Investing in Women Fund

Help empower women through savings groups.

Nearly one billion women in the world do not have access to financial services. Savings groups are vital economic engines that fuel progress for people living in extreme poverty, especially rural women.
While responding to the economic impacts of COVID-19, we learned that providing small loans to savings groups helped keep them afloat and dramatically accelerated progress and momentum-building resilience against future setbacks and shocks.

How savings groups work

• World Vision helps 15 – 25 people establish a neighborhood club.
• Members co-create their own constitution, bylaws, and select their leaders resulting in a member-owned, member-run enterprise.
• They meet regularly and pay dues each time. This may be as small as the US equivalent of ten cents.
• When enough money is saved in dues, the members give loans to each other for business enterprises or vital family needs.
• Interest is charged, the loans are repaid, and the cycle is repeated.
• After each cycle, the accumulated savings and profits are shared-out among the members according to the amount they’ve put in.

As loans to savings groups are repaid, donated funds become a permanent asset for continuous lending to savings groups into the future.

Thanks to investments in capital markets, your gift will multiply 2.3x in impact to help provide loans to savings groups. On average, World Vision provides a first loan of $800 to a savings group that has around 22 members, 80% of which are women!

Through World Vision, every 60 seconds a family gets the tools to overcome poverty.