IDEAS: Institute for Development, Evaluation, Assistance and Solutions

About Us

IDEAS (Institute for Development, Evaluation, Assistance and Solutions) is a 45-year-old international entrepreneurial non-profit. It has done consulting, projects, economic development, training, evaluations, and academic courses in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the US. IDEAS has launched 15 social enterprises and 5 financial institutions. We support either non-profit or for-profit organizations that seek to accomplish the triple bottom line (financial sustainability, social change, and environmental improvement). For more on our organization and its services, see https://ideasnet.org/ For Spanish, see https://ideasnet.org/es

We have worked in 13 countries in Latin America during the last 35 years. We now are focused on the Latin American migrants who have had to flee from violence, gangs, climate change, corruption, and increasingly difficult conditions causing them to flee northward. We are investing our time assisting those who not interested in coming to the US. Half a million Latin Americans over the last 4 years have achieved their permanent resident status in Mexico. Very few other organizations are helping these new entrepreneurs. IDEAS with its decades old experience in microenterprises, economic development and financial services is well positioned to help them create and grow their businesses.

In Mexico, we work with two types of immigrant populations. Our first population of participants are migrants from Latin American countries who have made efforts to gain their official permanent residency status. We are working to help them achieve economic inclusion as they start and grow their microenterprises in Mexico. The second population is Mexicans who have been working in the US, have sent back remittances and many have returned after many years away to create businesses. An important part of this npw bi-national population is those in the US who are sending remittances to support their families. We are helping families with remittances to grow their own businesses. Both these populations have significant difficulties in obtaining full economic and financial inclusion in the Mexican economy. IDEAS has significant skills in training and technical assistance that are improving their abilities to succeed. Most entrepreneurs that we work with are women who face even greater challenges.

We are working to encourage more financial institutions to open their doors to lend to these important populations.

IDEAS has many formal and informal organizational allies that are assisting us with this important, innovative, and precedent setting work. While based in Puebla and Mexico City, our virtual and hybrid strategy reaches entrepreneurs across Mexico and beyond. Our recent trainings have reached participants in almost half of the 32 Mexican states.

The demand is growing for our training and assistance to microentrepreneurs. This means that we are seeking additional funding through opening another position for a bilingual fundraising consultant who will work with our current Mexican consultants.

Our web pages https://bit.ly/ideasmicro and https://bit.ly/ideasactions describes our innovative program in helping refugees to get training, technical assistance and access to a variety of financial services in Mexico.

IDEAS operates with a core team complemented by associate consultants in a variety of countries. We are pioneers in impact investing. IDEAS has created and advised entities in each part of the impact investment value chain. We been consultants to investors, investment funds, social enterprises and those grassroots organizations that are generating impact in their communities. We are experts in a diversity of evaluation methodologies and have taught on 4 continents. https://ideasnet.org/impact-investing-evaluation/

We carried out a wide variety of consulting services, including solar energy, microfranchising, market research, microfinance, rural economic development, business development services, organizational development, and strategic planning https://ideasnet.org/consulting/

We have done many types of training for practitioners and professionals. We have had a strong emphasis in capacity building for women and youth around the world. Our team has taught graduate students in universities on three continents. https://ideasnet.org/training/

IDEAS worked for its first 13 years in eight states of the southeastern US in civil rights, community organizing and community development. While we have a small administrative office in Atlanta, Georgia, a candidate for our jobs may live anywhere in the US or Mexico. Most consultants and volunteers work remotely so may live in other countries. We have an active group of volunteers providing innovative services. For more information, write getinvolved@ideasnet.org.