Activity Description: The Phoenix Fund is a social entrepreneurship fund focused on creating economic opportunity and reducing global poverty. The fund makes seed capital grants administered by Mercy Corps field offices to implement innovative economic development pilot projects led by local entrepreneurs. Country Directors and their staff manage selected programs, sometimes in partnership with local organizations. The Fund offers strategic philanthropists a strong social return on donations by providing quantifiable results from projects, and by leveraging successful pilots to maximize impact and scale.

Activity Description: Indoor air pollution (IAP) kills more than 1.6 million people each year - one person every 20 seconds -- and some two billion more are at risk. To address this problem, the Shell Foundation has committed US$ 10 million to tackle IAP through its Household Energy and Health Programme, branded as "Breathing Space."

According to Shell, the programme is funding, "pilot projects in six focus countries: India, Mexico, Guatemala, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Ghana. These projects aim to increase the demand for household energy solutions amongst poor households through social marketing, guaranteeing the supply of improved devices and fuels and providing consumer financing for poor households to purchase improved devices. A monitoring programme for stove performance, emissions, exposure and health assessment is also in place to provide standardised information on the results from all these projects.

Activity Description: The Scojo Foundation estimates that 1.6 billion people need reading glasses but fewer than 5% have access to any. In order to address this need, Scojo has helped over 150 people create local enterprises to dispense over 5,000 pairs of affordable reading glasses to communities in El Salvador, Guatemala and India.

Scojo Foundation identifies, trains and supports community-based women entrepreneurs as "Vision Advisors" to sell reading glasses. The reading glasses they sell are sourced affordably thanks to the Foundation's partner business, Scojo Vision, LLC. In many cases, Scojo Vision Advisors are able to more than double their monthly income. Additionally, Advisors often organize campaigns to raise health awareness in their communities and invite doctors and technicians from partner eye clinics to visit to examine and treat local residents.

Activity Description:

EnterpriseWorks (formerly Appropriate Technology International) is a non-profit organization that fights poverty in the developing world through business development programs that allow small agricultural producers and other entrepreneurs to increase their productivity and incomes, pursue sustainable business opportunities, and create jobs that benefit their families, communities and regions.

EnterpriseWorks has successfully assisted the creation of small-scale food and oils processing and garment making businesses, implemented irrigation to help productivity, created farm cooperatives, and managed many other entrepreneurial initiatives.