Grant awarded to Fonkozo USA, Ti Koze (Little Chat) Program

The Foundation is pleased to award a grant to Fonkoze, USA.  this organization is new to the Foundations support.  Fonkoze was founded in 1994 by a group of Haiti grassroots organizations that wanted to empower the rural poor in Haiti. They choose to focus on Haitian women, who are considered the poto mitan (“backbone”) of the Haitian economy. 44% of households in Haiti are headed by single women, and they dominate the landscape of small commerce.-Fonkoze is a family of three institutions that work together to achieve a collective mission. The 3 arms are as follows: -Fonkoze is is the 501c3 arm for funding raising, technical assistance and outreach. -Fonkoze Financial Services (SFF) – is their microfinance institution. – Fonkoze Foundation – provides health and education services to their microfinance clients. Fonkoze is most well known for their microfinance services. SFF is the largest microfinance institution in Haiti and has a double bottom line; it aims to lift families out of poverty while operating in a financially self-sustaining manner. SFF offers loans from $50-$100,000, with an average loan size of $300. With over 44 braches, SFF also offers checking and saving accounts, currency exchange, payroll processing, and money transfers.

The Ti Koze Program is designed to reinforce clients’ resilience in the face of shocks and crises they encounter. The program looks to support microfinance clients with decision-making skills in the sectors of health, disaster mitigation, business, and others. At full scale, the program will reach over 60,000 clients in all SFF branches. Unfortunately the Fonkoze Foundation has been unable to consistently provide this program to all their clients, mainly due to financial constraints. The program was designed to train Center Chief’s to facilitate the Ti Koze discussion. In order to increase the efficiency and scale of the program, Fonkoze Foundation will partner with SFF to enable loan officers to deliver the program moving forward.

We look forward to watching the success of this program.