BoP Fund

The GEXSI Base of the Pyramid Fund

The centrepiece of the organisation is our charitable social investment fund, the so-called Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) Fund. The Fund provides equity and low-interest finance to social enterprises around the globe that lack access to commercial finance.

Investments are made with regard to achieving measurable targets related to the UN Millennium Development Goals, in particular to their primary goal: poverty alleviation.

With our investments, we seek to leverage further – market based – finance to ensure the long-term viability of our chosen social impact projects.

These social investments run alongside continued pro-bon business planning support that we provide to other early-stage social enterprises around the world.

These services – the BoP Fund and advisory support – build upon a 10-year track record of the charity.

GEXSI implemented its first philanthropic pilot investment in 2008 supporting an organisation, based in Bolivia that produces an essential oil, pyrethrum, which is used as a natural insecticide.  We have just completed a funding cycle for a long-running community development project in Madagascar on behalf of a renowned Franco-Swiss environmental firm.

This section describes the major aspects of the BoP Fund: how it works; how we invest; how we assess proposals; our track record; and our current projects.