What is microfinance?

How does Trickle Up fit into the picture by providing a grant and not a loan?

Besides a grant, how else do you help participants?

How do you choose your partners?

How do you know the money is spent on the business?

How do you choose the countries you work in?

Can I give to a specific country?

What kind of training do you provide?

Can my donation really help?

What is microfinance?
Microfinance is the practice of providing financial tools such as credit and insurance to the poor and marginalized so that they can launch businesses and improve their own lives. Microfinance practitioners recognize that though poor people may possess the initiative and drive to run a business, they lack adequate start-up money.

Trickle Up is a microenterprise development organization that gives microgrants, not loans. Our 30 years of experience have shown that microenterprise development can help people pull themselves out of extreme poverty. Trickle Up's program offers a wide range of tools to help people start sustainable livelihoods, including seed capital grants, training and savings support services.

How does Trickle Up fit into the picture by providing a grant and not a loan?
We work with the world’s poorest populations, who are often unable to obtain even microloans. Some fear the risk of potentially defaulting on a loan. Others might lack a home address or sufficient collateral necessary to qualify for one. Still others, who live in very rural areas, do not have access to a credit provider.

So we provide risk-free conditional seed capital in the form of grants. Coupled with business training, these funds enable participants to establish and nurture small businesses — and to take the first steps out of poverty.

We see Trickle Up as the "first step" on the microfinance continuum. Once they have established their small businesses, participants can often access other microfinance services that were previously unavailable to them.

Besides a grant, how else do you help participants?
In addition to providing seed capital grants, we set up programs that help participants to grow. For instance, we train participants to create savings groups, which they use as renewable sources of money. We also work through local nongovernmental organizations that provide non-financial services like literacy training – skills crucial for self-empowerment and which often enable participants to more skillfully manage their businesses. And we link our participants with microcredit providers in addition to business-development services to help them to strengthen their connections to larger markets.

How do you choose your partners?
Due diligence. Trickle Up program staff complete a rigorous check on potential partners. We evaluate partners' missions to be sure that their vision is compatible with our own. We only partner with organizations that have experience providing business or other training, and which have a good working relationship with the local community. And we conduct thorough audits of potential partners' programs, outreach, target communities and financial practices.

How do you know the money is spent on the business?
We have a variety of ways of ensuring accountability. First, we disburse grants in two installments, the second of which is conditional on appropriate use of the first. Our close relationships with our partners in addition to regular site visits by Trickle Up staff enable us to evaluate whether participants have used their grants appropriately.

How do you choose the countries you work in?
We work in some of the world's poorest countries — including Burkina Faso and Mali — which rank at the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index.

Can I give to a specific country?
If you feel moved to earmark your donation for a specific country in which we are working, we welcome your gift. But please note that non-country-specific donations made to support Trickle Up give us greater flexibility to respond to needs as and where they arise.

What kind of training do you provide?
Trickle Up provides rigorous training to its partner organizations on the use of locally appropriate poverty assessment tools. This training ensures that only very poor participants are selected to receive assistance.

We also teach our partners how best to provide business-related training like writing business plans and balancing accounts, so that they can help participants prepare to launch successful microenterprises.

Can my donation really help?
Yes. Your donation will be used to help very poor people start or nurture a business to lift themselves, and their families, out of poverty.

Did you ever think that $100 could transform a person's life? How about five lives? Each business we help to launch — each single person we assist — improves the lives of an average of five people.

That means that the 11,000 businesses that Trickle Up will launch in 2009 will improve the lives of more than 55,000 people.