FAQ
Please select a question to learn more about the Grassroots Business Fund:
- What is the history of the Grassroots Business Fund?
- What are High Impact Businesses?
- How does GBF measure social impact on the ground?
- How does Grassroots Business Fund define its overall success?
- What criteria does Grassroots Business Fund use for selecting potential portfolio companies?
- Which sectors or populations does Grassroots Business Fund prioritize for support, and why?
- How does Grassroots Business Fund’s work differ from that of other social enterprise development initiatives and microfinance institutions?
- How does Grassroots Business Fund help advance the field of social enterprise?
- Where is Grassroots Business Fund based?
- What is the governance structure of Grassroots Business Fund?
What is the history of the Grassroots Business Fund?
The origins of GBF can be traced back as far as 2000 at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), when Harold Rosen founded the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) department, a joint IFC/World Bank department. In 2004, Mr. Rosen started the Grassroots Business Initiatives (GBI), which aimed to build sustainable, non-financial intermediaries that would empower large numbers of High Impact Businesses and individual producers, consumers, and entrepreneurs. GBI worked directly with High Impact Businesses to strengthen their business performance, scale up their operations, and improve their sustainability. From 2004 to 2007, GBI implemented over 40 technical assistance projects and investments impacting the lives of over 3.4 million direct and indirect beneficiaries at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid.
In 2008, the GBI department was transformed into an independent organization called the Grassroots Business Fund (GBF).
What are High Impact Businesses?
High Impact Businesses are for-profit companies that create economic opportunities at the base of the pyramid.
How does GBF measure social impact on the ground?
The Grassroots Business Fund (GBF) developed its Impact Planning, Assessment and Learning (iPAL) Framework to equip its High Impact Businesses with the tools they need to collect and analyze financial, operational and social data. This data allows portfolio companies to make critical decisions that improve their operations and increase the social impact they have on their key stakeholders. In addition, this data increases the businesses’ ability to attract additional investors and donors. GBF works closely with its portfolio companies to ensure that the iPAL framework is tailored to their needs and seamlessly integrated into their business processes, thereby ensuring the businesses’ capacity to sustain this data collection and analysis, even after GBF exits.
How does Grassroots Business Fund define its overall success?
GBF achieves its overall mission by developing new models and lessons from its work with High Impact Business, and parlaying them into larger successes and initiatives, while also sharing them with other organizations to benefit the larger field of social enterprise.
What Criteria Does Grassroots Business Fund use for selecting potential portfolio companies?
Learn more about GBF's investment criteria here.
Which sectors or populations does Grassroots Business Fund prioritize for support, and why?
Grassroots Business Fund serves hard-to-reach, low-income, and disadvantaged populations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—people who lack access to existing economic opportunities and who are not reached by other development models. It focuses on specific economic sectors on which these people depend, but which remain commercially undeveloped. To learn more about our portfolio, click here.
How does Grassroots Business Fund’s work differ from that of other social enterprise development initiatives and microfinance institutions?
Grassroots Business Fund addresses a gap in the growing field of sustainable social enterprise development. GBF supports High Impact Businesses that have the potential to scale and generate economic opportunities for millions at the base of the pyramid, but which have not been able to access the support of the private sector. In addition, GBF pairs patient capital investments with a hands-on, targeted capacity building program to scale these businesses in an effective, sustainable way.
How does Grassroots Business Fund help advance the field of social enterprise?
In addition to providing financial and technical assistance services directly to grassroots business organizations, Grassroots Business Fund identifies effective business practices and tools, and shares them with the field. Our emphasis on quality work, common sense practices, and results, coupled with our years of experience in developing countries around the world, enables us to find and articulate scalable, replicable models and best practices. We are also developing an initiative with our global partners to create a standardized monitoring and evaluation system to improve communication and coordination across the field.
Where is Grassroots Business Fund based?
Grassroots Business Fund is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Field offices are located in Accra, Ghana; Lima, Peru; Nairobi, Kenya; and New Delhi, India.
What is the governance structure of Grassroots Business Fund?
GBF’s current structure includes a Board of Directors (BoD) and two advisory groups (Investment Advisory Committee and an Advisory Board) that are active participants in GBF’s planning and development. The governing body of the organization is a Board of Directors, responsible for the strategy, direction, and funding of Grassroots Business Fund. The Board consists of representatives of major donors and eminent persons in the social enterprise field, and meets on a quarterly basis. GBF’s advisory groups are composed of experienced leaders in the fields of international development, international finance, and academia. The advisory groups help GBF with its oversight and strategy, continually refining and improving its approach.
