Humanitarian Aid

Whole Cities Foundation, a nonprofit established by Whole Foods Market in 2014, partners with U.S. neighborhood efforts to build thriving local food systems and grow community health. The foundation collaborates with community-led initiatives to broaden access to fresh, healthy food and high quality nutrition education.

In February, we visited our microfinance partner Fonkoze in Haiti. The team visited the southwestern peninsula – the area hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew. Having visited the area three months after the hurricane, we were able to see operations beginning to normalize at the community level and branch level. Most of the clients we met were not able to resume activities until after they were able to recapitalize their existing loan. We see this as yet another good example of where Whole Planet Foundation’s funding can have an invaluable impact and support long term reconstruction after natural disasters.

This summer, Whole Planet Foundation invites you to join an online community of runners to help fund opportunities for impoverished entrepreneurs in all over the world.

Microfinance provides opportunities for borrowers to start and reinvest in businesses; generate income; and carve their own pathways out of poverty. But the path isn’t always so smooth. Poor households are especially vulnerable to economic shocks, ranging from common situations like illness and death in the family, to exceptional crises like health epidemics, natural disasters, and political instability.

As a supplier of key ingredients for its life-saving products, Cargill helps Edesia treat and prevent malnutrition around the world.

Guaduas La Paz Village is home to 800 households and has a total population of over 2,000 people who earn a living mainly from the production of cheese and livestock.

Located about 60 kilometers to the west of Siem Reap is Run Village, which is home to 110 families and has a total population of 521 community members. The village has a primary school, Hun Sen Run Primary, which enrolls 229 students and employs 7 teachers. This village faces economic and food security challenges as their livelihoods depend solely on rice planting, causing some villagers to migrate to Siem Reap to find work as laborers in the construction sector.

The village of Nai Basti Dadri is located in a rural community where farming is the main source of livelihood and engages sixty percent of the economically active population.

Many social enterprises focus on innovation of high-quality products designed to reach low-income customers. By the numbers, this bottom of the pyramid strategy to reach impact and market at scale seems to make sense – analysis of World Bank data from 2011 shows that 71% of the world’s population can be considered poor or low-income.

In April 2017, Whole Planet Foundation signed a contract with a new microfinance partner in greater Accra called ID Ghana. To gain insight into the bustling Makola market in Accra, it may be helpful to read this 2015 article in the New Yorker profiling Ghanaian business owners.