New Year Reflections

JoyCorps Team's Year End Reflections 2025

This year, we asked our team to pause and reflect. We invited them to share one photo from the year that stayed with them

This picture describes our journey this year!! Coming from a not for profit world, I was walking into the unknown. And fortunately, Aspire program too was doing the same. I'm glad to journey together, learning and making mistakes together while rowing slowly to our goals!! Looking forward to what lies beyond that mangrove forest in 2026. Picture taken in June 2025 at Munroe Islands, Kerala.

This photo was taken during a guided tour of parts of Kolkata in May, 2025. One of the spots
was a Jewish synagogue, that ended up meaning far more than I expected. Our guide told us that the synagogue has been cared for by a Muslim family for two generations, and that stayed with me. It felt personal in a way I didn’t anticipate. Growing up in the Middle East, the Israel–Palestine conflict was something I became aware of very early. It was always there in the background, on the news, in conversations, shaping how people saw each other. So standing in that synagogue,
hearing about a Muslim family protect and preserve a Jewish space, something in me softened. It felt like a glimpse of what could be, in a region where I first learned what conflict and difference looked like. In the middle of our own work at JoyCorps Studio, where we spend so much time thinking about systems, vulnerabilities, and the weight of people’s lived realities, this small story stood out

as a quiet reminder to me of the

kind of world

that communities are

already building in
small ways.

The attached image, I believe, is of a spider's web which I found during our team hike right before the All Team Strategy Week. It represents the wonderful bond, intricacy, and strength of the relationships — both those established in the past and the new ones being formed regularly. Just like the web, these relationships are delicate, yet characterises immense strength, layers and depth. Being at JC I get to meet and interact with a whole lot of new folks who are amazing, involved in some precious work, and

with incredible depth.

We met in a team member’s home for the final week of Dehradun Aspire 2025, which I facilitated, and this photo captures a part of my journey with JoyCorps: collaboration and contextualisation. I started with JoyCorps in a coordination role for programs, since then I have facilitated and partnered with teammates to contextualise curriculum. This means even the setting, which includes dishes in the background and barefeet! I love cultures and the stories behind them, so this has been such a joy in my journey with JoyCorps. As I have switched to the

Lead Development role, I am eager

to share entrepreneurs'

stories and their impact

with others.

This year feels like we came to a full circle. From 2017, when Mel and Dave initiated the transformation of JoyCorps from an organization focussed only on community development to an organization that supports redemptive entrepreneurial ecosystems till today when the Murrays are back in Rajpur and our strategic plans for the future are charted out, this photo shows me my long association with JoyCorps and its various adaptations.

I chose this photo from our team retreat because so much of the growth that JoyCorps has experienced has come through the hard work and dedication of our team. Its one thing to articulate a vision and strategy. This team of rockstars made it happen in 2025! I couldn't have asked for a better crew!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job is gathering around a big piece of paper with pens and post-its, and working with our clients to map and brainstorm the challenges they face, creating understanding and helping them shift to a fresh perspective.

This photo may not directly capture my personal journey with JoyCorps, but they strongly reflect how much we are growing as an organization. This is an image from a celebration - celebrating some of our team members birthday together but this image has two new team members who had recently joined around that time. From left to right; Liris - Shalem - Sharon

This picture is from an activity we did in a place where the language wasn’t our strong suit. We stretched ourselves to find ways to work around the barriers and contributed as much as we could, but we also had to be intentional about stepping back when we knew we couldn’t go further, and let the magic in front of us reveal itself. Here, community members used rice to talk about their collective current spending and their perception of what fair wages could do for them.

This is a picture where Sam, our ED and I were at an event and on our way to another event. This year I had the privilege of travelling with Sam a lot to so many places where I got to learn from him and also through the introductions he made for me in these places to collaborate and develop local level partnerships for the fulfillment of 2035 vision.

Next, we asked our team to share 2-3 words that capture 2025 and why

Collaboration & Hope

The words that keep coming to mind when I think about JoyCorps Studio’s work
over the past year are collaboration and hope. As a team, we wrapped up two projects: one addressing the needs of families vulnerable to foster care involvement in the U.S., and another exploring livelihood opportunities for survivors of bonded labour in Bihar. Across months of online and in person workshops, data analysis, and the long drawn out process of putting together comprehensive reports for both projects, we experienced collaboration at its best, both within our team and with all the different stakeholders involved. And when we finally wrapped it up, it felt like a reminder that there’s real hope in the systems we’re trying to understand.

-Asha, JoyCorps Studio

Conviction & Risk

When conviction leads, risk becomes a doorway. This year, several budding entrepreneurs stepped through it with confidence through the Aspire program. Some have already shaped their business ideas and have taken big steps forward.

-Sharon, JoyCorps Ecosystem

Collaboration & Inclusion

My husband's company gave me a jacket with their logo a few years back and I remember when I joined JoyCorps, as a contracted, project-based employee, I would wear that jacket to JoyCorps events. One of my teammates eyed me and said to our E.D., "Sam. . . Can we get Sarah a JoyCorps jacket?" It made us all laugh. Still, I wasn't sure if they were annoyed with me or the jacket that promoted another company! In the end, I discovered that it was because as part of the team, they wanted me to be fully integrated, part of the humor, even. And the more I collaborate with our diverse team on different programs, I see myself as well as each team member, included.

-Sarah, JoyCorps Ecosystem

Weaving & Tapestry

2025 was a year when we wove together many strands of ideas, projects, and workflows that we had initiated in the last few years to bring it all together. The resulting tapestry that has emerged showing our vision and plans has also revealed the path that we are following in the coming times, towards growth.

-Shweta, JoyCorps Operations

Healing

I feel Aspire has brought a deep sense of healing to everyone who has walked through its doors. From a man who lost over 30 lakhs in a failed investment that pushed him into poverty, to a young man in his twenties dreaming of starting a small printing and stationery shop in his village; from a woman in her fifties daring to imagine a new business, to a 17-year-old girl determined to change the world through art—each story carries its own quiet courage.
Their journeys aren’t just healing for them. In many ways, they have been healing for me too.

-Liris, JoyCorps Ecosystem

Restful, Supportive & Encouraging

I joined JoyCorps in April 2025, and the journey has been immensely wonderful. Having previously worked in demanding environments that were less mindful of personal and family pressures, JoyCorps has been very accommodating and refreshing. I felt no immediate pressure to perform and deliver; instead, I was given ample time to adjust, absorb the culture, and understand the work.

-Shalem, JoyCorps Ecosystem

Clarity

From the very beginning of this year, a lot of work for me involved focusing on understanding and structuring how we as a team can operate. Then after this initial phase our structure in our offering changed but the core remained the same which helped me get more clarity around what i can be working on. It involved understanding the nuances of the entrepreneurs we serve, while also working on streamlining a lot of our own internal processes and systems. The best outcomes of these discussions and brainstorming sessions has led to clarity especially around the the work that I need to be doing in order to support my team to streamline the backend operations for the Ecosystem's - Aspire Beyond Program.

-Tenzin, JoyCorps Ecosystem

Journey & Destination

I joined JoyCorps in September 2025, and as I’ve begun working with the team, I’ve realised that I’ve embarked on a ship driven by passion, compassion, and a deep commitment to helping diverse entrepreneurs thrive. As we continue this journey together, my hope is that my work contributes meaningfully to supporting them and helping them reach their destinations each year.

-Alwin, JoyCorps Communications

Stretching

Because I think this year, with both our clients and our team, we’ve had to stretch to accommodate sudden changes in projects, to find a rhythm while working with a new team, and even among ourselves, to take on new challenges—like working in a context where the language was not our own—all while continuing to grow and develop what we do.

-Erica, JoyCorps Studio

Clarity & Growth

I chose these words because we articulated a 10-year vision in early 2025, bringing clarity to our mission and fostering program growth. In 2025 we've grown to serve 138 entrepreneurs and leaders in 6+ cities across all our programming.

-Sam, Executive Director

Courage, Connection & Curiosity

In 2025 Studio has seen change and evolution within our projects and how Studio relates to JoyCorps future vision, it’s felt like a call to be courageous with the research that we have conducted, stay curious, humble and always prioritise connection.

-Josie, JoyCorps Studio

Collaboration & Understanding

2025 year has been an year marked with exploring opportunities to collaborate with city ecosystems that is catalystic in creating national impact. Through this process, I got to learn how local entrepreneurial ecosystems work - identifying market gaps and mitigating them, leverage the momentum gave by stakeholders for the benefit of the city vision.