New small business lessons, programs, and innovations!

How do you build a digital community to empower informal micro-entrepreneurs? This was the mission of Mastercard Strive partner MESH, the first online community for entrepreneurs in the informal economy in East Africa. Over the past two years, MESH has grown into a thriving online community of thousands of Kenyan micro-entrepreneur members. MESH invested a lot of time into responsive and iterative platform development, encouraging engagement between members and implementing a rigorous monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework. In a new paper, MESH reflects on its journey to building a thriving digital community, with lessons for organizations supporting small businesses to better engage micro-entrepreneurs in online communities.

Small business-focused lessons and best practices were also top of mind for Mastercard Strive partners who participated in Financial Inclusion Week 2024 earlier this month:

• BFA Global, Boost Ghana, SoBanHang (Finan Pte Ltd) , and Nilus joined CGAP and Caribou Digital on a panel about designing impactful digital finance products for small businesses.
• Mastercard Strive Women shared more on partnering to design successful women-centered financial solutions.
• As part of the Mastercard Strive program in Colombia, this panel shared more on developing behaviorally-informed, demand-driven digital services for small businesses in Colombia.
• Partner Flourish Fi FI also spoke on financial knowledge and incentives to drive digital adoption and responsible lending.?

We’re also excited to share big news from the Mastercard Strive EU program, where earlier this week, ten winners of the Mastercard Strive EU Innovation Fund were announced.?Winners from eight countries were selected, and their solutions will support small businesses to unlock working capital and credit, go digital safely, harness the potential of artificial intelligence, and navigate evolving consumer preferences & regulatory expectations around environmental sustainability.?

This month also saw the launch of Mastercard?Strive in Colombia, which will support over 80,000 small business owners in accessing the digital tools they need to grow and boost their financial resilience. Mastercard Strive partner Open Contracting Partnership also announced a milestone for small businesses in Colombia: its solution, CREDERE, has expanded nationwide, connecting more small businesses in public procurement markets with financial institutions that can offer them credit to grow, compete for, and deliver on government contracts.?

At the Mastercard Innovation Forum 2024 in Madrid, the panel “Advanced Distribution and AI for Small Hotels” highlighted how AI and digital tools are transforming Spain’s tourism sector, enabling small hotels to streamline operations and boost growth. Through our partnership with Connectycs & Instituto Tecnologico Hotelero , we’re equipping small Spanish hotels with digital tools to thrive, aligning with insights from Mastercard’s recent white paper on tourism recovery.

As always, we invite you to explore our Insights library to learn more about how Mastercard Strive and our partners enable small business growth and resilience worldwide.

Insights

The unique partnership at the center of California’s new loan match program

This post from the Mastercard Strive USA program shares more on the California Small Business Loan Match program. This initiative is bolstered through a unique and first-time partnership between two mission-driven organizations, Next Street and Community Reinvestment Fund USA, aimed at equipping entrepreneurs—particularly those from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds—with responsible lending options.

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Breaking the debt barrier: new research explores external financing in Czech entrepreneurship

In the dynamic landscape of Czech entrepreneurship, the relationship with debt is complex and often contentious. While many entrepreneurs recognize the potential of loans as a tool for business growth, a significant portion remain hesitant, opting for a debt-free approach. This reality, one of many for Czech entrepreneurs, is captured in Striving to Thrive, which looks closer at how Czech small businesses access, use, and think about financing.

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Designing, activating, and empowering a digital community of informal micro-entrepreneurs

In 2021, MESH and Shujaaz Inc joined forces with Mastercard Strive to implement an ambitious program aimed at understanding and addressing the unique challenges and needs of young informal micro-entrepreneurs. MESH has grown into a thriving online community of thousands of Kenyan micro-entrepreneur members. The lessons and best practices highlighted will enable other organizations supporting small businesses to better engage micro-entrepreneurs in online communities.

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