An Introduction to Opportunity at the Last Mile

It was my first month with Opportunity International when I found myself with a group pushing a bus out of the mud on a rural road in Uganda. A sudden storm had washed away any sense of control over our journey to visit farms outside Mityana. As rain poured and wheels spun, an elderly woman stood nearby, stick in hand, urging us on—until the tires caught and the bus lurched forward.

I’ve been thinking about that moment often. For me, it captures what “the last mile” means. At the last mile—where the most rural, marginalized, and underserved try to make a living—challenges like these abound. Yet together, millions can break free from the barriers of extreme poverty.

That is why I joined Opportunity International this year. After decades strengthening health and development systems globally, I’ve seen that the most effective organizations bridge the gap between the needs of underserved families and global solutions that can scale global impact. Opportunity does just that: reaching the hardest-to-reach while building solutions that last.

At the heart of that impact is a model rooted in partnership, allying with local institutions and leaders committed to uplifting their own communities. Every impact figure and metric represents a real family. Our work, though vast, is always about the individual—and on my first trip to the field, I saw that magnification in action.

Malawi: Human-Centered Interventions for the Most Underserved

In Malawi, I had a clear window into life at the last mile—and into the people creating lasting change for themselves. Poverty here is stubborn, with more than two-thirds of the population living in extreme poverty.

It was there that I met Thoki and her husband Howard, participants in our Ultra-Poor Graduation program. One of Opportunity’s newer interventions, the program reflects our commitment to serving those at the furthest margins. Clients live on less than $3 a day and often struggle to meet basic needs of food and shelter.

The program is comprehensive—providing training, coaching, and resources to help families build a livelihood. Over 18 months, participants build skills and enterprises that lead to stability.

A year in, Thoki proudly showed me her vision board, an exercise every client completes to map a pathway to prosperity. For her family, what began as a dream is becoming reality.

When they started, they struggled to eat three meals a day. Today, they enjoy food security and can afford meat regularly. Their children attend private school. They have land. A pig. A business.

What moved me most was not just material progress, but partnership. Thoki is a natural entrepreneur who gets things done—and Howard is always right beside her, keeping the books, frying fritters for sale, and supporting every step. Given the opportunity to build together, their teamwork is transforming their family’s future and shaping what their children will expect of their own households.

Opportunity helped Thoki discover her potential. That kind of growth is transformational. It cannot be taken away. To me, that is sustainability at its core.

Uganda: Scaling Impact Through Collaboration

For any COO, the question is not only how one family moves forward, but how to build the infrastructure to replicate it for millions.

That is why our work with financial institutions is so important. Opportunity’s DNA is rooted in banking, and for more than fifty years we have engaged banks as partners in impact. Banks understand risk, it’s core to their business model. Our role is to help them reimagine products so even the poorest clients can access capital sustainably for both institution and individual.

In short, this is how we connect the last mile to the financial system.

At our Agriculture Finance Summit in Kampala, I saw that bridge firsthand. Themed “Propagate,” the gathering focused on Faustina, our smallholder farmer persona who represents millions of women across Africa. Through keynotes, working groups, and a mini “Idea Day,” bankers explored how to adapt products to better serve farmers like her.

What struck me was the energy as participants connected the dots between real households and financial innovation. This is the strange dance of development: intimacy with individual needs paired with the operational capacity to serve at scale. For many institutions, the motivation is personal. Faustina is their mother or sister, struggling to make ends meet—and also a potential customer, strengthening local markets and their portfolios.

That is where the dance becomes clearest, because the life and story of Faustina could just as easily be the life and story of Thoki.

Since the beginning of Opportunity’s Agriculture Finance program, dozens of financial institutions have partnered with us to design tools that equip the most marginalized and put them on a pathway to prosperity. Together, we have released more than $500 million to farmers and entrepreneurs at the last mile. That is scale: millions of individuals gaining the resources to grow businesses and support families.

A Model Built at the Last Mile, for the Last Mile

My first trip to the field reminded me that progress, like that muddy road, is rarely straightforward. Scaling Opportunity’s work isn’t about counting how many more people we can reach, but ensuring each one experiences meaningful change. It’s about designing systems that respect the individuality of families like Thoki and Howard’s while equipping financial institutions and local partners to help millions follow their lead.

That is where operations come in: building the infrastructure that connects people, capital, and ideas so that transformation at the household level can multiply across communities. Opportunity’s model, refined over decades, shows that when we combine innovation with local expertise, change endures.

True scale happens when impact ripples outward. From one family to a village, from a village to a nation, and hopefully to a world without extreme poverty. That is the work that inspires me most: helping the world’s most determined people find the traction they need to move forward, together.