The Sprout Enterprise Network helps rural artisans to market their products around the world. With new markets for their crafts, their livelihood is improved and the production of the traditional crafts continues. With local income opportunities, the rural poor are less likely to migrate to urban areas already overwhelmed by rapidly growing urban populations. With the income they earn, these rural artisans are better able to support their families and educate their children. Their quality of life is improved.

These artisans are among the world’s poor who make less than $1 a day. Our enterprise goal is to enable these artisans to earn much more than the bare minimum – and to develop the economic basis to live in dignity, free from hunger and extreme poverty.

Problem

The Sprout Enterprise Network helps rural artisans to market their products around the world. With new markets for their crafts, their livelihood is improved and the production of the traditional crafts continues. With local income opportunities, the rural poor are less likely to migrate to urban areas already overwhelmed by rapidly growing urban populations. With the income they earn, these rural artisans are better able to support their families and educate their children. Their quality of life is improved. These artisans are among the world’s poor who make less than $1 a day. Our enterprise goal is to enable these artisans to earn much more than the bare minimum – and to develop the economic basis to live in dignity, free from hunger and extreme poverty.

Solution

Since 2003, in partnership with the Barefoot College in India, we have been operating the online enterprise, www.Tilonia.com, for the sale and marketing of artisan-crafted home textiles, women’s accessories and gifts. More than 800 artisans earn supplemental income through sewing, needlework, embroidery, tie-dying, block printing and weaving. Design and production methods draw on craft traditions that are centuries old – but create modern opportunities for these poor, rural women. We believe the very poor have every right to manage and own the most sophisticated of technologies to improve their own lives. Just because they cannot read and write, there is no reason that very poor cannot be solar engineers, teachers, midwives, dentists, architects and e-commerce entrepreneurs. “Learning by doing” is the philosophy we follow. “Hands-on” experience help trainees learn the terms and tools used in any of the sophisticated technologies which have been “de-mystified” and “de-centralized” in this “Barefoot” approach to learning and community development. We are replicating this “Barefoot” model by developing Barefoot e-commerce managers who operate the web-based platform and online store, manage and sustain the enterprise, and share in the profits of a successful business operation. Having established and refined our product line and business process through this pilot operation, we are now seeking to provide additional income opportunities by working with additional artisan affiliates through the development and collaboration of the Sprout Enterprise Network.

Example

The Sprout Enterprise Network is a mission-driven, social enterprise developing the entrepreneurial skills and business capacity of artisan enterprises managed and owned by rural artisans. Through an innovative use of the internet and a web-based platform, we create a virtual supply chain linking artisan affiliates with design and sales affiliates for product design and distribution – and create a branded presence in the US for sales and marketing direct to retail and wholesale customers. Our operation leverages the web to access international markets. Using an ecommerce platform, online orders are processed by our artisan partners for fulfillment and shipment directly to customers via international express mail. We have operational and store management workflows which enable our affiliates to maintain digital inventory, update product availability and prices, and add new merchandise via the Internet. By eliminating many of the distribution costs of traditional export/import and wholesale models, our affiliates capture additional margin through this direct-to-buyer model. Each affiliate is being supported with business and financial support to expand their enterprise so they can increase the number of artisans they train and employ. The business model for venture financing and operation is being replicated with other artisan affiliates to grow the Sprout Enterprise Network. By sharing a direct stake in the network, our partner organizations invest in the economic development of our artisan affiliates and their communities.

Marketplace

Craft production provides economic opportunities for poor, rural women with few livelihood alternatives other than subsistence farming. Most make less than $1 a day and many are restricted by traditional cultural norms and lack education, or even literacy. Men often migrate to urban areas to seek employment, while the women remain in the village and must support their families. Our goal is to enable rural artisans to earn more than the bare minimum – and to develop the economic basis to live in dignity, free from hunger and extreme poverty. Our artisan affiliates pay rural artisans living wages to produce the crafts, and manage the distribution and sale of these artisan-crafted products. Artisans are paid by check to provide an incentive for them to learn to read, write and manage a bank account. By sharing a direct stake in the social enterprise, our partner organizations invest in the economic development of our artisan affiliates and their communities. Our goals are to build: • Artisan Income: Expand the number of artisans earning income from this enterprise and to double the average annual income earned by the artisans. • Artisan Management : Develop business skills of our artisan affiliates and build their capacity to manage and sustain business operations • Artisan Ownership: Create ownership opportunities for profit-sharing among artisan affiliates