Press Release: iDE reaches audacious goal impacting 20 Million More — 16 November 2023
Organization powers small-scale entrepreneurs to end poverty and build communities
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Kara Prior, myWHY Agency, Inc. for iDE (email: kara@mywhyagency.com)
Denver, CO – (October 16, 2023) iDE (International Development Enterprises) has reached its audacious goal of impacting “20 Million More” people, bringing the total number of low-income people impacted by the organization since it was established in 1982 to 40 million across the world.
iDE CEO Lizz Welch said she was proud to lead an organization dedicated to ending poverty using innovative, market-based approaches, designed to local contexts, which had so far impacted a group of people equivalent to the population of California.
“At iDE, we don’t provide handouts,” said Welch. “Instead we believe in powering small-scale entrepreneurs and building robust market ecosystems that boost livelihoods, are resilient to changing climates, and inclusive of marginalized people.”
“To have impacted so many people using a business-minded, self-sustaining approach is truly remarkable, and a testament not only to our dedicated staff at iDE, but also to the millions of clients we have powered to thrive on their own terms.”
Welch said in 2016, iDE set a goal for itself to impact 20 Million More people, doubling down on the organization’s record of success, rapidly scaling up operations, and expanding iDE’s footprint across the globe in the sectors of agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), gender equity, and climate change resilience.
“When we set the goal, we knew we not only had to impact more people, we’d need those people to impact other people or as some say, implement a ‘one-to-many’ strategy. So we trained local business people to train others, creating a multiplier effect, impacting not only individuals and families but whole communities.
“And I am delighted to report that we reached our goal in 2023, through grit, determination, and a lot of hard work, managing to impact our second group of 20 million people in a fraction of the time it took us to impact the first 20 million.”
Having recently turned 40, iDE is proud of its long record of achievement. Welch shared that, true to iDE’s nature, the organization is busy planning its next audacious impact goal, to be announced in early 2024.
As we prepare to launch our next impact goal, we are focusing on both depth of impact and scale of impact. We will ground our new goal in the lessons we have learned over the past 40 years while also grappling with ever-changing climate, conflict, and economic challenges that hinder prosperity for families. As we reach for the stars, one thing will remain constant - our commitment to powering entrepreneurs to end poverty. Stay tuned!”
About iDE:
iDE (International Development Enterprises) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending poverty. Our work within agriculture, sanitation, climate change resilience, and gender equality, stands out because we don’t simply provide handouts. Instead, iDE believes in powering small-scale entrepreneurs and building robust market ecosystems that lay the groundwork for low income and marginalized people to prosper on their own terms. iDE has almost 1,400 global staff – including those in Cambodia – and offices in 10 countries across Africa, Asia and Central America.
About iDE's Three Global Key Performance Indicators
Although iDE measures multiple project-level indicators, we have three high-level key performance indicators for our organizational and country-level performance:
Scale: the number of households with which we work.
Impact: the average annual net household increase in both income and savings achieved by households with which we work.
Social Return on Investment (SROI): the ratio of money spent by iDE relative to the aggregate increased income generated (or saved, for our WASH portfolio) by participating households estimated using a three-year rolling average.