Everything below is from the audited accounts signed by Sundaram & Bhaskar, Chartered Accountants, Chennai, on 12 June 2026. Two of these numbers are worse than last year. They are on this page in the same size as the good ones.
The columns get shorter as the classes get older. Everything Bright Futures does is an argument with that shape.
104 children stopped coming during class VIII — more than the whole of classes I to V put together. 71 of those 104 are girls. From June we run an evening bridge class for class IX and X at four centres; last year we ran none, and that was our mistake, not theirs.
Eighteen intakes. 2020 is the year the centres were shut for seven months.
children joined in 2020, against 238 the year before. We reached 640 more by phone and printed worksheets, and we do not count those as enrolled.
joined in 2025–26, our largest intake after the Eriyur and Vikravandi centres reached full strength.
of all 3,412 have stopped coming since 2009. We keep them drawn, because rounding them away would be the easiest lie in this report.
| Monthly givers2,914 people, median gift ₹1,000 | ₹1,74,84,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| One-time gifts4,806 gifts, 1,102 of them in December | ₹53,56,000 | |
| CSR — Anaimalai TextilesThird year of a five-year commitment | ₹1,20,00,000 | |
| CSR — Vasan Motors, Kaveri Cements | ₹1,44,00,000 | |
| Mid-day meal reimbursementGovernment of Tamil Nadu | ₹41,20,000 | |
| Interest on reserves | ₹6,90,000 | |
| Drawn from reservesThe gap between what we raised and what we spent | ₹33,21,200 |
| Teacher salaries61 teachers, ₹43,967 a month on average | ₹3,21,84,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Meals and nutrition₹2,521 a child a year | ₹78,60,000 | |
| Books, uniforms, bags | ₹52,40,000 | |
| Centre rent, repairs, power | ₹44,10,000 | |
| Vans and transportFour vans, 11 routes | ₹26,70,000 | |
| Teacher training | ₹18,90,000 | |
| Administration and audit5.4% of everything we spent | ₹31,17,200 |
They balance only because of the last line on the left. ₹33,21,200 came out of reserves, and reserve cover fell from 7.2 months of running costs to 4.1. The board has agreed that no centre closes; the plan is 1,400 more monthly givers by March 2027.
Total expenditure divided by the 3,118 children enrolled on 31 March 2026. This is the number we quote to donors and the number we are audited against.
| Teaching | ₹10,322 | |
|---|---|---|
| Meals | ₹2,521 | |
| Books, uniform, bag | ₹1,682 | |
| Room, repairs, power | ₹1,414 | |
| Van and transport | ₹856 | |
| Teacher training | ₹606 | |
| Administration and audit | ₹999 | |
| One child, one year | ₹18,400 |
Four things went wrong this year. Three cost children, one cost money. We would rather you read them from us.
A granite quarry reopened near Chetpet in August and pays boys of thirteen ₹450 a day. Nineteen of the sixty-one are from that one centre. We have started paying a ₹600 monthly attendance stipend there and will report whether it worked.
Our centres stop at class VIII and the nearest girls' higher secondary school is eleven kilometres from Thandarampattu. We ran no bridge class for IX and X. That was a decision we made, and it was the wrong one.
We opened Eriyur on a two-year grant and kept it running when the grant ended, out of reserves. We stand by the centre and not by the way we funded it.
We piloted a tablet reading app in three centres for five months. Reading scores moved no differently from the centres without it. We stopped it and put the money into two more teaching assistants.
average attendance across 14 centres, up from 89.7%. Chetpet is the only centre below 85%.
of class V children now read at class level, up from 61%. The measure is the ASER oral reading task, run in February by teachers from a different centre.
children from our class VIII batch entered class XI at government higher secondary schools this June, and six went to polytechnic at Tindivanam.
The 2025–26 accounts were audited by Sundaram & Bhaskar, Chartered Accountants, 14 Dr Radhakrishnan Salai, Mylapore, Chennai 600004, and signed by S. Bhaskar FCA on 12 June 2026 with no qualification. Enrolment and attendance registers for all 14 centres were sampled by the auditors at four centres in April.
Reg. no. 218/2009, Kanchipuram. Registered under 12A. 80G exemption AAATB4471KF20214, valid to 31 March 2029.