Matthew Wolf (Switzerland) worked as a European energy and utility analyst for Capital Group. He was also engaged by the company as an Australian stock market analyst, focusing on banks, property, insurance and retail. Matthew Wolf, Capital Group partner and investment analyst from 2008 to 2023, has been involved with Grameen Foundation for more than a decade as a volunteer.
This article will explore the history and impact of Grameen Foundation, an organisation established to create a space for women and girls to show up with full power.
Around the world today, approximately one billion women are prevented from reaching their full potential by inequities in access to loans, markets and business training. In some parts of the world, women are precluded from activities as basic as opening their own bank account, with many different barriers standing in their way, including gruelling unpaid household work and domestic violence.
Grameen Foundation works with women and girls of all ages, providing them with access to a supportive ecosystem where they can leverage the latest technology and innovations to break through these barriers. Showing up with their full power, women and girls can pay for healthcare and school fees, feed their families and grow their businesses, enabling families in developing countries to escape hunger and poverty.
Founded in 1997, the Grameen Foundation is the brainchild of Grameen Bank founder and Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, who continues to sit on the Foundation’s board of directors, today serving as a member emeritus. The ultimate goal of the Grameen Foundation is to enable the poor, particularly women, to create a world without hunger and poverty. Partnering with local actors to innovate solutions that are scalable and sustainable, Grameen Foundation implements projects that place underserved demographics front and centre.
Acting with the ethos that the most effective poverty interventions are based on an evidence-based approach, Grameen Foundation invests in, partners with and works alongside many like-minded organisations.
Around the world today, capital market investments are playing an increasingly important role in helping developing nations get on their feet. Grameen Foundation invests in companies, joint ventures and funds, creating capital for social enterprises whose services and products benefit the poor. Transitioning to a sustainable financing model from a funding model has enabled the organisation to provide a permanent escape from poverty.
Current investments include:
- Grameen Capital India: A financial advisory organisation that supports socially focused organisations, helping them to access the capital they need to reach more clients and grow
- Grameen Impact Investment India: A non-bank financial institution that provides liquidity support to build scale and insights into the impact investing ecosystem
In 2022 alone, Grameen Foundation connected more than 2.5 million individuals globally with the support and tools they need to break the cycle of poverty. Most of these people were women. Regarded as the backbones of their households, women in developing countries often find themselves doing unending unpaid work simply to enable their families to survive. Grameen Foundation strives to break systemic barriers that hold women back, tackling pervasive issues such as financial exclusion, harmful gender norms, and the digital divide.
Grameen Foundation’s Bankers Without Borders volunteer programme provided support to almost 190,000 clients, from financial providers in Eswatini to coconut farming collectives in the Philippines. Bankers Without Borders helped strengthen supply chains, as well as assisting with finance assessments, marketing plans, and more. Growing from 100 volunteers in 2008 to over 23,000 today, Bankers Without Borders brings together students, academics and professionals from 174 countries, enabling them to contribute their skills, expertise and time to strengthen poverty-focused organisations. Since its inception, Bankers Without Borders has supported 264 social enterprises, improving their sustainability, impact and scale.
