Village Enterprise (www.villageenterprise.org), a pioneer in the microenterprise development sector, has started over 30,000 businesses, trained over 135,000 new small business owners and lifted over 600,000 people out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise provides the rural poor in East Africa with the means to start income-generating small businesses and achieve a better standard of living for themselves, their families, and their communities. Our four program elements—seed capital, training, ongoing mentoring, and savings groups--are critical to help the very poor succeed. Village Enterprise has developed a cost-effective, innovative and high impact solution—after 4 years, 75% of our businesses still in operation.
Organizational strengths
• Rigorous monitoring and evaluation implemented with smart phones. Village Enterprise launched a three-year RCT with BRAC in October 2013
• Highly qualified and dedicated East African team. Village Enterprise's local leadership model was recently covered in the 10th anniversary issue of The Stanford Social Innovation Review.
• Innovation and improvement at the essence of program delivery. Village Enterprise was awarded in 2013 a Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Next Century Innovators award.
