Historically, Hand in Hand’s sole focus has been to support women with no previous business experience to create micro enterprises that lift themselves and their families above the poverty line.

Through this work, we identified an urgent need for an additional level of support – for women who want to expand and grow existing businesses.  By supporting this group of women business owners we:

• Help them to increase turnover and profit of their enterprises above subsistence level
• Create employment opportunities in the local community
• Strengthen existing value chains, creating strong local business ecosystems. 

Helping women overcome the barriers to expansion

• Business skills. Hand in Hand’s acceleration courses provide women with a more advanced curriculum, with training on marketing and value addition, as well as sector-specific skills.
• Market linkages and networking opportunities. We give women the chance to expand their networks by connecting them to mentors within their sector.
• Access to credit. It can be tough for women to obtain credit from traditional financial institutions, such as banks, if they don’t have any credit history or have never held a bank account. We work with banks and microfinance institutions to help our members access to loans and credit, so they can invest in staff, equipment and stock.
• Digital inclusion. We overcome the ‘digital gender gap’ by giving women the digital skills they need to run their businesses effectively (for example banking and bookkeeping apps) and to market and sell their products on social media or e-commerce sites.

This acceleration programme will not only transform the lives of thousands of women and their families, it also offers the potential for grassroots entrepreneurs to create genuine economic growth in some of the most deprived communities in the world.

To achieve our goals, we partner with local and national NGOs, foundations, bilateral and multilateral agencies, companies and private donors. Find out more about partnering with us.