Whole Planet

Whole Planet, a project of Whole Foods Market Foundation, empowers entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers living in poverty to create or expand their own small businesses. Our mission is poverty alleviation through microcredit.

Videos from this campaign

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Content from this campaign

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Living on One Dollar A Day
What gift would you give for the holidays that costs $56? Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci lived on $56 for 56 days in Guatemala and filmed Living on One Dollar, a documentary that has raised over $300,000 for Whole Planet Foundation, funding 1,600 microloans for Guatemalans living in poverty.

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Whole Planet Foundation | Dispatch From the Field – Crediting Field Officers
It’s the season of gratitude and a time to celebrate the impact of 2017. Whole Planet Foundation wants to acknowledge the achievements of our microfinance partners’ field officers, who are often the main point of contact between a microfinance organization and the entrepreneurs financing their businesses with microloans. In 2014 we piloted a new Field Officer Appreciation Award in the Africa & Middle East region of our work and this year, the foundation awarded its fourth year of awards to nominated field officers. In total, this region currently includes 28 partner institutions.

Diversity & Inclusion

Empowering Entrepreneurs: Interview with Health-Ade Kombucha CEO Daina Trout and CSO Vanessa Dew
Health-Ade Kombucha was started in 2012 by best friends Daina Trout and Vanessa Dew. In this interview, they discuss how they support female entrepreneurs, and how they stay inspired as they grow their business.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Whole Planet Foundation’s Poverty Is Unnecessary Project to Support Ten Thousand People
Whole Planet Foundation’s annual Poverty Is Unnecessary Project provides opportunity for the world’s poorest people – mostly women – to take a microcredit loan and create or expand a home-based business for the opportunity to lift themselves and their family members out of poverty through their own hard work and creativity. Whole Planet Foundation supports impoverished entrepreneurs through microfinance partners in the United States and 69 other countries around the world.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

100 Advocates Join The Poverty Is Unnecessary Project
The Poverty Is Unnecessary Project includes Poverty Is Unnecessary Fund members donating $325,000 to alleviate global poverty and the Poverty Is Unnecessary Benefit & Live Auction to celebrate the impact of this work by Whole Planet Foundation and its supporters.

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Empowering Entrepreneurs: Interview with Rene Geneva, Powering Independence through Solar
Rene Geneva has worn multiple (and stylish!) hats over the years. We have benefitted from Rene’s generosity since the late 2000s and now that she is starting her own Indiegogo Campaign, she is once again investing in a future without poverty through Whole Planet Foundation.

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Microfinance in the Face of Adversity: Emergency Loans in Cameroon
During annual field visits to our microfinance partners, we often see them searching for better ways to help their clients. Unexpected household shocks can seriously jeopardize the livelihoods of the poorest entrepreneurs and their families. The microfinance sector may be in its infancy in successfully providing access to financial products to buffer the effects of devastating health emergencies, floods, droughts, fires and other disasters, but we have seen innovative approaches from partners all over the world designed to mitigate these unexpected events.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Whole Planet Foundation Celebrates 12th Anniversary With Poverty Is Unnecessary Benefit & Live Auction
On October 25, Whole Foods Market will celebrate the 12th anniversary of Whole Planet Foundation, the company’s nonprofit dedicated to global poverty alleviation. Poverty is Unnecessary Day marks the launch of the foundation in 2005 to alleviate poverty around the world where the company sources products. Joining this effort are Poverty is Unnecessary Fund® partners, who collectively are committed to donating $300,000 this year.

Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Perseverence Pays Off in Huehuetenango

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Whole Planet Foundation | Dispatch From the Field - Impact Dashboard Update
Thanks to our microfinance partners around the globe who are working diligently daily to serve the world's poorest people, the average first loan size we fund has decreased to $184.
Whole Foods Market Foundation

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