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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

Endeavor

Endeavor fosters economic advancement in growth markets by launching high-impact entrepreneurs.

FAST FACTS

400,000+

high-quality jobs created by Endeavor companies

2 million

people impacted directly by Endeavor companies

97%

of Endeavor companies are still in operation, compared to most entrepreneurial ventures in the same markets, which close within 42 months

Landesa: Storytelling at Sundance

by | Feb 11, 2013 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Tim Hanstad

More than 25 years after inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to focus on one of the chief structural causes of global poverty – rural landlessness – Landesa’s current president and CEO was inspired to re-focus his approach to leading the organization at the Sundance Film Festival. Writing at the Huffington Post’s Social Entrepreneurship blog, Tim Hanstad shared how the festival offered him more than a glimpse of the year’s best independent films. It also showed him how to leverage storytelling to achieve large-scale social impact. In what he termed a “confession,” Hanstad described how the festival helped him better understand the origins of his own passion for the cause of land rights: As a data-driven leader, for years I have carried a prejudice against the value and power of storytelling, often thinking of stories as too anecdotal, bordering on the shallow. I thought a powerful story was a relaxing respite from metrics, serving more or less as a colorful parenthesis within an analytical argument. Yet through our discussions, I realized that my own calling to global poverty began not with data, but through hearing the stories of fellow agricultural day laborers, whom I worked beside as I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. You see, I trace my initial interest and motivation for working on global poverty issues to a summer when I was 10 years old, working in the berry fields along with Mexican migrant families. Interacting with the Mexican migrant children opened my eyes to social injustice – they worked so hard, yet had so little. They migrated with the harvests, moving from farm...

Pratham USA receives Times of India award

by | Feb 1, 2013 | Community Development, Education, Pratham

Since its inception in 1994, Pratham, India’s largest non-governmental advocacy organization for quality education, has opened doors of opportunity for millions of underprivileged children. The Kravis Prize congratulates Pratham USA as this year’s winner of the Times of India Social Impact Award in the category of “International Contribution to India.” In a press release announcing the award, Pratham includes remarks by Arvind Sanger, chairman of Pratham USA’s board of directors. “This award not only recognizes the efforts of Pratham USA, but most importantly, it recognizes the continued generosity of our donors, both large and small…Every donor to Pratham USA has a strong belief that education provides the foundation for individuals to raise themselves socially and economically. Our donors understand that they have succeeded because of education and they want their resources to support the children of India in their own path to success.” The release details Pratham’s immense contribution to India’s future through its range of educational programs, as well as the organization’s annual research study that tracks the educational investment across the nation. “Pratham USA should serve as a model for many communities in the U.S. as they support global, social and economic transformations,” says Dr. Molly Easo Smith, Executive Director of Pratham USA. “The Indian American community understands the concept of organized and impact-focused philanthropy as a basis for significant social change globally.” We applaud Pratham USA on earning this prestigious award and trust their efforts to redefine educational quality in India will continue to receive the international acclaim it deserves. Please read the full press release...

A mothers2mothers mentor shares her ‘greatest gift’

by | Jan 25, 2013 | Community Development, Female Empowerment, Health, m2m

Since 2001, the 2012 Kravis Prize recipient organization Mothers2Mothers has worked to improve the quality of life for thousands of HIV-infected women around the world. On the Huffington Post’s Global Motherhood blog, Mentor mother Nozi Samela discusses how she has helped hundreds of newly diagnosed pregnant women and mothers by sharing her own experience of living with the virus. Samela tells her story in three video blogs, with the Huffington Post  providing the following summary of  the first two segments: “Samela shared her despair after learning she was HIV- positive, the critical support and information she received from    mothers2mothers to stay healthy and prevent transmission of HIV to her baby son, her devastation over the tragic death of her first son when he was three years old, and her excitement when she found out she was pregnant again.” Her most recent video blog, “The Greatest Gift,” concludes the series with the announcement of her HIV-free baby daughter. “Look at my baby,” Samela says, “and think to yourself, how wonderful it would be if all children born in Africa could be as healthy and as happy.” Click here to watch Nozi Samela’s full video...