The Trickle Up Model

Trickle Up's microenterprise development program is specifically designed to reach the extreme poor, people living on less than $1.25 a day, and provide them with the appropriate support and services needed to address their unique challenges. With a special focus on women and people with disabilities, we help extremely poor people take their first steps out of poverty. Our program components are designed and sequenced in a way that takes into account the individual, as well as the varying local contexts of the areas we work in. We specifically target people who are unreached by microfinance or other service organizations, and provide them with the resources they need to build a sustainable livelihood that improves their quality of life. For the women we serve, it is often the first time they have had such an opportunity.

Trickle Up works in partnership with community-based organizations to select the very poorest people in a community and provide three basic inputs:

• SPARK GRANTS: Participants receive a seed capital grant that covers start-up costs or helps to expand an existing microenterprise. Read more...
  
  
• SAVINGS GROUPS: We connect participants with savings groups that help them build their assets. These groups function like community banks; the members save money, make loans, and pay each other interest to grow the group fund. Read more...
  
  
• TRAINING: Participants receive training on how to operate and sustain a microenterprise. Training may involve balancing accounts, basic marketing, livestock management, and animal rearing. Read more...