Aligned to The UN’s #1 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of “No Poverty”, GAP’s objective is to accelerate the impact produced by a diverse set of committed, passionate individuals (“Changemakers”), who are tirelessly working to bring people out of poverty through myriad ways. GAP provides these Changemakers a range of resources and capabilities through Partners, to enable them to transform the level at which they work. Partners from different spheres such as Academia, Corporates, Foundations/charities, Impact Investors, Governments and others have joined hands with GAP to empower these Changemakers to make poverty history. As an initiative of Head Held High Foundation, GAP’s journey started in 2014 when a few passionate people came together to design a collaborative space where actionable steps could be taken to eradicate poverty. The conversations led to the launch of GAP in March 2015 at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India. The two-day event brought together 300+ individuals who pledged to wipe out poverty by working collaboratively. We subsequently organized GAP 2016 (in February) at the same venue bringing together another set of 300+ individuals for a period of 4 days, where each of the Changemakers went through a rigorous process of understanding their purposes, detailing out their plans, interacting with their Coaches and finding collaborators. With these two events and continuing engagements with the Changemakers, GAP has had an exciting two years and has brought together 250 Changemakers from 68 Districts across India 165 Partners, 30 Professional Coaches & 20 Mentors to galvanize the leadership of Changemakers in India and around the globe. Over the last two years, we have learnt that a Changemaker not only needs resources & networks, but also need to build his/her own capabilities to considerably increase the impact on a poor person’s life through their enterprise or initiative. GAP has built a spectrum of services and resources to address all these needs to widen and deepen their impact. Changemakers will derive enormous benefit from various GAP programs, such as GAP Funds, GAP Shared Services, GAP Volunteers, GAP Learn, GAP Coaching, GAP Partner Networks, GAP Leadership Programs, and others. GAP Changemakers have been able to connect with relevant individuals, leverage coaching to expand their leadership capabilities, find effective strategies for their organization’s growth which has enabled them to take their initiative to the next level and most importantly, create a larger impact on the communities they serve. But we believe that supporting and empowering Changemakers from many walks of life, by providing them with expertise, resources and capability will augment their efforts in moving people out of poverty. Our Manifesto
GAP believes that every human being on this planet has the right to live with dignity and in abundance. GAP envisions a world where collective ideas and action will wipe out poverty altogether. GAP knows that Changemakers are the ones that will make change happen on the ground and it empowers them to widen and deepen their impact
Our Ethos
No Us & Them
We think it is important to know that there is no ‘us' and ‘them', no ‘we are privileged’ and 'they are poor’, no ‘we know the answers’ and ’they don’t’, no ‘I sympathize’ or ‘I get them’. The whole intention behind GAP is for each of us to know that we are somehow responsible for this creation called ‘poverty’ and we are together going to eradicate it. Inner & Outer
The solutions are both inner and outer. Inner means having belief in oneself, having courage and even knowing with utmost surety that ‘I am capable and I know what I am doing with my life’. Outer means that ‘I have the capacity to make this happen’, the readiness to connect, get others to engage and come along on the change making journey. Co-creating
We want to co-create this together and endeavor to bring the best of what each one of us has so that Changemakers benefit the most from our efforts. In the end, we intend that the Changemaker is able to make a real difference in the lives of the poor.
