Venture: BRAC

Investment:Ā $1M grant

Portfolio:Ā Audacious

Investment date: June 2020

Region(s) served: Global

Sector: Economic Empowerment

Core Impact Metric: People lifted out of extreme poverty

Developing cost-effective, evidence-based programs for the most marginalized in conflict-prone and post-disaster settings

BRAC uses a ā€˜Graduation Approachā€™ to support communities in poverty. This is a time-bound and sequenced set of steps that braid together financial stipends, access to employment, health care support, and various trainings, along with coaching, mentoring, and social inclusion. To ā€œgraduate,ā€ participants demonstrate progress against a set of criteria, including an increase in assets (often livestock) and household savings.

Why Rippleworks Invested:

Comparative analysis of programs targeted at the extremely poor found that graduation has, per dollar, the greatest positive sustained impact.Ā Since inception, BRACā€™s Graduation Approach has lifted over 7 million people out of extreme poverty.Ā 

Philanthropic dollars provide BRAC with an opportunity to reach massive scale and to position governments to deliver and sustain these results over time.