OUR TEAM

The hands behind it.

A foundation that moves money for animals needs two things: someone who knows how money is accounted for, and someone who knows what animals actually need. That is the whole of the team, and it is deliberate.

Chairman & Chief Executive

Yeshwant Chavan

Yeshwant Chavan spent thirty-six years in the Indian Revenue Service. He joined with the 1988 batch and retired as Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax.

That is a career spent on the other side of the paperwork charitable money generates — assessing it, auditing it, and knowing precisely how it goes wrong. It is the reason this foundation settles with clinics against invoices rather than handing out cash, and the reason the accounting is built to be looked at.

He brings a wide-ranging experience of finance, man-management and problem-solving at large.

Indian Revenue Service, 1988 batch
Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (retired)
36 years in finance and administration

Strategic Operations Coordinator

Arya Gawas

Arya Gawas is an ecologist, trained in Australia, with five years in animal conservation behind her.

Her background in ecology and conservation, together with her work in animal welfare, gives her a close understanding of animal care and of the difficulties that surround it. In practice that means the questions asked at intake are the ones a case actually turns on, and a treatment plan is read by someone who knows what it describes.

She also serves as the foundation's Grievance Officer for data protection.

Ecologist, trained in Australia
5 years in animal conservation
Grievance Officer, data protection

How to raise a grievance

Small on purpose

Two people, and everyone else who does the work.

A small core keeps overheads down and decisions quick. The reach comes from the people around it.

Partner clinics

The vets who discount their own bills and treat the animals we fund. Without them there is no programme.

The Vet Network

Volunteers

Case support, clinic outreach, verifying documents. Unglamorous work that decides whether a family gets through the process.

Put your hand up

Governance

A Section 8 company. No profit, dividend or bonus may be paid to any member, at any time — that is the constitution, not a policy.

Registration and 80G

And the founding spirit

Hammy, who started all of this.

Hammy was a hamster. When he died, his family could not let that be the end of it. He is the foundation's most visible presence, and the reason any of the rest of this exists.

Read the story Meet him on WhatsApp