We’re excited to announce Whole Planet has supported over $6.6 million in funding, in partnership with the Kasperick Foundation, from July to September 2024, to 13 organizations providing income-generating opportunities for entrepreneurs around the world to help strengthen their financial stability. These initiatives will provide valuable resources to small business owners, subsistence farmers, and individuals facing financial barriers, while working to meet their basic needs. From the Amazonian River Basin to rural Kenya, these projects demonstrate the power of microloans, agricultural inputs, and business training to uplift families and build sustainable livelihoods.
Whole Planet’s partnerships continue to prioritize economic resilience and long-term growth for the people who need it most. These partnerships are empowering individuals and communities by providing resources that fuel economic growth and resilience. From microloans for small businesses to essential resources for farmers, each project plays a vital role in fostering growth and sustainability. Learn more about each partner’s work and the impact on the communities they support, and stay tuned for our next quarterly funding announcement.
Africa Works | Mozambique
AfricaWorks Mozambique is a non-profit organization which provides accessible loans to clients in peri–urban and rural areas of Mozambique. In recent years, AfricaWorks has increasingly moved into rural communities where microentrepreneurs have few options to access affordable business financing, since most microfinance operations concentrate on urban areas. Whole Planet, in partnership with the Kasperick Foundation will provide a 3-year, $300,000 grant to support Africa Works. The grant will help Africa Works grow their active community group loan borrowers in rural communities by about 1,623 clients.
BOMA Kenya | Kenya
BOMA seeks to end extreme poverty in the drylands of Africa through rural entrepreneurship. The company has a strong, evidence-backed record of reaching extremely poor women and vulnerable households, and successfully setting them on a path to build savings, businesses, and social networks as a foundation for long-term well-being and resilience. Whole Planet, in partnership with the Kasperick Foundation will provide a 3-year $900,000 grant for BOMA Kenya which will fund business start-up support for 1500+ participants of their graduation program. This grant contributes to BOMA’s global goal of reaching 3 million people by the end of 2027.
BRAC Myanmar | Myanmar
BRAC’s mission is to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy ,disease, and social injustice. BRAC’s interventions aim to achieve large scale, positive changes through economic and social programs that enable women and men to realize their potential. The 3-year, $600,000 grant, provided by Whole Planet, will reach 2,181 new borrowers through their Inclusive Finance business loan product which is designed to be accessible for persons with disabilities.
Camino Verde | Peru
Camino Verde (CV) is a Peruvian nonprofit restoring the forest landscapes of the Amazon by strengthening livelihoods for forest communities and Amazonian farmers. In addition to CV’s conservation initiatives, and as part of their reforestation projects, CV sources rosewood from indigenous communities and exports the trees’ essential oils internationally. Whole Planet’s 3-year, $150,00 grant project with Camino Verde provides remote communities in Loreto with agroforestry seedling packages, including rosewood and 40 other native trees species, and cash crops like cocoa. Program participants will repay the value of the agroforestry packages that they receive, by sustainably harvesting and selling rosewood to Camino Verde.
Environomica | Colombia
Since 2019, Environomica, a Colombian nonprofit, has been boosting the socioeconomic transition of local communities towards sustainable agroforestry while restoring deforested areas with native species. Whole Planet’s 3-year, $233,717 grant provides agroforestry input packages to Wiwa communities living in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, and supports participants to plant and maintain coffee, cocoa, fruit, and forest trees and, eventually, to sell their products to local cooperatives.
Farmerline | Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Benin
Farmerline exists to help farmers grow their wealth through access to quality inputs, training and markets. Whole Planet’s $600,000, 3-year no-interest loan supports Farmerline with their expansion from Ghana into Cote d’Ivoire, Benin and Burkina Faso, and would be leveraged to provide over $1.8 million of agriculture input disbursements for 1,324 farmers. With Whole Planet’s support, Farmerline can ramp up their most accessible and entry level loan product, include more women farmers and reach sustainability as a social enterprise.
Grassland Association for Agricultural Development | Cameroon
Grassland Association for Agricultural Development (GAAD) provides agriculture inputs on credit, climate smart extension training and a market for smallholder farmers in Cameroon. As a small, nonprofit association in a country with a high perceived credit risk, it has been difficult for GAAD to attract the volume and type of financing needed to scale. Whole Planet’s 3-year, $600,000 grant would finance the cultivation of maize, millet and soybean on 3,655 hectares of land by 2,707 smallholders.
Local Act | Thailand
Local Act seeks to help indebted smallholder farmers in Thailand manage their own debt and reach a point of economic self-sufficiency. Local Act does this through a multi-pronged approach including training on debt management, financial literacy, and business skills; access to diversified and improved income through organic certification and markets; and other forms of financial inclusion initiatives. Whole Planet’s $38,611 grant will help Local Act launch a revolving fund program for farmer groups. Farmer groups will directly manage their funds so they can make business investment decisions with the revolving capital.
Munafa | Sierra Leone
Munafa offers smallholder farmers an accessible agricultural loan, enabling them to produce sufficient crops for both household consumption and sale. Munafa assists and promotes micro-entrepreneurs by providing them with progressively increasing loan amounts tailored to the size and needs of their businesses. Whole Planet’s 3-year, $350,000 grant provides over 5,966 microloans for small enterprise and agriculture production in 2 branches (Moyamba and an additional branch to be opened in a rural region of Sierra Leone).
myAgro | Senegal, Mali, and Cote d’Ivoire
MyAgro is trying to solve the problem of the hungry farmer with the approach of mobilizing farmer savings for layaway payments of input packages, rather than debt. This approach decreases costs to farmers and highlights alternative approaches to microfinance. Whole Planet approved a $750,000 subordinated loan to myAgro to purchase agricultural inputs for the farmers it serves across Senegal, southern Mali, and its newly launched pilot in a limited number of peri-urban and rural villages in Cote d’Ivoire.
Sampurna Financial Services | India
Sampurna Financial Services (SFS) offers financial services through the for-profit SFS company and vocational training through the non-profit STEP entity. Together, these services are aimed to promote entrepreneurship and prosperity for their target segment of low-income Indian women. Through their Banking Correspondent (BC) partners, SFS offers both business and agriculture loan products. Whole Planet’s $300,000, 8-year subordinated PRI loan to SFS in India will provide over 11,000 microloans for small enterprise and agriculture production in 7 new branches.
Trickle Up | India
Trickle Up equips households living in extreme poverty to start up one or more Income Generating Activities (IGA’s). The program enables entrepreneurship and access to available safety nets and community resources. Ensuring food security, especially within the context of climate change, are crucial elements of this program. Whole Planet, in partnership with the Kasperick Foundation, will provide a 3-year, $900,000 grant to support Trickle Up in their effort to serve 1,200 women from vulnerable tribal groups in Jharkhand, India, enabling them through the Graduation Approach, to forge resilient pathways out of poverty.
Village Enterprise | Uganda
Village Enterprise implements the graduation approach in Uganda and several other countries in Africa. Village Enterprise’s methodology emphasizes entrepreneurship, and they are increasingly focused on integrating climate change resilience and market access as core components of their entrepreneurship model. Whole Planet, in partnership with the Kasperick Foundation will provide a $900,000 grant that would fund the business start-up capital for 13,500 new participants (4,500 new businesses) across 9 cohorts in the Soroti region of Uganda through Village Enterprise.
