Issue Areas​

Micro and small businesses account for more than 90 percent of the global economy and employ 50 percent of the job market. In the US, 99.9 percent of the businesses are micro and small businesses employing 61.2 million people, essentially taking care of a huge chunk of the US economy. We believe in empowering and strengthening micro and small businesses through offering them tailored products and services such as access to customized financial services, training and capacity building, assessing their market potential and helping them realize their potential through unleashing business opportunities and mitigating risks.
 

Examples of our work:

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• To improve job quality of workers of small and medium businesses, many of who are BIPOC workers, we at Shared Success project, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute, are working to foster new norms and narratives among small businesses, financial intermediaries that support them, and institutions positioned to drive structural changes for a more just and equitable economy, with the support of the Gates Foundation. 

• Tested methods for recruitment, selection, data collection and retention of small business cohorts to prepare for a wide-scale study of small firms in the United States. The work included identifying how small firms are tracking their transactional information and how remote and digital tools can play a role in collecting such data for a detailed study of small firm behaviors and needs.

• Conducted a mix methods market research Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama through IFC to identify the current use of financial tools by the MSME segments with a particular emphasis on women.