Unlocking Communities

Unlocking Communities (UC) is a social enterprise providing communities and entrepreneurs with tools and resources to catalyze social, environmental, and economic change. We are market ecosystem builders, supporting the transformation of communities from the inside out, and we offer life-saving products that decrease environmental harm. 

Around the world, about 2 billion people lack access to clean water for drinking, sanitation and hygiene. Similarly, the World Health Organization has stated that cooking with dirty solid fuels, such as charcoal and wood on open fires or traditional stoves that produce high levels of carbon monoxide, kill up to four million people annually. Lack of access to clean water has a detrimental impact on human health. Households that can afford the high cost of purchasing bottled water for cooking, drinking, and cleaning are still contributing to the planet’s 10-billion-ton plastic waste burden. Similarly, dirty cooking fuels are to blame for poor community health outcomes, as well as fuel deforestation and climate change. 

Our inaugural and core programming is in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For many years, the international community’s response to supporting Haiti has been relief-based. While relief-based programs are appropriate in limited scenarios, traditional charity-oriented funding that continues beyond immediate crises has historically created dependency, ruined economies, and has limited long-term positive impact. 

No one’s life should be limited by the water they use or the way they cook or clean. One of our fundamental beliefs is that providing community members with the tools they need to create business opportunities is a more effective way than emergency aid to create quality, sustainable impact. Unlocking Communities has matched the need for access to clean water and clean cooking fuel with a way for community members to build entrepreneurial skills and social networks, as well as contribute positively to their local economies and local environments. 

The Unlocking Communities' unique approach centers around the provision of business training, access to product supply chains for water filters, and clean burning stoves local entrepreneurs can sell. We incubate business ideas for successful entrepreneurs in our education programs, and we provide ongoing monitoring and evaluation to track impact. 

Entrepreneurs who participate in our programs are doing more than just supporting themselves: they are integral actors in creating a new market ecosystem that offers substantial social and environmental value to their communities and the world. Having trained more than 375 entrepreneurs who have sold more than 7,000 water filtration systems and 1,000 clean burning stoves thus far, Unlocking Communities demonstrates that providing communities with the tools to create business opportunities is not only an effective and sustainable way to create positive economic impact but creates a ripple effect by benefiting more communities when scaled.