What is the Evolution of the Grassroots Business Fund?
The origins of GBF can be traced back as far as 2000 at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), when Harold Rosen founded the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) department, a joint IFC/World Bank department. In 2004, Mr. Rosen started the Grassroots Business Initiatives (GBI), which aimed to build sustainable, non-financial intermediaries that would empower large numbers of High Impact Businesses and individual producers, consumers, and entrepreneurs. GBI worked directly with High Impact Businesses to strengthen their business performance, scale up their operations, and improve their sustainability. From 2004 to 2007, GBI implemented over 40 technical assistance projects and investments impacting the lives of over 3.4 million direct and indirect beneficiaries at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid.