Fifteen People, One Room, and the Beginning of a New Bay Area Community

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For more than twenty-five years, S M Sehgal Foundation has worked alongside communities across rural India to strengthen water security, improve agriculture livelihoods, and empower women, youth, and local community participation.

On May 7, Sehgal Foundation in the US established its first volunteer community on the West Coast. At a “high tea” salon in Santana Row, fifteen Bay Area professionals gathered to learn about the foundation's development work in rural India. Roma Bose, vice president, Business and Partnerships, joined Swathi Adiseshu, who is helping to grow the foundation's Bay Area community by sharing stories from the field and opening a conversation about what sustained engagement can look like.

They came to introduce a mission, but what they found was something far deeper: a room of people who were not there to be impressed, but to understand how they could also contribute to the mission. That became clear when one guest leaned forward and asked how the foundation was thinking about AI in village schools—not a casual question, but one that reflected the people in the room: operators, builders, technologists, community leaders, and connectors, all listening closely and thinking practically—not looking at the work from a distance but already imagining how to be more closely involved in making a difference.

The evening was not built around gathering pledge cards or formal fundraising. The interchanges were focused on authentic impact stories from the field.

For example, in Nuh, Haryana, communities are strengthening water systems with check dams and rainwater harvesting systems so villages can be prepared for drought. In Kolar, Karnataka, women are turning their skills into income with collective enterprises such as spice production and other locally made, value-added products. The group heard about changes made to transform the lives of children in government schools with improved infrastructure, digital access and training, and community investment, all of which increases student attendance and furthers their ambitions.

And those fifteen attendees responded with hard questions!

Guests asked whether improvements in girls' education reflected genuine behavioral change within families or are only progress on paper. They asked how the Sehgal Foundation team chooses where to work when the need is so vast and resources are finite. They asked about the children who continue showing up and the ones who slip away, and what is learned about such gaps.

These were not “donor” questions! These were “ownership” questions—a distinction that matters!

For many in the diaspora, supporting development in rural India can feel like a distant transaction. Just write a check, and move on. But the emerging Bay Area donor community was already something different—engagement from people willing to bring their judgment, networks, skills, curiosity, and hard questions to further sustain important work.

By the end of the evening, the first signs of that community had already begun to take shape. Several guests offered to host future gatherings in their homes. Others began thinking through introductions, partnerships, and ways to bring more people into the conversation, and more rooms.

Communities are rarely built from one large announcement of intention. They are built in rooms like this one with people like these: thoughtful, honest, specific, and human. One conversation leads to another. One host opens a home. One person brings a friend. One question suggests a new possibility.

Fifteen people in the Bay Area found their way in and opened the door to others who also want to create real impact.

If you are in the Bay Area and would like to become involved with the impactful work of Sehgal Foundation, please join Sehgal Foundation's Bay Area volunteer community, contact sf-usa@sehgalfoundation.org .

Learn more about the work, perhaps host a small gathering and make introductions, contribute your ideas and skills, and see how you can be part of making a powerful difference in the lives of the poor in rural India.