Grameen Foundation's mission is to enable the poor, especially the poorest, to create a world without poverty.

With tiny loans, financial services and technology, Grameen Foundation help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty. Founded in 1997 by a group of friends who were inspired by the work of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Their global network of 58 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 45 million people in 23 countries. In addition, they introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cambodia, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing a total country outreach to 28.

Grameen Foundation support microfinance programs that enable the poor, mostly women, to lift themselves out of poverty and make better lives for their families. To do this, Grameen Foundation partner with a worldwide network of microfinance institutions. Their work focuses on six key areas:

Supporting microfinance institutions

Grameen Foundation microfinance institutions (MFIs) work on the front lines daily, meeting the needs of clients and reaching out to others who can benefit from microfinance. To help them be efficient and effective and increase their outreach, Grameen Foundation provide microfinance program support in the form of funding, technical assistance, training and new technology.

Harnessing the power of technology

Grameen Foundation's Technology Center is the leader in information and communications technology (ICT) initiatives that are dedicated exclusively to advancing microfinance. To help microfinance reach its full potential, Grameen Foundation are driving industry-changing innovations that increase the efficiency of microfinance institutions' operations, create new microbusiness opportunities for the poor, and provide telecommunications access for the world's rural poor.

Connecting microfinance institutions with capital markets

Grameen Foundation Capital Management and Advisory Center is harnessing the vast resources of local and international capital markets to bring new financial resources to Grameen Foundation microfinance institution partners. With more than 400 million poor people cut off from financial services, there is a huge, unmet need for microfinance. To reach them, MFIs need capital beyond the traditional philanthropic support to rapidly expand their operations and increase outreach.

Expanding microfinance industry knowledge

New ideas and innovative thinking will drive the expansion and effectiveness of microfinance. Knowledge sharing is an important component of Grameen Foundation work. To have the greatest impact on global poverty, Grameen Foundation are committed to sharing ideas and innovations with the wider microfinance community. Grameen Foundation hope this "open-sourcing" of information will guide other organizations in improving the industry's outreach to the more than one billion people living in abject poverty.

Equipping the microfinance industry with measurement tools

A goal of Grameen Foundation’s work is to ensure Grameen Foundation partners are moving their clients out of poverty after five years and to foster good practices for measuring the progress of individuals’ movement across poverty lines. MFIs must show results, yet many do not have the tools to evaluate how well they are fulfilling their mission of reducing poverty, reaching people excluded from financial services, empowering women, or promoting community solidarity. Grameen Foundation's Social Performance tools are designed to fill that need.

Social Business

In January 2008, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus introduced a new term to the business lexicon: social business. Writing in his new book, Creating a World without Poverty, Yunus laid out the framework for two social business models and urged others to adopt them in the fight against global poverty. A social business is social-objective driven. In the first model, the company’s mission is achieved through creating or supporting sustainable "non-loss" business enterprises where all of the profits are ploughed back into the company rather than being distributed to shareholders. The second social business model is one which is profit-driven, but owned and operated entirely by the poor, who receive all company profits.

Grameen Foundation web Site