Introduction to Trickle Up

Trickle Up began in 1979 at a time when “trickle down economics” was the conventional wisdom. When Trickle Up founders Glen and Mildred Robbins Leet traveled to one of the Caribbean’s poorest nations, Dominica, they saw firsthand that huge sums of money allocated to top levels of society never reached the world’s poorest. In 1979, Glen and Mildred gave ten people grants of $100 each to launch their own microenterprises. The Leets provided them with Trickle Up business plans and reports to track their business expenses and earnings. New business activities ranged from building blocks to selling eggs, jams and school uniforms. Some of these businesses are still operating today.

Today, with an estimated 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty, there is an immense need for high-quality economic development programs that can produce sustainable change in the lives of the poorest, Trickle Up’s target population. Studies show that microcredit institutions serve moderately poor and low-income households living on at least $2 a day per capita. Trickle Up’s unique approach is designed for households whose per capita income is less than $1.25 a day, the international standard for extreme poverty defined by the World Bank. Households living at this level of poverty lack the collateral to qualify for formal microcredit services and, because of their extreme level of vulnerability, are not in a position to benefit from a development strategy that carries the risk of further indebtedness.

Vision

Trickle Up works for a world in which all people have access to and control over the resources they need to lead lives of dignity—a world that recognizes this access as a right, not a privilege. Our vision is a world that has succeeded in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty.

Mission

Trickle Up empowers people living on less than $1.25 a day to take the first steps out of poverty, providing them with resources to build sustainable livelihoods for a better quality of life. In partnership with local agencies, we provide training and seed capital grants to launch or expand a microenterprise and savings support to build assets.

We empower the world’s poorest people to develop their potential and strengthen their communities. We pursue this goal in a way that encourages innovation and leadership, maximizes resources and promotes communication and cooperation among all Trickle Up constituencies.

Methodology

Our program components are designed and sequenced in a way that takes into account the individual, as well as the varying local contexts of the areas we work in. We specifically target people who are unreached or unserved by microfinance or other service organizations, and provide them with the resources they need to build sustainable livelihoods that improve their quality of life. For the women we serve, it is often the first time they have had such an opportunity:

Spark Grants: Participants receive a seed capital grant that covers start-up costs or helps to expand an existing microenterprise.

Savings Groups: We connect participants with savings groups that help them build their assets. These groups function like community banks; the members save money, make loans, and pay each other interest to grow the group fund.

Training: Participants receive training on how to operate and sustain a microenterprise. Training may involve balancing accounts, basic marketing, livestock management, and animal rearing.

Local Partnerships: We partner with local community-based organizations that share our vision, values, and mission. Our partners are the linchpin of our programs, essential to our ability to deliver the Trickle Up program. Working through our local partners allows us to adapt our program to fit the needs and context of local communities. We work with local organizations–grassroots and larger national agencies–in some of the poorest countries of the world: India, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mali and Burkina Faso.

Trickle Up takes a multi-faceted approach. We don’t just give a grant and walk away. We know that to rise and stay out of poverty takes more than that. Our saving support and training components are key to sustaining someone’s progress out of poverty.

How We Define & Measure Success

We consider our work successful if the people we serve have made significant and sustainable progress out of extreme poverty in that they:

• Are less vulnerable to shocks and trends
• Have livelihood activities that are dignified, diversified, productive and sustainable
• Have a fair and effective means to save and access credit
• Have improved access to available basic social services
• Enjoy a better quality of life, including improved food security
• Have made significant progress toward economic and social empowerment

Our monitoring and evaluation tools include (but are not limited to):

• Baseline and end of project surveys incorporate the Progress Out of Poverty Index (PPI), a tool developed by Grameen Foundation for measuring poverty levels, and the Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT), developed by USAID for the same purpose, plus numerous extra indicators we have identified to help us assess both our poverty selection processes and our participants’ movement out of extreme poverty.
• Savings Group Performance Indicators, developed for Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), are collected two to four times per year to assess group functioning and savings behavior.
• Monthly reports (in India) on factors including the profitability of participants’ livelihoods, health status, and linkages to local social services allow us to monitor the performance of field officers and identify participant needs as they arise.
• Qualitative Assessments focused on a small sample of participants allow us to gain in-depth information on the lives of participants, and show us how and why change occurs (or fails to), while helping identify any unanticipated outcomes.
• A range of monitoring visits, including unannounced visits by Trickle Up staff to representatives of every savings group in West Africa, are used to check on issues such as group governance, training outcomes, and the quality of partner support.

Target Segment

Reaching the bottom billion… Trickle Up’s microenterprise development program is specifically designed to reach the extreme poor, people living on less than $1.25 a day, and provide them with the appropriate support and services needed to address their unique challenges. With a special focus on women and people with disabilities, we help extremely poor people take their first steps out of poverty.

Outreach (# of targeted beneficiaries)

In 2010, Trickle Up served 7,690 new participants, helping them start or expand microenterprises. Of these participants, 94% are women and 12% have disabilities. Every person who launches a Trickle Up livelihood helps support, on average, another 5 people, which means that in 2010 nearly 41,000 people benefited from the Trickle Up program.

Our six definitions of success capture the transformational changes in participants’ lives and guide how we measure their progress as they take the first steps out of poverty:

Definition #1: Less Vulnerable to Shocks and Trends:

• In Mali, after one year, 45% more participants ate three meals a day (from 7% to 52%).
• In Guatemala, 91% of participants reported eating more or better quality food after one year in the program.

Definition #2: Livelihood Activities are Diversified, Dignified, Productive and Sustainable:

• In India, 82% of participants have successfully diversified their livelihood activities after three years, thus reducing vulnerability. Diversification is continuing beyond program completion.
• 92% of participants in India gained the required knowledge and skill to manage their livelihood activities.
• In Guatemala, 93% of participants increased their income after one year. 72% expanded a livelihood activity, 26% diversified their activities, and 15% of participants sold goods in new markets.

Definition #3: A Fair and Effective Means to Save and Access Credit:

• In 2010, 286 new savings and loan groups were created.
• In Guatemala, after one year 90% of participants had savings, versus 4% at the start of the program.
• In India 70% of savings groups have been approved for bank loans and 100% have experienced an increase in weekly savings.
• In Mali, over 98% of participants remain members of savings groups after 4-5 years

Definition #4: Improved Access to Available Basic Social Services:

• In India, 81% of participants have linked to at least one government safety net program after three years. The remaining 19% have completed the paperwork to do so.

Definition #5: A Better Quality of Life:

• In India, after three years more than 75% of participants engage in all recommended personal and family hygiene (including hand washing and using latrines). Half are also encouraging others to do so. 86% of participants installed sanitary latrines. 48% of all family members slept under mosquito nets, up from 25% at the start of the program.
• In Mali, asset ownership improved with a 52% increase in transport equipment, 78% increase in farm equipment, 148% increase in radios, and 325% increase in phones.
• In Guatemala, 91% of participants reported that their lives and those of their family members had improved since joining the program the year before.

Definition #6: Significant Progress Towards Economic and Social Empowerment:

• In India, 83% of participants can now sign their names, up from 33% at baseline.
• In Guatemala, 15% of participants reported increasing the role they play in household decision-making after one year.

Achievements and Recognition

2010:

Trickle Up Wins Grant from USAID to Support People with Disabilities Living in Extreme Poverty in Guatemala

• (http://www.trickleup.org/media/presscenter/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=3095)

Release of Trickle Up’s short documentary, “The Test of Poverty”

• Press Release: http://tiny.cc/pg5im
• Video: http://tiny.cc/jgs8s

2009:

Disability Inclusion Award from InterAction

• (http://www.interaction.org/article/forum-award-recipients) . The award acknowledges Trickle Up’s strong commitment to greater inclusion of persons with disability in its programs and management. InterAction is the largest alliance of US-based international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) focused on the world’s poor and most vulnerable people.
• Trickle Up has practiced inclusive development and promoted leadership opportunities for people with disabilities since 2002. Through a three-year partnership with Mobility International USA, Trickle Up began implementing inclusive practices at all levels of its organization — from staff disability-awareness training at the headquarters and field level, to actively building partnerships with disabled peoples’ organizations in all countries where it works. It has also achieved (and exceeded) its target that 10% of all participants be persons with disabilities and considers inclusion an integral part of its programming. By including people with disabilities, Trickle Up is better able to pursue its goal of providing the extremely poor with opportunities to build a sustainable livelihood.

2006-2009:

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) Partnership: Innovating for the Ultra-Poor

• http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.11.1925/1.26.2131
• Trickle Up, with funding from CGAP, began a three year pilot project in West Bengal, India, to build upon the Trickle Up model with several innovations including: a three-year program period instead of one; adding flexibility to the amount of the seed capital grant; regular household visits by a field worker and a health educator.
• In August 2009, we graduated 300 participants.
• Starting in Fall 2009, Trickle Up is planning on expanding on the lessons learned from the program to its entire India program, hoping to reach 5,000 participants in the next 4 years.

2006 – Current:

Member of the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Enabling Strong and Sustainable Partnerships

Efficiency:

• Better Business Bureau: http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/relief-and-development/trickle-up-program-in-new-york-ny-1822
• Charity Navigator: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6599

Future Plans

Trickle Up’s ambitions for our role in poverty alleviation have always been bold. We’ve chosen to serve those who are the hardest to reach and to serve, and those who face the greatest challenges in their climb out of poverty. Our belief that the poorest can and must be given the opportunities and tools they need to rise out of their vulnerable circumstances has driven the evolution of our organization over the past thirty years, and particularly over the last decade.

We’ve built regional offices and expert field teams that have provided us with greater knowledge than ever before of the specialized needs of the extreme poor, and the ways these needs vary within and between our regions of operation. We oversee a model for program delivery through local partnerships, partnerships that we believe are critical to the success of our program. While our regional strategies will continue to evolve, we are committed to providing training, risk-free seed capital grants and savings support, as fundamental components of sustainable livelihood development for the poorest. These elements unite and anchor our work across all regions.

Trickle Up future plans will address our “scalable impact.” If we could serve 100,000 new participants a year, instead of 10,000, how would we accomplish that? How could we serve one million and maintain program quality? How might we scale our current partner-based model?

To answer these questions, Trickle Up is in a long-range strategic planning process, developing a plan to scale our impact.

Message to the Readers

From Bill Abrams, President of Trickle Up

Recently, I traveled to Mali to gain fresh insight into our programs. On the last leg of my trip, I visited the village of Sampara, where I met with several dozen women who began Trickle Up about three years ago. Since donors often ask me, “What happens after Trickle Up leaves?” I was especially glad to meet the women of Sampara.

All of them reported sustained improvement in their income and living standards.  What fascinated me most was how well their savings groups were doing.  Part of the Trickle Up program is to train women become effective savers by forming savings groups that meet weekly, regularly saving small amounts (in West Africa, about $1 per week), and then making small loans to each other from their treasury.  It’s a way that “unbanked” women can get access to capital for their businesses, as well as having a buffer for a medical crisis or other emergencies.  We require participation in a savings group for every Trickle Up participant.

But what happens to these participants and groups after Trickle Up?  I found out in Sampara.  They had agreed to stay in the savings group for three years and adhere to the procedures we had helped them establish at the outset.

When Trickle Up left three years ago, they were free to do as they wish, including disbanding. The women proudly reported to us that they were continuing – or, more precisely, starting over.  They cashed out their treasury, so each of the 25 women in the group got a dividend.  And the next week, they began a new round of savings, with some agreed changes to the rules. This was a powerful demonstration that savings works, as well as that savings group members can govern themselves effectively.

Another important difference over three years is in the solidarity of the group.  ”We have learned to help each other,” one member explained. “If someone is sick, we will cook for them and help take care of their children.  Before Trickle Up, we didn’t help each other and visit if someone was sick. We feel like we are part of the same family.  Nobody wants to go back to the way it was before. We want to stay as a group.”

In describing their livelihood activities, several women told us how their businesses evolved over time.  Soutoura Diallo, who is 50 years old and has seven children (four still at home), used her initial Trickle Up Spark Grant to invest in buying and selling cereal and animals. These days, she still does both, but she also sells some cereal in the form of a local dish (“boule d’acassah”), and she fattens the animals for 3-4 months before selling them. In other words, she has shifted the type of activity toward higher investment, higher risk, longer time-frame activities, as well as adding one new activity.

Sometimes the signs of progress are subtle or even invisible to a visitor’s eyes.  When I complimented the women on their beautiful clothing, they all laughed.  If I’d met them three years ago, they explained, I would have seen them wearing old clothes, with unmatched blouses and skirts.  Wearing a matching outfit is a sign of well-being.  One woman showed me her mud house, which looked like all the others in the village.  Then she drew my attention to the straw and rice embedded in the surface – waterproofing for the rainy season. Before Trickle Up, she couldn’t afford insulation like that.

When it comes to poverty alleviation, immediate returns on investment are not the reality. Sampara is just one example of how, in over three years, and with courage, patience and perseverance, these women have created sustainable pathways out of poverty with the help of Trickle Up.