2025 Year in Review

In 2025, Opportunity International scaled access to capital, business skills and local support, enabling millions of families living at the bottom of the pyramid in the Global South to build livelihoods and improve their wellbeing. The organization expanded its network of local banks investing capital and resources into local communities, expanded its presence in key countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, and invested in human centered design to build financial- and AI-driven digital solutions that enable its clients living in extreme poverty to become better farmers, traders, shopkeepers, school proprietors and teachers.

A Powerful Year of Progress

In the global fight for a world without extreme poverty, we are winning. That progress has been powered by a simple, profound agreement: we are stronger together. Over Opportunity’s 54 years, we have seen the power of a shared mission to serve those who are most vulnerable—not out of charity alone, but out of purpose, partnership, and responsibility.

In 2025, that agreement was tested. It was a turbulent year, and the challenges were real. Yet as I look back, I see that the answer has been in front of us all along: Opportunity’s partner-rich model created deeper impact for families at the bottom of the economic pyramid—powered by trusted local partners, new collaborations, and human-centered innovation rooted in people and faith.

For all its ups and downs, 2025 marks the beginning of our accelerated drive toward a world without extreme poverty. It is both a year to celebrate extraordinary wins—and a blueprint for what it will take to finally achieve that goal.

A Community Response to a Shifting Global Aid Landscape

2025 was the year the ground shifted under our feet. As the wider aid system strained and USAID support fell away, Opportunity and our supporters responded quickly to close the gaps. In just four months, our donors raised millions to keep our USAID-supported education efforts in Northern Ghana running, sustaining 230 low-cost schools and reaching thousands of children.

That enthusiasm continued throughout the year, with our network of supporters finding new and unique ways to bolster our work. Some found creative ways to bring new supporters to the mission and raise money for clients, people like:

• Austin Fowler, who offered a significant matching gift to his network
• Max and Mike Carson, who hiked the Grand Canyon to raise funds from friends and colleagues 
• Judy Emeodi, who ran the New York City marathon to generate support
• Cisco and the Cisco Foundation went beyond funding, helping us share our digital innovations with their employees and partners

That unwavering support is what keeps us moving through the tough times. We’re better together, and the impact we make around the world has been built through community.

A Model Built to Last

This moment underscored why our model endures. Instead of short-lived projects, we invest in getting to know our clients and local partner institutions. In all cases, we strive to build sustainable solutions, solutions which help our extremely low-income clients earn a living and help our institutional partners provide services sustainably. By bringing individuals, communities, and markets together, our work is resilient and grows at the speed of the local market, not dependent on any single funder.

Instead, it can bend without breaking—sustaining our education programming and ensuring the expansion of our newest health program continues to grow, even when the wider aid system is under pressure.

As the world continues to change, we won’t cling to a fading system. We will build the new one. Thanks to our many supporters, we’ll build a better one.

Scaling Impact for Low-Income Families Through Education and Agriculture Finance

Even amidst the uncertainty of 2025, Opportunity remained committed to a model that leans into local leadership, market discipline, and purpose—further growing our impact.

At the beginning of the year, we celebrated $1 billion released through our Education Finance program, which fueled affordable non-state schools across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

In June of this year, we also surpassed $500 million in Agriculture Finance—backing hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers across Africa.

These numbers translate into real impact—including:

• $2.5 billion in capital released to serve 21 million people
• 20,000 schools receiving $260 million in financial services
• 3.5 million children reached
• 580,000 smallholder farming families receiving $100 million in financial services
• 8 million entrepreneurs accessing loans

In October, the release of the 3rd annual Microfinance Index by third-party impact researcher 60 Decibels showed us that financial inclusion continues to transform lives even in the midst of turbulence—and that Opportunity continues to perform above global benchmarks, with:

• 90% of clients reporting increased business income
• 92% of clients reporting improved quality of life
• 79% of clients reporting increased access to children's education

Sustainable development is capital at work—creating more resilient households, more steady incomes, fewer hungry nights.

Partnerships Driving Sustainable Development and Local Resilience

That impact depends on strong local partnerships that move capital and support where it’s most needed. We partner with 146 financial institutions to invest in the communities and people that they know best, resulting in more livelihoods and stronger markets. This year, we expanded that strategy to unlock even greater opportunity.

Our partnership with NBA Africa opened two new basketball courts in Rwanda and Kenya on Opportunity-supported school properties—creating new spaces for community that energize learning for all.

In Cartagena, Colombia, the continued success from our Graduation program elicited the interest of the City and Mayor’s office, who have now joined us for this year's program—doubling the size of the program and enabling 500 families in some of the most impoverished parts of Cartagena to carve their own paths and achieve prosperity.

Leading the Way in Human-Centered AI for Good

Everything we do starts and ends with the people we serve. Our success is dependent on us constantly challenging our approach, ensuring it reflects the strengths and needs of our clients. That human-centered approach is what gave birth to tools like Ulangizi, our AI chatbot for smallholder farmers in Malawi. This year, it’s reach has extended into Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda—and with new partners like Safaricom, Development Bank Ghana, and GiveDirectly, this tool now serves farmers across the continent.

In February, we hosted our second Idea Day kicked off the next round of our CoLab impact accelerator to design the next great digital innovation for the people we serve by asking one simple question: How can AI help families grow more, earn more, and get their children into better schools? By November, three new prototypes were ready to move into pilot in the coming year.

This momentum drew new champions. We launched our Technology Advisory Council—a group of CEOs and changemakers from finance, venture capital, and technology to keep our work bold, responsible, and grounded in last-mile realities.

Recognition from Microsoft and conversations at their Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit in March gave us the chance to share our digital philosophies with the world: AI must be human-centered, locally authored, and practical enough to meet the needs of the most rural, underserved users.

Strengthening Leadership to Advance Our Global Mission

We strengthened our leadership team with experts who are ready to reach ever closer to that world without extreme poverty.

• Cheryl Jereczek joined us in January as our new Chief Philanthropy Officer and helped us navigate those early months of losing federal aid
• We welcomed Michele Broemmelsiek as our Chief Operating Officer; under her leadership, our programming and operations will continue to achieve even greater impacts with the greatest efficiency
• Amy Sheridan joined last month as our newest Chief Financial Officer, bringing technical expertise and a passion for developing strong global financial structures

Together, my newest teammates and I are focused on stewarding larger flows of capital with transparency, excellence, and at scale.

A Year Driven with Purpose

All of this work—every partnership built, every institution strengthened, every school supported, every loan responsibly deployed—is ultimately for people like Tina.

I met Tina, a mother in rural Malawi, when she had just begun work in our 18-month ultra-poverty Graduation program. She carried the same hopes so many parents carry: a safer home, a way to provide, and a chance for her children to learn and thrive. Her vision board was simple—a sturdy roof, a garden and goats, her children in school.

Eighteen months later, with guidance from our local staff and the steady support of a partner who stayed the course, Tina’s children are in school. Her family eats three meals a day. And her home has a metal roof.

Upon our second meeting, she told me, “Everyone else, they came and they left. But you came, and you stayed.”

We stayed because our partners, our staff, our funders, our supporters stayed with us. We stayed because that is what God would expect us to do. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to emulate the Good Samaritan and build a new road to Jericho, one on which no one gets left behind.

The Path Forward: Financial Inclusion to the Last Mile

Even as the world faces great uncertainty, we cannot leave families to navigate that instability alone. It demands a fierce faith in people—and in each other. Enough exists for all of us. Whether we do well by each other is a question of will and intention.

This year’s successes tell me that we are on the right track to a world without extreme poverty—and paint the picture for what we must do next: move capital, technology, and partnerships all the way to the last mile.

We have the capacity. Let's have the will.