STRATEGIC ALLIANCES
Omidyar Network
Omidyar® Network is a mission-based organization established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam. In 2005, Omidyar Network illustrated their commitment to Unitus’s work by providing $2.7 million to support the Unitus Acceleration Model.
Omidyar Network enabled Unitus to expand operations and hire key staff members at its Redmond (now Seattle), Washington, and Bangalore, India, offices. Since the time of Omidyar Network’s support, Unitus has helped bring microfinance services to an additional 2 million of the world’s poor and hired 14 professionals in the Unitus Bangalore office.
Today, Omidyar Network and Unitus continue to work together to explore ways to expand the reach of life-changing microfinance services and drive innovation in and across the industry.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
In 2006, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation chose Unitus to lead a practice group to identify hurdles to efficiency and research ways to overcome those hurdles in the microfinance industry.
To implement this ground-breaking initiative, Unitus, with funding from the Gates Foundation, has hired a team of analysts to find ways of improving operational and financial efficiency among microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India, Latin America, and around the world. The Unitus Efficiency Team is working to identify and/or develop efficiency-enhancing measures such as reducing operating costs associated with MFIs, increasing employee productivity, and creating systems to optimize treasury management, which will further lower the cost of capital for MFIs and interest rates for micro-entrepreneurs.
The results of this research will be shared across the industry to help MFIs operate more effectively and provide lower-cost services to their clients.
