Root Capital

Grant Announced: November 12, 2010
Grant Amount: $1,000,000
Key Partner: The World We Want Foundation

Please click here to download the Root Capital Fact Sheet.  

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund grant to Root Capital was awarded to provide loans for promising Haitian small and growing businesses, largely in rural agricultural areas. Using purchase orders as collateral, Root Capital links businesses to the financing, management skills training, and markets they need to build thriving businesses.


Root Capital seeks to distribute approximately $5.3 million to Haitian small and growing businesses over the next 24 to 30 months. Already, Root Capital provided $15,000 to BrandAid, which is also supported by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, to finance the recent artisanal handicraft sale to Macy's.

 


Businesswomen, who are recipients of Root Capital's services,
working to complete wares to sell.

Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
With support from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Root Capital will:
• Leverage an additional $1.6 million in funding from other social investors for loans to promising small and growing businesses in Haiti.
• Increase rural prosperity and build sustainable livelihoods in poor, environmentally vulnerable places through supporting small and growing businesses.
• Empower small and growing businesses to move toward a successful future, investing in equipment, meeting orders, and providing employment.
• Pave the way for the transition of Haitian businesses to the formal economy and for a long-term future marked by hope and prosperity rather than aid-dependency.


Artisan Products on Display for Sale

About Root Capital
Founded in 2000, Root Capital is a non-profit social investment fund. It has disbursed 805 loans totaling $213 million to 292 SEMs in thirty countries in Latin America and Africa. While Root Capital is heavily focused on sustainable agriculture, its portfolio also includes handicrafts, eco-tourism, and fisheries. Root Capital has a cumulative-and superb-repayment rate of 99.7% from its borrowers, and a 100% repayment rate to its investors. The record has earned Root Capital not only the recommendation of highly-regarded firms and institutions, including Dalberg Global Development Advisors and the Inter-American Development Bank, but also financial support, including grants and PRIs, from both the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations.