About Endeavor
Founded in 1997, Endeavor fosters economic growth in countries worldwide by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating high-impact entrepreneurs. Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing businesses that generate jobs in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Endeavor provides its entrepreneurs with a network of seasoned business leaders who provide key ingredients to entrepreneurial success: mentorship, networks, strategic advice, and inspiration. Over the past 17 years, Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created more than 400,000 high quality jobs, directly reaching more than two million people across the world. Endeavor has achieved tangible results, with individuals working for Endeavor companies doubling their income over baseline or previous jobs, and Endeavor companies growing revenue 2.4 times faster than comparable firms over three years.
Current Operations of Endeavor
Endeavor is dedicated to high-impact entrepreneurship. Its main operations focus on identifying and supporting the continued growth of a select group of entrepreneurs, creating jobs, and adding revenues to foster entrepreneurship in those societies. Endeavor currently works in 21 countries across the world. In recent years, Endeavor’s operations have expanded into several countries; Endeavor launched in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Greece in 2012, Miami (US), Malaysia, and Morocco in 2013, and Peru and Spain in 2014.In 2011, Endeavor launched Endeavor Catalyst, a passive co-investment pool that uses donated funds to support Endeavor Entrepreneurs’ professional funding rounds and to provide funding for Endeavor’s growth and financial sustainability. Endeavor Catalyst has raised approximately $15 million to date and has made its first nine investments.
Approach and Distinguishing Features
Endeavor is an organization of, by, and for entrepreneurs. Endeavor believes that entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth and job creation, and recognizes the reality that entrepreneurs in growth markets face obstacles that inhibit successful scaling of businesses, such as limited management expertise, lack of role models, contacts, investors, etc. To this end, Endeavor provides immense support to rising entrepreneurs and acts as a springboard to catalyze their success with business establishment and job creation. Over 80% of Endeavor’s entrepreneurs give back to their local affiliates and commit to mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing, typically for-profit businesses that generate jobs and create revenues in growth markets. Endeavor looks for businesses with the potential to scale and become world-class ventures and industry leaders. Endeavor is distinct from many other organizations in its focus on high-growth, high-impact, for-profit companies that can scale. Academic research demonstrates that high-impact entrepreneurs generate a disproportionate number of jobs over other entrepreneurs.
2015 Kravis Prize
Prosterman’s report: improved farming rights in Vietnam
The following is a report from Roy Prosterman, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Landesa. For his work with Landesa, Mr. Prosterman was named the 2006 Recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. Since our initial work on land tenure reform took place in what was then South Vietnam – accompanied by a 30% increase in rice yields and an 80% decline in Vietcong recruitment within the South – we have continued to follow with interest any major land-law developments in post-conflict Vietnam. (You may recall that Tim and I were invited back by the Hanoi government in 1993 to do fieldwork and provide an independent confirmation that collective farming had been ended in favor of a system of individual family farms, and that farmers were indeed pleased and more productive under the family-farming regime.) At the time of the 1993 fieldwork, Vietnam had just adopted a new Land Law which gave farmers 20-year rights on land used for annual crops, and 50-year rights on land used for perennial crops such as tree crops. Following our fieldwork, and in light of farmers’ general response, “the longer the better” as to how long they would like their land rights to be, we recommended a regime of permanent use rights for all agricultural land. This issue of the length of farmers’ land property rights has continued to be on the policy agenda in the unified Vietnam, and we are pleased to report that we have just learned from the Government’s English-language website that Vietnam has now adopted a Revised Land Law, to become effective on July 1, 2014, which...The key to the Kravis Prize: A focus on ‘fundamentals, not fads’
The announcement of Helen Keller International as this year’s recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership coincides with an article on the Kravis Prize featured in the latest issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. What challenges remain in the nonprofit sector? Read about the Kravis Prize and the enduring lessons of nonprofit management in the Stanford Social Innovation...