FAQs

Question: Why do you talk about your different projects being “profitable” when you are a non-profit organization?

Answer: We will answer that in two different ways:

• African Equity Fund (AEF) is a non-profit organization. However, most of the individuals or small businesses which we support are registered as for-profit corporations. AEF will provide a loan or a start-up equity grant to these companies and as they succeed and become profitable they pay back the loan or return the start-up costs to AEF. At that point AEF takes that money and re-invests it towards another project or charitable purpose. No profits are distributed in any way.
• Even though we are a non-profit corporation, we love the idea of profits. If the companies we are helping become profitable, that is a sign that the business will be able to sustain itself, that the entrepreneur will build a better life, that workers will keep their jobs, and that others will see there is money to be made and be motivated to start their own business.

Bill Gates had this to say about profits at the 2008 World Economic Forum:
“To provide rapid improvement for the poor we need a system that draws in innovators and businesses…Such a system would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives of those who don't fully benefit from today's market forces. For sustainability we need to use profit incentives wherever we can.”