculosis. In March of this year, Prime Minister Modi announced the National Strategic Plan to eliminate tuberculosis in India by 2025.
In the 2017 Analyst Impact Fund competition, Goldman Sachs India employees secured a $75,000 grant for Educate Girls, a non-profit organization that works towards improving enrolment, retention and learning outcomes for girls in some of the most rural, remote and marginalized communities in India.
This year’s Goldman Sachs India team was one of six finalists from around the world. Bondh-E-Shams, a UK-based NGO committed to providing clean water to inaccessible South Asian villages through the use of solar energy powered water pumps, took first place winning a grant of $150,000.
