Fonkoze

Grant Announced: October 12, 2010
Grant Amount: $500,000
Key Partners: Mercy Corps International, DePaul University, IADB

Please click here to download the Fonkoze Fact Sheet. 

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund awarded a grant to Fonkoze, a Haitian microfinance institution, to support the recovery and development of small and growing businesses in Haiti. Fonkoze will help provide these businesses with access to the professional services, business guidance, knowledge, and connections they need to become investment ready, indirectly through the Zafen.org website. Once deemed ready for investment, Fonkoze will link these small and growing businesses to the capital they need to run thriving businesses. This scalable program hopes to lay the foundation for strong, long-term development in Haiti's private sector.


George William Marshall is an artisan in Jacmel
who specializes in papier mache animals.

Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
With support from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Fonkoze will:
• Recruit Haitian M.B.A. business analysts to identify promising small and growing businesses and evaluate their needs and potential for growth.
• Facilitate access to capital for those businesses deemed investment ready, including putting them on the Zafen.org website.
• Establish a voucher program with a preselected network of business development services firms to provide support to businesses to help them become investment ready.



A group of female entrepreneurs displaying gift baskets
of jams and peanut butters that they produce.

About Fonkoze
Fonkoze is the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in Haiti, serving more than 45,000 women borrowers (most of whom live and work in rural areas), and more than 200,000 depositors. With a network of 41 branches covering every region of Haiti, Fonkoze also the only microfinance institution that is truly national in scope. Fonkoze, in partnership with the Vincentian Family, DePaul University, and the Haitian Hometown Associations Resource Group, created a website called Zafen (meaning "It's Our Business" in Creole http://zafen.org) that provides Haitian small and growing businesses with access to capital through zero-interest loans and grants. Fonkoze now wants to move up-market and use this program to identify other small and growing businesses, strengthen their business practices, and facilitate their access to capital.