Enterprise Development International

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Enterprise Development International is a U.S. 501(c)(3), non-profit organization established in 1985 and headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. Through sustainable interventions, Enterprise Development enables the unemployed and underemployed poor in 12 developing countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America and the United States to become productive, self-supporting citizens.

Enterprise Development works through its network of non-governmental partner agencies with the goal of developing sustainable, local institutional capacity to operate ongoing microenterprise development programs. We provide training, technical support, and resources for these partners to supply business training, management services, credit and savings opportunities to the extremely poor. Since 1985, Enterprise Development has provided technical and financial services to over 50 partner agencies. Through these partnerships, we have mobilized more than $16 million of private sector resources and community support, translating into over 105,000 business loans to families, benefiting 315,000 people in over 40 countries. In the provision of services, neither Enterprise Development nor its partner organizations discriminate based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

1 Mission
2 Work
3 History
4 Countries Served
5 External Links

[edit] Mission

The mission of Enterprise Development International is to demonstrate God's love by enabling the poor to free themselves from poverty. This is accomplished by:

offering business training to low-income persons who have the potential and the desire to become self-supporting;

providing small loans to poor entrepreneurs who have viable business ideas but need capital; and

mentoring participants through ongoing personal and professional encouragement

[edit] Work

After nearly two decades of work in more than 50 countries, Enterprise Development International understands that poor people in virtually every country have skills that they want to use to lift their families out of poverty. Instead of a handout in the form of aid, many thousands of poor clients have received a hand up through training and small business loans.

Hungry for credit from sources other than local loan sharks, these clients have responded by demonstrating unmistakably the creditworthiness of the world's poor: Loan repayment rates in Enterprise-funded programs typically exceed 95 percent, surpassing the performance of many commercial institutions. Rather than cultivating dependency, this strategy of microenterprise creates self-supporting entrepreneurs and, as a consequence, healthier families and stronger local churches.

Developing countries also benefit from two unusual aspects of Enterprise Development's approach to relieving poverty. Rather than administering a large number of permanent branch offices around the world, Enterprise Development works with locally registered Christian organizations as partners, transferring required skills and capital. Also, each Enterprise Development project is designed to produce an indigenous, independent ministry, one that is expected to stand on its own financially within a few years.

[edit] History

In the 1970s, an American missionary in Sudan, Rev. Paris Reidhead, looked back on a quarter-century spent among the poor and resolved to find a way to match spiritual transformation with economic development. Wanting to avoid paternalism and mere handouts of aid, he envisioned poor entrepreneurs working their own way out of poverty, aided by neighbors who shared the same language and culture.

The founding of Enterprise Development in 1985 embodied that missionary's dream: a non-profit, Christian organization that would enable poor entrepreneurs to start sustainable family businesses and pull themselves and their dependents out of poverty. Working through a network of local Christian organizations, Enterprise Development would offer business training, mentors, and funds for small loans, regardless of race, gender, religion, or creed.

That original vision remains at work today, as Enterprise Development provides technical assistance and capital to local programs across the developing world. Each year, these programs rely on the expertise and financial resources of Enterprise Development to offer real hope to thousands and thousands of families.