Grameen’s Social Business Initiatives

Grameen Bank itself would be an example of such a social business enterprise, which provided microfinance related services to the designated rural poor and the bank is also owned solely by the borrowers themselves. Some of the social enterprises were created in direct response to the demand of GB borrowers as well as the rural poor, for essential services needed for development of health, education, nutrition, and alleviation of poverty.

New ventures aim to provide nutrition and health services to a targeted client. In these new ventures, after the initial capital costs have been fully recouped, the investors agreed to take only nominal dividends, plowing back all profits for further expansion of the social business. Grameen-Danone Foods Ltd, and the newly formed Grameen Eye Hospitals are the latest examples of more rigorously designed social business models.

Numerous Grameen social enterprises have had both direct and indirect social development impact. They have clearly demonstrated that some of the social objectives of a poverty alleviation program can be achieved in a business like way.