EDI mission:



- offering business training to low-income persons who have the potential and the desire to become self-supporting;



- providing small loans to poor entrepreneurs who have viable business ideas but need capital; and



- mentoring participants through ongoing personal and professional encouragement.



That original vision remains at work today, as Enterprise Development provides technical assistance and capital to local programs across the developing world. Each year, these programs rely on the expertise and financial resources of Enterprise Development to offer real hope to thousands and thousands of families.



The founding of Enterprise Development in 1985 embodied that missionary's dream: a nonprofit, Christian organization that would enable poor entrepreneurs to start sustainable family businesses and pull themselves and their dependents out of poverty. Working through a network of local Christian organizations, Enterprise Development would offer business training, mentors, and funds for small loans, regardless of race, gender, religion, or creed.



Our Work:



After nearly two decades of work in more than 50 countries, Enterprise Development International understands that poor people in virtually every country have skills that they want to use to lift their families out of poverty. Instead of a handout in the form of aid, many thousands of poor clients have received a hand up through training and small business loans.



Hungry for credit from sources other than local loan sharks, these clients have responded by demonstrating unmistakably the creditworthiness of the world's poor: Loan repayment rates in Enterprise-funded programs typically exceed 95 percent, surpassing the performance of many commercial institutions. Rather than cultivating dependency, this strategy of microenterprise creates self-supporting entrepreneurs and, as a consequence, healthier families and stronger local churches. (Enterprise programs do not discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation or impose any religious requirements on prospective or current clients.)



Developing countries also benefit from two unusual aspects of Enterprise's approach to relieving poverty. Rather than administering a large number of permanent branch offices around the world, Enterprise works with locally registered Christian organizations as partners, transferring required skills and capital. Also, each Enterprise project is designed to produce an indigenous, independent ministry, one that is expected to stand on its own financially within a few years.