ACCION International

Location

ACCION International is a private, nonprofit organization with the mission of giving people the financial tools they need microenterprise loans, business training, and other financial services to work their way out of poverty.  A world pioneer in microfinance, ACCION was founded in 1961 and issued the first microloan in 1973 in Brazil. ACCION International partner microfinance institutions today are providing loans as low as $100 to poor women and men entrepreneurs in 22 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and in the U.S.  Since 1992, ACCION and its partners have disbursed $7.6 billion in microloans to more than 4.7 million borrowers, 65 percent of whom are women. Ninety-seven percent of these loans have been repaid. For the past two years, ACCION has been among 25 organizations awarded the 2005 Social Capitalist Award by Fast Company magazine for using business excellence to engineer social change. For more information, visit www.accion.org.