The West Foundation » Portfolio 2013

Pro Mujer

Pro Mujer was gifted $15,000 towards its three-year capacity building initiative. Monies will be utilized as necessary over a menu of seven program-wide areas: improving client relations and customer service, client access to individual credit, institutional capacity building, health and human development, employee well-being, corporate structure, marketing, innovation and market studies. Efforts towards capacity building in these areas will allow the organization to deepen its services (particularly in delivery of health services) to its more than 328,000 clients as well as to expand its loan products to include rural clients as well as the urban and peri-urban women currently served. Created in 1990, Pro Mujer provides poor women in Latin America with the means to build livelihoods for themselves and futures for their families through microfinance, business training and health care support. The organization today works in five countries across Latin America.

Resource Foundation

Resource Foundation received $30,000 to support two of its indigenous partner microfinance institutions (MFIs): one in Colombia and the other in Guatemala. Both have excellent track records with proven results, but both are difficult to find funding for due to the internal political situations in each country. Monies granted were used in rural areas for famers to provide theoretical and practical training on sustainable livestock training practices, provide technical assistance to improve production and profitability, promote preventive health practices for livestock and measure program effectiveness through ongoing measurement and evaluation. The Resource Foundation helps strengthen local nonprofit organizations by providing value-added services to enhance their organizational capacity and scale their impact. These services include vetting, representation, training, networking, technical assistance, capacity building, fundraising, funds transfer, and more. Its network is comprised of 198 affiliated organizations in 17 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Rotary International

Rotary International received renewed funding in the amount of $10,000 to support the adult women’s literacy program at the Afghanistan-based Qdrat School. Prior funding for this rural, community-generated school (which educates both girls and boys) has gone towards this program, which educates mothers of the students in reading and writing. Begun as a sewing enterprise for the women of the village where Qdrat School is located, the program introduced a literacy component in 2011 to support the adult women in running a business. The effort has mushroomed in growth, due to the women using the training materials at home to teach their husbands literacy skills in a region where less than 10% of the population have literacy skills. Word of the program circled the region, which generated requests to the school to expand classes to include women in seven additional villages who would be enabled to educate their husbands at...

Smiles Forever

Smiles Forever was granted $10,000 for the salaries of a teaching dentist and teaching hygienist required to train additional oral hygienists at the organization’s dental hygiene school in Cochabamba, Bolivia (the only school of its kind in Latin America). The grant enabled the clinic attached to the school to provide free preventative and restorative dental services to an additional 2250 beneficiaries annually (a 29% increase that brings the total served to 9,000 annually). Smiles Forever is dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty by providing young indigenous women in Bolivia the opportunity to be educated as dental hygienists. In turn, these women are able to empower and provide for their own families, become leaders, and engage in providing much-needed dental care services to the disadvantaged and impoverished rural communities in their area. To accomplish this goal, the organization operates a teaching clinic serving the ultrapoor, a self-sufficient fee for service...

Tanari International

Tanari International received $5,000 to support the salary of its Executive Director position. This is the final year of funding for this organization, as it has grown large enough to support its efforts toward increasing leadership and ministry to youth through its annual fund raising efforts. Over the last ten years, Tanari has grown to be a recognized leader in this field in Kenya. Tanari International is the U.S. fund raising arm of Tanari Trust, a Kenyan NGO which works to facilitate effective socialization of youth into responsible adults through programs intended to enhance community context. Tanari provides programs that stimulate spiritually motivated encounters with others, the environment and oneself. The organization works with the long-term goal of developing active human resources that will in turn help to build vibrant communities for themselves and others.

TechnoServe

TechnoServe was gifted $30,000 in renewed funding for its cocoa production program in San Martin, Peru. Previous funding from the foundation had gone to establishment of the program, which introduced cocoa farming to the region as a substitute for growing coca, from which cocaine is produced. Not only did this provide a more stable livelihood for the farmers of the region, it allowed the Peruvian government to reward them with better provision of infrastructure and services, enhancing the quality of life for these farmers and their families. The program reached a critical phase in 2013: in order to ensure long-term sustainability and impact, previous lessons learned must be consolidated and transferred to local organizations for replication in other parts of the country. However, funding from USAID was due to expire in October, and could not be renewed until March of 2014. Monies granted allowed the organization to fill in the...

Trickle Up

Trickle Up received a grant of $30,000 for expansion of its program in Guatemala to assist the ultrapoor in moving out of extreme poverty, with an emphasis on helping the disabled (the most marginalized of those living on less than the equivalent of $1.25 per day). Work will occur in two phases. Phase One (scheduled for 2013) will add 1,025 people (predominately women) to the organization’s program through planning and development of livelihood activities, formation of savings groups, and capacity-building for four indigenous partner NGOs and five municipalities. This work will support the fledgling entrepreneurships and allow the organization to adapt, produce and distribute a Livelihoods Training curriculum through the indigenous entities. Phase Two (scheduled for 2014) will add a second group of participants to the program as well as introducing a municipal-wide ultra-poor inclusion model. By working in this manner with the municipal government, sustainability of the program is...

Village Enterprise

Village Enterprise received $15,000 to further implement and create a more robust database for its SMART tool. The Smarter Market Analysis Risk Tool (SMART) is an agriculture initiative that employs mobile data collection technology to capture seasonal pricing, risk, demand and price vulnerability to help ultrapoor famers in Kenya and Uganda make better business planning decisions. The SMART technology does this by creating a risk/reward matrix that can be understood by those with low levels of education, providing more certainty in making those decisions. The program recently earned the organization an award as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Top 100 Next Century Innovators. Launched in 1987, Village Enterprise works to equip rural people living in extreme poverty with the resources to create sustainable businesses. This includes business training and mentoring from local leaders, micro-grants for business seed capital and participation in a business savings group. The organization combines innovative technology and...