Akshara was born on the 2nd of October 1998 when five development colleagues (Muralidhar, Prakash, Narsi Reddy, Ashok and Dayakar) got together and signed the articles.

Akshara grew up the way a child grows up – slowly but surely. It took six months for it to get registered (17 March 1999) and thereafter one year to open a bank account. Akshara was housed with volunteers doing regular jobs outside, except for one paid staff, Rama, who used to take care of all and sundry. Small activities/tasks in the nature of providing professional support to development organizations were taken up initially. Gradually, activities/assignments that made a difference have flowed through Akshara.

The range of assignments included, for example, FCRA report of a small NGO; Participatory Poverty Assessment at Five Sites (Tribal, Rural and Urban) for World Development Report; and review of management of a biodiversity enterprise. The most significant assignment for Akshara during this period was, Muralidhar (Founder and current Chief Mentor of Akshara) making his services available to SERP to facilitate Livelihoods and Community Investment Fund of Velugu as its State Project Adviser. The outreach of this project was 8 million families.

A new Societies’ Act was promulgated in 2002 making it mandatory for Akshara to have at least 7 members. This gave an opportunity to strengthen and consolidate the Board of Akshara. Advisers were also enrolled.

In January 2004, Muralidhar, by then popularly known as the ‘Livelihoods Person’, took full-time charge of Akshara as its Chief Mentor. This gave renewed impetus for Akshara’s journey forward. Mean while, Akshara’s co-founder Prakash having worked extensively with CDF, CARE and APMAS in the realm of SHGs and Micro-finance gained recognition as a Micro-finance Expert.