Village Enterprise

Village Enterprise's mission is to equip people living in extreme poverty with the resources to create sustainable businesses. Over the last 25 years, Village Enterprise has started over 27,000 businesses, trained over 100,000 new small business owners and lifted over 540,000 people out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise provides the rural poor in East Africa with the means to start income-generating small businesses and to achieve a better standard of living for themselves, their families, and their communities. Our four program elements—seed capital ($150 grant, not a loan), business skills and financial literacy training, ongoing mentoring, and savings groups—help the very poor succeed. Village Enterprise has developed a cost-effective, innovative and high impact solution—after 4 years, 75% of our businesses are in operation.