Construire un pipeline épique pour aider à mettre fin à la pauvreté

Systematic poverty—often called structural poverty—refers to poverty that is deeply embedded in the systems
and institutions of society. It’s not just about individual choices or bad luck; it’s about how economic, political,
and social structures are designed in ways that consistently disadvantage certain groups over time. It's safe to say that most of us were born privileged but birth is a crap shoot and let’s face it, we all could have been
born in a slum in Haiti and if that were the case, our lives would have been completely different.

In fact, it was walking through a slum in southern Haiti over 25 years ago that first inspired me to want to do
something about extreme poverty. I was hiking and lost track of the path I was on and found myself moving
through a crowded slum consisting of a jumble of very poor shacks, something I have seen animals living in
but never people. An elderly woman alighted from one of these “houses” and immediately took my hand and
signaled to me it was dangerous and not safe where I was. She then proceeded to walk me, gripping my hand,
out of the slum and onto the path I was looking for. She had nothing but her heart and she asked for nothing in
return. Her caring for me spoke volumes. From that moment I was destined to do something about that slum
and hundreds of other slums.

 

Over 2 billion people or 25% of the global population lives on less than $4 a day.

Systematic poverty has its root causes in economic inequality, when wealth and resources are concentrated in
the hands of a few, then large segments of the population are left with limited access to education, healthcare,
and jobs. This condition can be exacerbated by discrimination and marginalization simply due to skin color,
gender inequality, and caste systems that can block entire communities from job opportunities and upward
mobility. People in these situations are often trapped because they have no work or they work in very low-
paying jobs or informal economies, perpetuating the cycle of poverty across generations. For youth this often
means migration to developed nations or finding jobs with drug cartels or gangs just to feed loved ones and
themselves.

And without social safety nets (and there are none in poor nations) when people face illness, job loss, or
natural disasters, they fall deeper into poverty with little support. And then there is climate change which
disproportionately affects low-income communities through droughts, floods, and food insecurity. In short,
systematic poverty is like a rigged game—where the rules, referees, and even the playing field are
tilted against certain players from the start.

The Social Ventures Foundation has piloted a series of highly innovative poverty reduction “proofs of concepts” that have led to a variety of discoveries that have paved the way for the development of the End Poverty nFund:

1. From 2017 to 2021, we piloted an annual global show case for social entrepreneurs who were focused on
poverty reduction to give them the opportunity to share their work with a global audience. Our discovery;
a lot of great social ventures that were all struggling with the same thing: the need to raise capital and the
need for a business model to help them scale.

2. From 2018 to 2023, we piloted a proof of concept to demonstrate how an innovative business model
called “social franchising” can be utilized to create jobs for the poor to deliver affordable social impact for
the poor. We selected Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas. We reviewed a variety of poverty
reduction challenges like sanitation, health, agriculture, housing among others and we decided to innovate
a social franchise solution to food insecurity which begets vitamin deficiency that leads to poor immune
systems and susceptibility to disease. You can’t sell a handful of vitamins to anyone but you can sell a
shaved ice cone at 25 cents with a vitaminized topping to people making under $4 a day. We utilized

technology innovation to mask the topping taste of a variety of vitamins that met the vitamin deficiency
needs of the Haitian population. We created jobs for mostly poor women who had no work and were
desperate for income. We made them into micro franchisees who sold V’ice in schools and slums. We

conducted a successful small commercial proof of concept until the gangs shut us down.
 

Our Discovery: Social Franchising is a financially sustainable business model that can creates jobs to deliver affordable social impact at the base of the Pyramid. V'ice Haiti | Social Ventures Foundation.

3. From 2023 to 2024 we conducted a proof of concept to demonstrate how we could engage University
students to develop innovative franchisable solutions to a variety of poverty reduction challenges. EPIC,
the End Poverty Innovation Challenge engaged University students in Haiti in the development of
“franchisable” solutions to poverty reduction challenges. Our Discovery: This next generation of students
no matter how poor or economically disadvantaged are more than capable of innovating financially
sustainable franchisable solutions to poverty reduction challenges. 

4. From 2018 to 2025 the Foundation’s Epic Innovation Lab has developed social franchise solutions to
poverty reduction challenges that tackle nutrition, health care, refrigeration, cooking fuel and more.

Our Discovery: In the last 10 years, technology innovation has enabled the development of franchisable
social ventures that can lower costs and improve the outcomes of sustainable and affordable solutions to
poverty reduction challenges:

a. 1 in 4 people worldwide lack adequate health care: “HealthCheckers” is a social franchise
focused on delivering a complete set of diagnostics including eye, skin, cardio and hearing tests at
an affordable price of less than $1. We have partnered with Zamni Lasante, the Haitian Affiliate for
Partners In Health to conduct a proof of concept in Haiti once funding can be secured.
b. 1 in 4 people lack adequate and safe cooking fuel and 3.7 million people die because of
pollution caused by unsafe cooking smoke: “Agri-Gas” provides poor rural farmers with the ability
to farm Agri-Gas that can then be compressed and sold to the poor in urban areas as clean and
cheap fuel for cooking, We have partnered with a west coast company that has developed unique
technology to capture and compress bio gas. We are now working on developing a proof of concept.
c. 1 in 4 people worldwide are food insecure which leads to vitamin and protein deficiency and
susceptibility to disease. “Champinon” a high protein climate resistant mushroom for poor farmers
was developed by a graduate of Earth University in Costa Rica. We are now working on developing
a proof of concept.
d. 1 in 4 people worldwide lack adequate housing: Eco Shield, housing bricks made from recycled
plastics, was developed by a team of Haitian Students who won the EPIC Haiti competition. We are
now working with them to conduct extended life testing of the bricks and we will conduct a proof of
concept that will start in January of 2026 in Cap Haitian, Haiti.

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The End Poverty Fund

 

All of the above “discoveries” have laid the groundwork for tackling the “Elephant in
the Room” as to why they poor stay poor which is that no one wants to invest in the “Base of the Pyramid” (the
World’s Poorest) because they are risk averse. Global organizations who talk about poverty but don’t fund any
equity investments in the Base of the Pyramid include the World Bank who has a mission of “a world without
poverty”, it’s financing arm the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank and
99% of social impact investors. Over the last five years the Foundation has quietly been developing a highly
innovative open ended private equity fund entitled the “End Poverty Fund” to tackle the elephant in the room.
The Fund will exclusively invest in innovative social franchise solutions to the world’s greatest poverty
reduction challenges. Social Franchising will mitigate investor risk because it embraces a globally successful
business model, franchising, that scales things that work while maintaining quality control and proven
financials.

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We are convinced that social franchising, which focuses on” bottom up” job creation for the poor to deliver
affordable social impact for the poor, is absolutely key to disrupting systematic poverty—not just treating
symptoms, but reshaping the systems that perpetuate inequality. Social franchises are inclusive business
models that empower rather than exploit the poor. To this end, the End Poverty Fund will invest in social
franchises that involve BoP (Base of the Pyramid) communities as producers, distributors, and/or
innovators—not just consumers. Social Franchises are “system shifters” that engage social entrepreneurs
as “social engineers”—disrupting entrenched systems and replacing them with more equitable ones. They can
tackle governance failures, market inefficiencies, and institutional exclusion head-on, in sectors like
education, health, and energy at the base of the pyramid and they mitigate “top of the pyramid” investor risk
given that they utilize a proven business model, franchising, to maintain quality control and scale things that
work.

Given the demise of US AID and the transfer of up to 50% of European International aid budgets to defense,
the End Poverty Fund stands to be a legacy play for changing the “rigged game” that is keeping 25% of the
global population in generational systematic poverty. The End Poverty Fund combines the commercial
franchise model that derisks investment with technology that can facilitate innovative solutions to poverty
reduction challenges by cutting costs and improving outcomes, The Fund will invest in scaling sustainable
social franchises that work and can rapidly scale in very tough environments like slums, poor rural and urban
communities and immigration camps. Social Franchise products and services will in most cases cost under $2
so that they are affordable for people making under $4 a day. But their “excels” will require “patient long-term
equity capital” since it will take between 7 to 10 years for these deals to achieve positive ROI’s and obtain
exits.

The poster child for “patient capital” is Amazon which took well over seven years to turn a profitable quarter.
Jeff Bezos has long maintained that investing in future growth is more important than hitting quarterly earnings
targets, much to Wall Street’s chagrin. So why not cut some slack to invest in 25% of the world's population to leverage a powerhouse of human potential that has been locked away by systematic poverty? There is a universal recognition of the immense human suffering that is about to beset the base of the pyramid, as a result of the global investment gap left by the demise of US AID, European development budgets and cutbacks to most international aid organizations from the UN to the World Health Organization. And there is a universal interest in doing something about it, so now is our time.

Currently the only “investment” that is extended to the poor is “debt” in the form of microcredit which is harder
than ever to obtain since it has been saddled with higher interest rates and higher vetting hurdles. In addition
micro credit leaves it up to the entrepreneur to come up with their own ideas for a business, If you are born
very poor in Haiti, Somalia, Sudan or another poor nation you are limited in your imagination to what you see
around you and what you tend to see is a variety of retails stands, a goat or a sewing machine so when you
get your microcredit loan you most likely will start a retail stand, buy a goat or a sewing machine, You may get
a cash flow but in most cases you will not escape poverty.

The “End Poverty Fund” private equity model has social franchising at its heart. It not only mitigates investor
risk but it also stands out as a solid sustainable alternative to unsustainable annual charitable donations. We
have engaged outstanding vendors for the Fund including our attorneys: Prince Lobel, our bank: Northern
Trust, our accounting firm: RSM , our back room: Opus Fund Services and our valuation firm: Kroll . The
Foundation has developed the Social Ventures Institute (SVI) which will be the Fund’s capacity building deal
pipeline. The Foundation has partnered with the Global Business Schools Network GBSN to scale the Institute
to Business schools worldwide. The Institutes will provide substantial deal flow for the Fund.

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The Foundation will launch the Fund on October 1, 2025 and engage in raising the initial capital goal of $20mm.

 

The “End Poverty Fund” will be the first open ended private equity fund in the world that will invest in social franchises that create jobs to deliver affordable social impact in low-income communities globally.