Economic Development
The Economic Development Portfolio focuses on funding evidence-based, effective charities that empower individuals to start businesses, improve their economic security, serve small farmers and increase access to job opportunities.
The portfolio seeks to promote the development of sustainable business models so individuals can pull themselves out of the cycle of poverty.
Economic Development Portfolio
Village Enterprise
Village Enterprise addresses the fact that poverty is multi-faceted by providing a multi-faceted program. Their group-based approach builds stronger and longer-lasting change by bringing together diverse skillsets, spreading risk, building social capital and producing cost efficiencies.
Entrepreneurship can be risky and take time to pay off, so the program offers grants, not loans, to allow vulnerable people to immediately improve their standard of living. The goal of the Graduation model is to empower the ultra-poor to sustainably improve their lives, and results so far bear this out.
Living Goods
Living Goods trains and supports networks of business women known as Community Health Promoters (CHPs), empowering them to sell a variety of low-cost, high-impact health goods.
LG provides the women with initial supplies like uniforms, storage containers, and thermometers as well as with start-up inventory, bought with a low-interest loan. Start-up inventory includes medical supplies such as anti-malarial bed nets, deworming pills, water filters, treatments for malaria and diarrhea, kits for safe childbirth, and fortified foods. CHPs also sell everyday sanitation and wellbeing products, including soap, sanitary pads, contraception, solar-powered lamps, and cellphone chargers.
One Acre Fund
Rural poverty is complex, and there is no single solution to the problems farmers face. That’s why One Acre Fund takes a holistic, long-term approach. They offer a complete bundle of services, using a market-based model that helps the organization remain financially sustainable and expand to reach more and more farmers every year. Their model offers:
Asset-Based Loans. Farmers receive high-quality seeds and fertilizer on credit, and One Acre offers a flexible repayment system that allows farmers to pay back their loans in any amount throughout the loan term.
Delivery. One Acre delivers inputs to locations within walking distance of every farmer we serve.
Training. Farmers receive training throughout the season on modern agricultural techniques.
Market Facilitation. We offer crop storage solutions and teach farmers about market fluctuations, so that they can time crop sales to maximize profits.
Give Directly
GiveDirectly provides unconditional cash transfers using cell phone technology to some of the poorest people in Kenya and Uganda. These direct cash transfers allow families to buy much-needed food and shelter, educate their children, and start small businesses.
GiveDirectly uses national data and door-to-door surveys to seek out the poorest households to receive transfers. Recipients are selected using a range of criteria that vary by region, including housing materials, assets, and vulnerable recipient status