Trickle Up

Trickle Up partners with women in extreme poverty to build economic opportunity and drive inclusion. <br><br>700 million people live in extreme poverty in the world today, defined by the World Bank as those living on $2.15/day or less. We support women and highly vulnerable populations to forge resilient pathways out of poverty by starting microenterprises and building livelihoods. We drive large-scale change by partnering with local organizations, global institutions, and local governments, helping them adopt and adapt evidence-based, proven programming. Since 1979, Trickle Up has reached 2.3 million people by partnering with 465,000. We aim to serve 60,000 women this year, reaching an additional 300,000 currently living in extreme poverty. We have active projects in Colombia, Guatemala, India, Mexico, and Uganda, and teams based in India, Latin America, Uganda, and in the U.S. Our goal is to reach five million people by 2030 by partnering with a total of one million women participants living in extreme poverty.

A world free from extreme poverty.

Goal One: Partnerships for scale: Building upon our "We Go Further" strategic framework, we will deepen and expand our partnerships with governments and INGOs to influence practices, policies and investments.

Goal Two: Mainstream innovations: Accelerate development and expansion of digital tools, and add a climate-change adaptation and mitigation component to Trickle Up’s core programs.

Goal Three: Post-Graduation opportunities: Build pathways for Trickle Up participants to continue their economic and social progress after completing the core Trickle Up program.

Trickle Up invests in leadership development in two major ways: (1) our semi-annual performance check-in system, which specifically encourages managers to engage with their direct reports on the issue of leadership and professional development in their semi-annual conversations, and (2) by Trickle Up annually allocating/allowing each staff member modest resources (i.e., approximately $250-$350 per staff member per year) that they can invest in professional development-related workshops, trainings, and/or webinars related to their individual professional and leadership development.

Trickle Up is a leader in project implementation and technical assistance and an advocate for vulnerable populations, digital technology, climate change resilience and coaching & savings groups. Our programs have been featured at the World Bank Partnership for Economic Inclusion global colloquium and State of Economic Inclusion report, and research and success has prompted government adoption in multiple locations. We produce learning symposiums in partnership with the MetLife Foundation. We further disseminate research results to funders, partners, peers, and networks. For donors and members of the public, we produce an annual thought-leader event and Town Hall webinars on programs and management. We host an annual gala. In the last year, we’ve relaunched our website with an improved design, technology and search engine optimization. Finally, we’ve reached local audiences with TV spots in India, Guatemala, and New York City, and continue to grow our social media presence.

The skills that Trickle Up fosters – helping extremely poor and vulnerable people manage businesses, plan for the future, build confidence, and mobilize their voices – have never been more urgent. Despite a global lockdown, we mobilized our network to help participants adapt to the immediate effects of the pandemic and ensure that they could rebuild after. We continue to grapple with Covid spikes, inequitable vaccination coverage and sporadic lockdowns. As a result, we revised timetables, deployed digital tools, virtual trainings, remote coaching and monitoring, adaptive trainings with an added focus on health information and resilience, and in Guatemala and India, provided direct emergency support. The pandemic both accelerated the development of existing digital tools, and catalyzed the creation of new ones. In appropriate contexts, we will continue expanding these innovations alongside more traditional face-to-face programming. We continue to make progress in each of our programs in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. We surpassed our conservative fundraising goals in business development and individual giving, and hosted a successful virtual gala. Finally, we applied for and received two rounds of PPP loans, which allowed us to keep all staff, and negotiated a hefty savings for our HQ rent in New York City. Our teams in the US, Guatemala, India, and Uganda all transitioned to fully remote work. We increased usage of online meeting and management tools, and migrated HQ (New York) computer and phone systems to a cloud. We plan to re-open our offices under flexible hybrid models when it is safe.