Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 107 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,572,234 to it, the largest being GATES FOUNDATION ($6,339,576). 73 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $8.4M
- Funders on record
- 107
- Grants received
- $22M
- Net assets
- $2.3M
What Grameen Foundation USA does
Mission
Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) is committed to breaking the cycle of poverty by supporting women and underserved communities with the resources they need to thrive. Our innovative programs are designed to provide individuals, especially women, with access to financial services, technology, and knowledge, enabling them to build sustainable livelihoods. Through a unique blend of technology-driven solutions and locally-led interventions, grameen continues to foster economic resilience, financial inclusion, and social change in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world. Signature programs are centered around women entrepreneurs, smallholder farmers, and young women, executed through our ability to innovate, adapt to emerging challenges, and build stronger, more resilient communities.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Investher: holistic programming for women entrepreneurs: in fy25, Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) led programs focused on supporting primarily women entrepreneurs and young women with increased ability to grow income, agency, and resilience. One key area of grameen's programming focuses on refugees in uganda, where interventions led to increased income and dramatically decreased interest rates on loans to support entrepreneurship. During the project period, grameen successfully expanded access to formal financial services by engaging new private sector partners and supporting pilots with existing financial service providers. The project exceeded all targets for the number of people reached and total financing was mobilized, directly reaching 13,559 participants - 98% of the life-of-activity goal. Finance mobilization enabled participants to launch and grow businesses, with 96% reporting earned income - a 43% increase from baseline. Grameen also exceeded outreach targets for women and youth, and strengthened financial confidence through its financial literacy trainings, as validated by qualitative research.additionally, grameen's signature programming used community and household…
$2,947,040 spentof which $298,268 as grants$3,863 earned by the program57% of program spendingStrengthening organizations: our skilled volunteer core is making an impact in organizations throughout the world, providing insight, tools and resources to make local non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and small businesses more impactful and resilient. From july 01, 2024, to june 30, 2025, we have deployed 208 volunteers to provide volunteer consulting support to 36 host organizations in 5 countries: the united states, the philippines, india, ghana and uganda. We are slowly increasing our us presence and have served 23 microenterprises in the us alone. The volunteers contributed a total of 12,990 hours, an equivalent of usd $2,311,178 of in-kind services. Today, bankers without borders consists of 27,632 volunteers. Since our inception 17 years ago, we have served 396 client organizations in 41 countries and volunteers have provided usd 35.1m of in-kind services.Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) builds up the international development systems that support millions of women and girls as they work their way out of poverty. We focus on equipping local organizations, stakeholders, and financial providers with accessible technology and training to help them service…
$1,024,527 spent$865,544 earned by the program20% of program spendingTogether we grow: holistic programming for smallholder farmers: in fy25, Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) continued its work to help smallholder farmers, especially women, reduce their vulnerability to shocks such as climate change, crop diseases, pests, and market vulnerability with 4 projects primarily focused on agriculture. Agripath is a 5-year action-research project spanning five countries, which aims to provide global, local implementing and research partners evidence as to what the most critical levers are for digital agricultural advisory services (das) to reach smallholders - including leveraging community-based agents (cbas). Grameen generated a toolkit for das providers to support them to build and/or enable cba networks to reach smallholders effectively, as well as a das scaling framework to further enable the das ecosystem - public and private - and to give service providers an understanding of the importance of having a sustainable business model. In the philippines, we have two agriculture-centric projects focused on the coconut value chain. (1) we have been working with coconut smallholder farmers for one decade now as grameen! The sustainable coconut project…
$955,540 spent19% of program spendingRegional programs: in total Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) engaged 58 local partners across all programs, and they have also been trained on gender-based violence mitigation resources, and together we're addressing harmful cultural practices that result in gender-based violence.grameen (with freedom from hunger as a supporting organization) serves poor communities in asia, latin america, and sub-saharan africa. In india, we work through our wholly-owned subsidiary, grameen foundation india private limited. We are also partners in a joint venture, grameen capital india. In fy25, we had active projects in haiti, mexico, nigeria, benin, argentina, ghana, guatemala, honduras, india, philippines, senegal, uganda, palau, nauru, tuvalu, burkina faso, tanzania, and nepal and the marshall islands.program safe: Grameen Foundation USA (grameen) launched program safe in fy25, a comprehensive strategy aimed at raising awareness, developing tools and standards, and building a global coalition to safeguard against financial abuse in all its forms. Grameen is uniquely poised to build this coalition for change because of our work at the intersection of financial inclusion and women living in…
$69,606 spent1% of program spendingPublic education: in fy25, Grameen Foundation USA raised public awareness about successful poverty efforts through in-person events, webinars, blogs, social media posts, and print and email publications, plus speaking engagements by our ceo and other leadership.
$151,182 spent3% of program spending
The 5 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,147,895.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $8.8M to $5.4M (−39%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 17% · 2019 24% · 2020 16% · 2021 18% · 2022 26% · 2023 26% · 2024 26% · 2025 19%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
88% of GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Zubaida Bai
President & CEO
Board chair
Elisabeth Holmes Rhyne
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 30 funders to 44 funders, grant income rose $1.2M → $3.1M.
25 of 107 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 16% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $3.1M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Freedom From Hunger). These are real filings, and they are not money GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA raised.
From the IRS filings of GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 107 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 29% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
36% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 45% · 2018 36% · 2019 18% · 2020 50% · 2021 45% · 2022 26% · 2023 36% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
50% of GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA draws 92% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 26 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 19 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 798 international nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 798 international nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.9M on record — $1.9M federal, $12 state.
- Department of Labor$1.9M
- REFUNDS - GENERAL $12
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
64% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
76%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 28 states
Part of a family of 5 related entities
- Taroworks LLC · disregarded
- Freedom From Hunger · exempt
- Grameen Foundation for Social Impact · exempt
- Grameen Foundation India Private Limited · corp_trust
- Grameen Impact Ventures Private Limited · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA?
- GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 107 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,572,234 to it, the largest being GATES FOUNDATION ($6,339,576). 73 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA have?
- IRS filings report 107 organizations giving $21,572,234 in grants to GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA, 73 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA?
- GATES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $6,339,576 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 107 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing