History

August 2005

Andrew Youn visits Kenya during a summer internship experience in Africa and interviews subsistence farmers; learns that modern agricultural techniques can lead to significant boosts in productivity and cuts in malnutrition.
 

February 2006

One Acre Fund officially launches, serving 38 farm families through women’s self-help groups in Bungoma, Kenya.

April 2006

One Acre Fund wins the Social Entrepreneurship Track of the Yale 50K Business Plan Competition and the Social E-Challenge of the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students (BASES).
 

May 2006

One Acre Fund is awarded a prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship, providing a two-year stipend to pursue One Acre Fund full-time.
 

August 2006

One Acre Fund releases its first six-monthly performance report, documenting the results from the organization’s first harvest, including a four-fold increase in crop yields and a 98% repayment rate from farmers.
 

January 2007

One Acre Fund receives a prestigious 3-year, $300,000 grant from the Draper Richards Foundation, an organization which funds the most promising early-stage non-profits.
 

June 2007

One Acre Fund signs up its 500th Investment Council member, the group of donors that give $20 per month to support a farm family on our program.
 

September 2007

One Acre Fund expands to its second country, Rwanda. This highly-successful launch is led by senior partner Eric Pohlman who is later joined by general partner Margaret Vernon.
 

January 2008

One Acre Fund kicks off a year-long effort to significantly expand its internal monitoring & evaluation capability. New tools and systems are developed to measure crop yields against a control group of farmers, as well as child health improvements and changes in our farmers' quality of life.
 

August 2008

One Acre Fund enrolls its 4,000th family.
 

September 2008

One Acre Fund is mentioned in Stanford Social Innovation Review alongside some very prestigious organizations - Vipani, KickStart, and IDE - as a leading NGO working with one-acre farmers. The article argues that scalable solutions for the extreme poor require four characteristics: real impact, cost-effectiveness, sustainability, and replicability; the very metrics One Acre Fund is tracking on its march to reach the scale of 40,000 farmers by 2011.

October 2008

One Acre Fund adds "crop insurance" to its investment bundle, protecting farmers against the risk of major crop failure from drought or disease. This insurance fund is made possible by an anonymous donor.

January 2009

The Pershing Square Foundation makes a historic $500,000 gift to found the Permanent Fund, which will provide loans to farmers in perpetuity.