What Happened When 800 Tribal Families Received Cash With Full Freedom To Use It Their Way

The sun had barely risen over the Satpura hills when a small group of visitors walked into a village known more for its silence than its opportunities. They carried no forms, no pamphlets, no speeches. Just a message that sounded too good to be true.

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“We will put money in your bank account,” they said, “no questions asked.”

The villagers exchanged uncertain glances. Some laughed. Others walked away. After all, promises had come here before — of schools that never opened, of schemes that never reached, of rights that remained words on paper.

As Sandip Deore of Yung Foundation recalls, “Abhi tak waha sirf lene wale aaye hai, dene wale nahi(Until now, people have just taken from them; nobody has come to give).”

Suspicion was natural. In places where every promise had a price, trust could not be demanded; it had to be earned — slowly, steadily, with proof.

That is how Project DEEP began its work in these remote tribal hamlets: not through announcements or meetings, but through slow conversations and trust that grew one visit at a time, giving families the freedom to decide what their future should look like.

From these early steps emerged an idea that questioned decades of development thinking. Instead of prescribing solutions, Project DEEP chose to ask a simple, powerful question: What if we trusted people to shape their own path out of poverty?

It all began with Rs 10000

The idea behind Project DEEP didn’t begin in an office or during a planning meeting. It began with a video.

While watching a TED Talk by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, co-founder Pankhuri Shah — who had left a corporate career to work in the development sector — found herself re-examining everything she thought she knew about poverty.

“Poverty isn’t a lack of character; it’s a lack of cash,” Bregman said in the talk. The line stayed with her. “He even mentioned a study from Madhya Pradesh on the impact of financial security,” she recalls. “It was the first time I began to see cash transfers as a real solution.”

Still, belief alone was not enough. An advisor suggested they test the idea on the ground. “It’s easy to talk about unconditional transfers,” Pankhuri explains. “But to actually do it, he asked us to try a very small pilot — something tangible.”

They carried Rs 10,000 to a community in Mumbai. The response was wary. “We weren’t prepared for how reluctant people would be,” she admits. Yet when they returned two weeks later, what they saw surprised them.

One woman had started the vegetable cart she had long dreamed of. Another renewed her daughter’s insurance. Someone had paid off medical bills. One woman simply saved her share, hoping to treat herself to a good meal on her next free day.

“It struck me how rarely people like her thought of themselves,” Pankhuri tells The Better India. “She said it was difficult to even imagine spending money on her own needs. They don’t want luxuries; they just want a fair chance to start something.”

That small experiment changed everything. It showed that when people are trusted with agency, they make choices guided by care, reason, and hope — qualities no scheme can impose from outside.

Building a model on trust

The idea that began with Rs 10,000 soon grew into a larger experiment in trust.

At the heart of Project DEEP (Direct, Empowerment, Evidence, Participation) is a simple promise: give people money directly, without conditions, and believe they will use it wisely.

Each household receives a one-time transfer of Rs 65,000, sent straight to the bank account of a woman in the family. The amount was chosen carefully — it equals about 70 to 80 percent of what most families earn in a year, large enough to change their circumstances, not just cover their next few months.

“Our first preference is that the woman receives the money,” explains Pankhuri. “We want to ensure that she has both agency and control.”

To reach families who need capital but lack access to loans or credit, Project DEEP works with trusted grassroots organisations like the Shram Sarathi Association in Rajasthan and the Yung Foundation in Maharashtra. Together, they identify villages where the absence of financial support — not the lack of effort — is what keeps people trapped in poverty.

So far, Project DEEP has reached 800 families across six locations in Rajasthan and Maharashtra, impacting over 3,400 lives.

“First, you have to see everything,” says Sandip. “The geography, the culture, the economy. You have to understand what people really want.” His team spends weeks visiting homes, conducting surveys, and listening to local concerns before a single rupee is transferred.

But when the news spreads that someone is giving away money, suspicion comes naturally. “They didn’t trust us immediately,” Sandip recalls. 

To bridge this mistrust, Project DEEP built transparency into every step. Teams hold awareness sessions to warn villagers against fraud. They help families open bank accounts and explain every part of the process. Transfers happen electronically, and each beneficiary receives a printed receipt with a contact number.

“So that nobody can question them later,” says Pankhuri.

In Shelkui village of Nandurbar district, Bhaidaas, a banking correspondent who also received the transfer, became a crucial bridge between DEEP and the community. “Villagers thought they would be asked to leave their homes,” he remembers. “They kept saying, ‘7 hazaar mein kharid lenge’ (they will buy us for Rs 7,000). But I explained to them that this was for our benefit.”

That patience and communication slowly built something stronger than any policy — trust.

“The best part of DEEP,” Sandip says, “is that there is participation. People have a choice. They have freedom.”

From debts to dignity

As the transfers began reaching families, the changes were small at first — a repaired wall, a new motor, seeds bought on time. But over months, those choices grew into something deeper: freedom.

In Rajasthan, Ganga, who once spent her days worrying about water, used the money to dig a borewell and install a motor. “My family is happy,” she says simply. “We remember them (Pankhuri and the team) a lot for their help.”

In the farming communities of Nandurbar, Sandip saw an extraordinary shift. “In these 102 families, it happened for the first time that no one had to borrow money for agriculture,” he recalls. For generations, farmers had depended on moneylenders. This time, they sowed their fields with their own savings.

Beyond the crops and tools, the change ran much deeper. It showed in the way people spoke, walked, and carried themselves.

“People’s self-confidence grows,” says Pankhuri. “The first thing women tell us is that they can now go to local shops with their heads held high.”

For the women, this sense of dignity meant more than the money itself. It was the first time someone had trusted them completely — and they had proved worthy of that trust.

Rethinking the act of giving

For Pankhuri, the project was never just about giving money. It was about challenging a long-standing relationship between those who give and those who receive.

“The biggest thing for me is the power dynamic,” she reflects. “This model challenges that. It’s an equal relationship.”

Through Project DEEP, she wanted to rebuild what she calls the trust deficit — the gap between well-intentioned aid and the people it hopes to serve. Many philanthropic efforts, she believes, assume that poor people need guidance rather than freedom.

“We must stop seeing money as identity,” she says. “People have skills, ambitions, and they know best how to shape their future.”

Funded by philanthropic capital, Project DEEP partners with organisations such as BDO, Spectrum Impact, Forbes Marshall, Give, KV Mariwala Philanthropy Initiative, and the Mariwala Health Initiative.

The team conducts follow-up surveys — one within three to four months to understand immediate use and decision-making, and another after a year to assess long-term changes in income, confidence, and well-being.

Project DEEP aims to fill what Pankhuri calls the “white space” in Indian philanthropy — a gap where few Indian funders are willing to trust people directly with cash. The team hopes their work can inspire others to reimagine how giving happens in India.

The organisation is co-founded by Pankhuri, who leads research and programmes, and Muzamil Baig, who leads partnerships and growth.

While the current approach focuses on one-time transfers, they are exploring variations for different groups, learning from global pilots. The goal isn’t to prove that unconditional cash transfers are the only answer, but to show that dignity and choice can be transformative tools for lasting change.

A belief worth betting on

Project DEEP began with a question that sounded almost naïve: what if we simply trusted people to know what’s best for themselves?

In the years since, that question has quietly reshaped hundreds of lives across tribal India — not through grand programmes or speeches, but through faith in people’s choices. In villages once defined by broken promises, this act of trust has sparked something that no policy could deliver: self-belief.

Every transfer carries a simple message — that progress can begin with respect. When people are trusted with dignity, they respond with determination.

The team behind Project DEEP believes this is only the beginning. As they study results, refine methods, and explore new ways of adapting the model, they hope to see more institutions and donors embrace the same idea — that poverty isn’t a question of potential, but of opportunity.

Their work is a reminder that real progress begins when we stop prescribing answers and start trusting people to shape their own.

All images from the Project DEEP team.