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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

A mission begins with a knotted-up shirt: Right To Play

A mission begins with a knotted-up shirt: Right To Play

by | Mar 10, 2015 | Johann Olav Koss, Right 2 Play

In late 1993, just a few months before the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, a young speed skater by the name of Johann Olav Koss led a humanitarian trip to the small African country of Eritrea. Working as an ambassador of the organization Olympic Aid (later to become Right To Play), the Norwegian athlete found himself face-to-face with the realities of life in a country emerging from decades of war. As children played amidst burned-out tanks, under the watchful eyes of war martyrs exalted in surrounding posters and murals, it was one boy who crystallized the epiphany for Johann that would inspire the future of Right To Play. “I met a group of boys, who were about 12 years old, and one of them was very popular,” says Johann. “I asked, ‘Why are you so popular?’ and he said, ‘Can’t you see? I have long sleeves.’ ” The boy then took off his shirt, rolled it up, and, using the sleeves to tie a knot, he turned the shirt into a ball that they used to play in the streets. The game ended when it was time for the boy with the long sleeves to go home. Traumatized, these children had lost family and friends to the violence, and yet, surrounded by a legacy of war, they only wanted one thing: the opportunity to play.  Johann promised the boys he would return after the Olympics with a proper ball for them to play with, and in that experience the idea that would become Right To Play was born. RELATED Visit here to learn more about Right To...
Sakena Yacoobi: ‘Education is not a threat’

Sakena Yacoobi: ‘Education is not a threat’

by | Feb 25, 2015 | AIL, Education, Kravis Prize, Sakena Yacoobi

In the pages of the Christian Science Monitor, Afghan Institute of Learning founder Sakena Yacoobi offers a passionate commentary about lowering the cultural barriers to educating women and girls with outreach that includes males, too. “The women who come to our centers feel the same way,” she says of AIL’s centers, whose health and education efforts were recognized with the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership in 2009.  “Men and boys need to be educated, not ignored.” Development efforts in disadvantaged countries can cut two ways, especially when those efforts highlight and publicize one group to such a degree that another group feels forgotten.  Yacoobi’s Monitor article, “In Afghanistan, teaching men that education is not a threat,” points out that while AIL’s work has focused on one specific segment, the actual goal is more universal, more all-embracing than her organization’s stated mission. “Educated, wise men,” she writes, thinking of her own father, who supported her pursuit of an education (she holds U.S. degrees from the University of the Pacific and Loma Linda University), “do not abuse women or children and recognize the worth and value of women and children.” Since AIL’s founding in 1995, the lives of more than 10 million people have been affected by the organization’s work.  Yacoobi, however, acknowledges that this impact must be broader, and more inclusive, as she shares in the following anecdote, which is included in the Monitor article: One day in early 2002, I went with my female staff to visit one of our Women’s Learning Centers in rural Kabul.  Suddenly a group of teenage boys with weapons appeared, blocking the...

Education gains checked by challenges, new Pratham report shows

by | Feb 11, 2015 | Education, Kravis Prize, Poverty Reduction, Pratham

Are education efforts and outreach to children in rural India producing positive results? The answer is both encouraging and troubling, according to NGO Pratham’s 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), released this week in New Delhi. “While more than 96 percent of children in the 6-14 age group are attending school,” reports Indian media site IBN, Pratham’s analysis suggests that “there are still some worrying signs as reading and mathematical abilities are still not up to the mark.” Pratham was honored in 2010 with the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership for its literacy efforts throughout the country, particularly the program Read India, which has reached more than 34 million children. But as the organization’s latest ASER indicates, much work remains to be done even though the report presents substantial success. Among the findings announced this week: for the 6-14 age group, the percentage of children enrolled in schools across the nation remains at more than 96% for the sixth year in a row; the percentage of children not enrolled for that age group is 3.3% in older age groups, particularly for 15- and 16-year-olds, the number of children not enrolled in school jumps to much higher percentages: 15.9% for boys, 17.3% for girls simple reading and basic arithmetic skills continue to be “a serious and major source of concern,” with increases in various age groups of children struggling with number and character recognition daily attendance percentages for primary and upper primary schools continue to climb, which is a hopeful sign, as are improvements in facilities (availability of clean drinking water, toilets, equipment) which is improving the...