The Godrej Foundation is an independent philanthropic trust with a 15 percent shareholding in the Godrej Industries Group, dedicated to strengthening the foundations of a prosperous India. Working with values-aligned partners, we seek to catalyse economic growth, nurture exceptional talent, advance inclusion, and back bold, innovative ideas through our Tomorrow Grants.

Our work is rooted in the vision of our founder, Ardeshir Godrej and grounded in India’s constitutional ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity and justice. As a young man in 19th century India, Ardeshir was deeply inspired by the idea of swaraj, the belief that a nation’s freedom is incomplete unless it can shape its own political and economic future.

When Ardeshir successfully manufactured high quality surgical instruments in India, hospitals would purchase them only if they carried the mark “Made in England.” He refused. For him, business was not about profit alone. It was about demonstrating that Indian enterprise could stand on its own merit and about contributing, through action, to the larger movement of swaraj.

This conviction led him to build innovative products in locks, safes, and soaps, all proudly made in India. In 1951, Godrej was entrusted with manufacturing the ballot boxes for independent India’s first general election, a powerful affirmation that a company born from the idea of swaraj could be trusted to safeguard the foundations of democracy itself.

In the 1920s, Ardeshir gave a significant share of his profits to the Tilak Swaraj Fund in support of India’s freedom movement, embedding in Godrej a tradition of trusteeship and public purpose that continues to guide the Foundation’s work today.