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Village Enterprise | GiveWell
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You are hereHome » Research » Other Charity Reviews » Village Enterprise
Village Enterprise
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About this page
GiveWell aims to find the best giving opportunities we can and recommend them to donors (why we recommend so few charities). We tend to put a lot of investigation into the organizations we find most promising, and de-prioritize others based on limited information. When we decide not to prioritize an organization, we try to create a brief writeup of our thoughts on that charity because we want to be as transparent as possible about our reasoning.
The following write-up should be viewed in this context: it explains why we determined that (for the time being), we won't be prioritizing the organization in question as a potential top charity. This write-up should not be taken as a "negative rating" of the charity. Rather, it is our attempt to be as clear as possible about the process by which we came to our top recommendations.
Published: November 29, 2011
Summary
Village Enterprise provides business training, mentoring, and grants (as opposed to loans) directly to very poor individuals living in the developing world.
Village Enterprise's model of providing monetary grants is relatively uncommon among economic empowerment organizations working in developing countries (see our overview of cash transfer programs) -- most organizations provide loans or training without cash. Its commitment to monitoring and evaluation is among the strongest we have found in the area of economic empowerment in the developing world.
Village Enterprise targets poor clients and collects data on their standards of living, addressing a key concern about cash grants. However, the majority of program funding does not reach participants in the form of grants; this spending includes (but is not limited to) costs involved in identifying participants and delivering grants, and providing business mentorship and training. We have not yet seen strong evidence of effectiveness for Village Enterprise's mentorship and training programs.
We initially recommended Village Enterprise in 2009 (see our 2009 review). Since we published the 2009 review, our understanding of the how much of Village Enterprise's spending reaches clients in the form of grants has changed.
Our judgments are necessarily a function of the information we have and the limited time we can devote to any organization. Given the information we have at this time, Village Enterprise does not qualify for our highest ratings.