Money alone might improve extreme poverty; economic justice requires more. When Upaya looks for companies that create dignified jobs for the poor, we evaluate questions of reliability, safety, and fundamental respect in addition to the economic benefits.
Upaya has done something novel in the past few weeks – novel for us, at least – we’ve written checks to our donors… and it feels great. After 11 years of working on and fine-tuning our model, recoverable grant donors are getting funds returned to them because the investment that we made has returned capital to us. While this is good news for the donors, I believe that it is a critical inflection point not only for Upaya but as a bridge between the nonprofit sector and a more sustainable for-profit world. Let me explain what I mean.
This Mother’s Day, as two working mothers at Upaya, we reflected on what it would take to create dignified jobs for mothers from extremely poor households. Despite their hardships, these women have the strength and ability to address the difficult battle of being a worker, a woman, and a mother, but they can’t do it alone.
Devin Thorpe of Forbes asked our CEO, Kate Cochran, how Upaya helps people too poor for microloans. The answer? Stable, dignified jobs. Read the full article here!
What can the applications for Upaya’s accelerator program tell us about the early-stage companies that are creating jobs for people in extreme poverty? Upaya’s India Country Director, Amit Alex, takes a closer look at the pool of applicants to answer a pressing question in India today: Where are the jobs?
Upaya Social Ventures is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Seattle
508 Yale Ave N #214,
Seattle, WA, 98109
Bangalore
91 Springboard,
21 George Thangaiah Complex,
80 Feet Road, Near Sir CV Raman Hospital, Bangalore - 560038
