William Foote was a financial analyst on Wall Street in the 1990s, during a Latin American growing period. In 1994, after the peso devaluation in Mexico, Foote spent 2 years traveling and studying the rural area of Mexico, and how the financial crisis affected its people and environment. During his conquest, Foote met and bonded with a group of vanilla farmers. After working side by side with the farmers for a few weeks, Foote realized the farmers were unable to adopt sustainable practices and unable to connect with international markets due to lack of funds.
After arriving back to the US, Foote decided to decline his acceptance into Harvard’s business school so that he could focus on developing an organization that gives credit …show more content…
Root Capital works through a three-pronged strategy: Finance, Advise, and Catalyze. The financial aspect aims to deliver money and assistance to businesses in need of a stable market, including loans and investments. The advise aspect includes how Root Capital provides financial management training to current and potential clients. This aims to help farmers and business owners not only grow, but also sustain their work. Training courses in accounting, financial planning, financial risk management, financial statement analysis, loan application preparation, and credit management are offered. This way the organization can assure their hard work and money are best used and so that the farmers and businessmen have the knowledge and choices to stay stable and strong. Finally, the catalyze aspect works to show commercial and social lenders that lending to small businesses is not as risky as they believe. Roos Capitals three-pronged strategy also allows them to quickly respond to failures and inefficiencies in the market that do not allow small, rural businesses to afford market capital. Root Capital’s methodology of lending uses fixed-price contracts as loan collateral. By doing this, it allows a positive shift from the traditional paradigm of businesses being unable to obtain local loans because they are considered as too small and risky for commercial banks to a …show more content…
Root Capital leans toward sustaining the environment; therefore, their loans go towards markets that include naturally grown products such as shade-grown coffee and cocoa, farm-grown fruits and vegetables, and wild-harvested products such as Shea nuts. Starting in 2011, Root Capital started to their portfolio-wide approach with deeper analysis of their clients. This aimed to evaluate how Root Capital could best create real, positive impacts. Root Capital manages 2 lending portfolios: 1) The Sustainable Trade Fund (STF), which includes loans for exportation of natural goods such as coffee, cocoa, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and 2) frontier portfolios, which includes loans for production of goods for domestic use, such as millet, corn, rice, and seed. Root Capital’s main goal aims to transform the livelihoods of small farmers and businessmen and to sustain the environment in which they are
After arriving back to the US, Foote decided to decline his acceptance into Harvard’s business school so that he could focus on developing an organization that gives credit …show more content…
Root Capital works through a three-pronged strategy: Finance, Advise, and Catalyze. The financial aspect aims to deliver money and assistance to businesses in need of a stable market, including loans and investments. The advise aspect includes how Root Capital provides financial management training to current and potential clients. This aims to help farmers and business owners not only grow, but also sustain their work. Training courses in accounting, financial planning, financial risk management, financial statement analysis, loan application preparation, and credit management are offered. This way the organization can assure their hard work and money are best used and so that the farmers and businessmen have the knowledge and choices to stay stable and strong. Finally, the catalyze aspect works to show commercial and social lenders that lending to small businesses is not as risky as they believe. Roos Capitals three-pronged strategy also allows them to quickly respond to failures and inefficiencies in the market that do not allow small, rural businesses to afford market capital. Root Capital’s methodology of lending uses fixed-price contracts as loan collateral. By doing this, it allows a positive shift from the traditional paradigm of businesses being unable to obtain local loans because they are considered as too small and risky for commercial banks to a …show more content…
Root Capital leans toward sustaining the environment; therefore, their loans go towards markets that include naturally grown products such as shade-grown coffee and cocoa, farm-grown fruits and vegetables, and wild-harvested products such as Shea nuts. Starting in 2011, Root Capital started to their portfolio-wide approach with deeper analysis of their clients. This aimed to evaluate how Root Capital could best create real, positive impacts. Root Capital manages 2 lending portfolios: 1) The Sustainable Trade Fund (STF), which includes loans for exportation of natural goods such as coffee, cocoa, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and 2) frontier portfolios, which includes loans for production of goods for domestic use, such as millet, corn, rice, and seed. Root Capital’s main goal aims to transform the livelihoods of small farmers and businessmen and to sustain the environment in which they are