Investing in Artisan Enterprises
Creating sustainable livelihoods for rural communities with few economic alternatives. Created by Realize Impact and Sprout Enterprise®.
Impact Opportunities
Micro, small and early-stage artisan enterprises typically lack the capital resources necessary for them to grow successfully. Catalytic capital is needed to support artisan enterprises in building more effective sales distribution, more efficient operations and more timely financial reporting. Only with appropriate capital and support will these artisan enterprises be able to grow.
Investment in artisan enterprises addresses key impact investment themes: women’s empowerment, sustainability and climate change.
Women’s Empowerment
The artisan sector is the second-largest employer in the developing world after agriculture, worth over $32 billion every year according to the Artisan Alliance. Artisan activity creates jobs, increases local incomes, and preserves cultural traditions that in many places are at risk of being lost. Over 65% of artisan activity takes place in developing economies.
The majority of artisans are small producers – often women – working informally which too often means this is an overlooked, undervalued and underfunded economic sector with still untapped potential. At the same time, it is well recognized that women are key drivers of economic growth. According to USAID to eradicate extreme poverty and build vibrant economies in developing countries, women must gain access to and control of capital, land, markets, education and leadership opportunities.
Sustainability
Craft is the original circular economy. The craft story is in many ways what the story of craft has always been – of artisans making use of waste, left over or found materials, of design and innovation to perform the alchemy of material transformation into a product of function and beauty, of expressing and sharing cultural and community values, and of telling the stories of each generation.
Made by hand using or reusing local, natural materials, craft can have a lighter environmental impact than large-scale, machine-powered, industrial production. Use of hand-powered processes, natural materials and recycled inputs, reduces energy needs and avoids toxic waste entering and eroding the environment.
Climate Change
Clean energy innovation enables pioneering artisan enterprises to reduce their reliance on energy from fossil fuels. Solar energy powers equipment and lighting. Methane collected from local bio-digesters replaces propane transported from processing plants miles and miles away. Gasification of pine needles – a fire hazard cleared from forest floors – replaces use of diesel fuel to run power generators. Agricultural waste packed in briquettes replace charcoal for firing clay, and re-designed furnaces burn more efficiently.