Activity Description: MicroCredit Enterprises is committed to reducing poverty by mobilizing private investment capital to finance micro-businesses of poor families throughout the developing world. MicroCredit Enterprises gears its entrepreneurial results to produce jobs, sustain micro-businesses and improve human lives.

MicroCredit Enterprises leverages the collateral assets of individuals and institutions to borrow debt capital in the United States which is channeled through overseas, locally-run, non-governmental microfinance organizations in order to make thousands of tiny business loans to local entrepreneurs. MicroCredit Enterprises' reverses the cycle of poverty in economically distressed countries using the tools of the marketplace to provide self-help opportunities to millions of impoverished women and their families.

Activity Description: Equal Exchange was founded in 1986 to create a new approach to trade, one that engages consumers and builds relationships through cooperative principles. The company is structured as a for-profit, worker-owned cooperative. Every worker-owner invests in the company, and over 300 outside shareholders have invested as well.

Equal Exchange trades directly with democratically organized small farmer cooperatives. Producers are given a guaranteed minimum price that provides a stable source of income as well as improved social services. Equal Exchange also facilitates access to credit for producer organizations.