Your Gifts Create Impactby Gail DeGiulio, chief capital resource officer, Global Partnerships

Global Partnerships is focused on a singular mission—to expand opportunity for people living in poverty. Our mission guides our work as a nonprofit impact investor; it informs the initiatives we support, the partners with whom we work, and the ways in which we deploy our investments.

Philanthropic support is critical to delivering on our

mission. It allows us to:

1. identify, analyze and activate viable market-based solutions; 2. explore new types of partners that are mission-aligned, under-stand local context, and sustainably provide access to products and services (beyond loans); and 3. measure our impact and adjust our approach based on the things we learn.

In other words, if the target is our mission, your philanthropy enables us to aim well.

Once we have taken aim, we deploy our social investment funds to partners who deliver financial, educational, health, and other kinds of life-changing opportunities.

I recently had the pleasure of traveling with some of our donors to rural Guatemala to see the impact made possible by philanthropic gifts. We visited a loan disbursement meeting at a village bank affiliated with Friendship Bridge (FB), a GP partner. FB’s clients are primarily indigenous women living in poverty.

The women I met received $70 to $400 loans to start or expand their textile and food businesses. They also received fundamental financial and health education.

This access to credit combined with education enables women to create better futures for themselves, their children and their community. As one FB client, Rosanda (pictured above, second from left), said to

us, the most important lesson that she has learned is, “We can work together to be empowered. We have a voice together.”

Philanthropic gifts have helped impact 2.9 million lives. They have helped us find and support partners that provide women entrepreneurs with financial education; families with access to affordable health services; solar lights for off-grid households; and market access for smallholder farmers.

If you have given to GP before on an annual basis, through a multi-year pledge, and/or a bequest THANK YOU for your support. You have helped us create lasting, scalable change for those living in poverty. Your continued support will enable us to evaluate new initiatives and partners and achieve our goal of impacting over 30 million lives in the next 10 years.

The word philanthropy comes from the Greek philanthropia, meaning “love for humanity.” Every gift you make to GP matters.

IMPACTSPRING 2015 | HOW YOUR PHILANTHROPY MAKES A DIFFERENCE

2 Philanthropy Funds Innovation

3 The Round Up

3 Seeing Impact in Guatemala

4 From the Field

IN THIS ISSUE

PERSPECTIVES

2

Philanthropy Funds Innovation by Peter Bladin, chief impact & research officer, Global Partnerships

Two questions we often receive are “How does Global Partnerships decide what partners to invest in?” and “If GP has social investment funds, why does it need philanthropic support?” The answers to these two questions are actually related. Philanthropy funds GP’s research, exploration and identification of new kinds of initiatives and partners that connect people living in poverty with access to services and products that can improve their lives.

What does this research and exploration look like?

In 2009, we asked ourselves, how can we connect more of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers, most of whom live in rural poverty, with opportunities to improve their incomes? We had already invested in microfinance institutions that provided agricultural loans to farmers. But through these investments, we learned that access to loans wasn’t enough.

Farmers also need access to technical assistance to improve their farming techniques and yields. And they benefit from access to markets where they can sell their produce at higher prices. The question then became what kinds of organizations provide

farmers with these three crucial services—financing, training and access to markets? Our research, funded by philanthropy, pointed us to agricultural cooperatives, and we made our first investment in a coffee co-op in 2011.

We have since developed strong partnerships with six agricultural co-ops. As member-owned, locally-run organizations with very close ties to the community, co-ops create high impact. Yet their inherently small structure makes it challenging to scale to serve greater numbers of farmers in need—which is one of GP’s goals.

In 2014, we began dedicating philanthropic resources toward exploring a group of for-profit agricultural entities called outgrowers. There are many kinds of outgrower business models, but in essence, outgrowers are contract farming companies that buy and export agricultural produce. We wanted to know what services do outgrowers provide to farmers and do they give farmers the same meaningful opportunities as co-ops, despite being for-profit entities?

After months of research and meetings with potential partners, we identified a subset of outgrowers that we believe smallholder farmers will benefit from working with.

These outgrowers provide farmers with access to credit (in the form of inputs like seeds), training and markets. They also offer greater income stability through guaranteed minimum purchasing prices. Further-more, outgrowers introduce higher-value crops like sesame and chia to farmers and train them in new cultivation techniques, resulting in more income for farmers. Finally, outgrowers focus on exporting to global markets, requiring greater scale that results in impact for many thousands of smallholder farmers.

Our research enabled us to make our first investments in two outgrowers, BioExport and Arasy, in Paraguay. Through these new partners, we are now reaching many more smallholder farmers we wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. With your continued philanthropic support, we will keep identifying new promising opportunities.

Sixta Garcia, portfolio director (left), takes notes during a partner screen visit in Costa Rica.

Danny Stokley, director of business development (left), on a screen visit in Nicaragua.

Sixta Garcia (left), portfolio director, & KJ Zunigha (third from left), impact evaluation officer, visit MiCrédito in Nicaragua.

Agnes Cho, program associate (second from left), surveys our partners’ clients in Honduras.

Mark Coffey, chief investment and operating officer (center), meets with an association of Paraguayan farmers that sells to BioExport.

THE ROUND UP

3

Seeing Impact in Guatemala by Nancy Garcia, Global Partnerships donor, investor and Impact Journey traveler

My husband Fred and I are two of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to retire early and reinvent the rest of our lives. Upon leaving the public and

nonprofit sectors in 2013, we were committed to finding ways to share some of our good fortune with people who live in constant poverty. My dad, a college professor and world traveler, taught me early-on about the power of micro-lending to change the lives of people struggling with poverty, specifically women and children. A t-shirt he gave me says, “Women Hold up Half the Sky.” Fred’s parents taught him the value of compassion for others. So it was a perfect fit when our friends Sharon and Randy Scott introduced us to Global Partnerships.

After doing significant research we enthusiastically became GP donors and then investors. GP goes beyond microfinance. They use our donations to fund research into sustainable ways to deliver essential goods and services that make a difference in people’s daily lives. A key to GP’s success is the use of in-country partners who understand the complexities of the local culture in delivering these services. GP excels in preserving the dignity of people who work extremely hard to help their families acquire the prerequisites to a better life. These include: knowledge about nutrition, access to healthcare, financial education, and the pride that comes with the success of their own small business.

On a recent Impact Journey to Guatemala, Fred and I loved traveling with brilliant and caring fellow GP donors. Our dinnertime conversations were fascinating, fun and inspiring! Exploring during the day, we stood on dirt floors in small village homes getting a sense of how microloans paired with financial and health education really work. We saw the faces of women in groups proudly paying back their loans, and getting new ones. Most important for me were the sweet

faces of the little girls watching their moms “hold up their half of the sky.”

(Reports, articles and highlights on impact investing. Accompanying links for The Round Up may be found online in the e-version of IMPACT at www.globalpartnerships.org/ newsletter)

Impact Investing is #1 “Most-Promising” Trend in Philanthropy

Impact investing was chosen as the #1 “most-promising” trend in philanthropy, according to the 2015 BNP Paribas Individual Philanthropy Index. The Index includes data from a survey, conducted by Forbes Insights, of approximately 400 individuals, each with at least $5MM in investable assets, from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the U.S.

Adaptive Philanthropy Creates More Impact

More social impact can be achieved through adaptive philanthropy, according to an article in the Spring issue of The Stanford Social Innovation Review. Adaptive philanthropy requires a “compelling goal and solid research” in addition to a willingness to experiment with different approaches.

Experimentation is risky and can lead to failure, but it can also lead to discovery of innovative approaches to solving complex social problems. Once viable approaches are found, they can be scaled up to serve more people in need.

Metrics Matter

“We should not confuse intent with impact,” says Jed Emerson, a pioneer in the impact investing space. Emerson emphasizes that metrics matter and that impact investors need to track them. He argues that continuing debate over whether metrics matter or not impedes the sector’s ability to make progress.

IMP

AC

T I

N A

CT

ION

June 21 - 29, 2015 Call Peter Solar 206.456.7834

JOIN US onan IMPACTJOURNEYto PERU!

4

NONPROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE PAID

SEATTLE, WAPERMIT NO. 66241932 First Avenue, Suite 400

Seattle, WA 98101 | 206.652.8773www.globalpartnerships.org

IN THIS ISSUE How Your Philanthropy Makes a Difference

COMING UP May 5: GiveBIG to GP & your gift will be stretched!

June 18: Come to GP’s open house

Oct. 29: GP’s 13th Annual Luncheon

Partners since Inception: 78

Lives Impacted: 2.9 Million

GP Investments in Partners: $154.3MM

Global Partnerships’ team members in both the Nicaragua and Seattle offices are constantly identifying and screening social enterprises with whom GP can partner to expand opportunity for people living in poverty. Philanthropy supports this crucial work.

FROM THE FIELD

Photo: In order to understand an organization’s impact, GP’s partner screen visits include meetings with the social

enterprises’ clients. This group of cacao farmers are members of a co-op our team recently met with in Nicaragua.

GO GREEN Sign up for e-newsletters at www.globalpartnerships.org/signup facebook.com/globalpartnerships twitter.com/gpsocialimpact