Grameen Foundation USA

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
731502797
IRS 990 coverage
2014–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Washington, DC, USA
Phone
2026283560
Rating
70
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Standard
Sector
International Development

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$8,439,523
Expenses
$7,998,548
Assets
$4,368,961
Liabilities
$2,117,689

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

26 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • ZUBAIDA BAI (PRESIDENT & CEO)
  • AMELIA KUKLEWICZ (EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT PROGRAMS)

Highest reported compensation

  • ZUBAIDA BAI (PRESIDENT & CEO): $307,420 total reported compensation
  • HERMINA RUBIO GUTIERREZ (ACTING CFO): $200,955 total reported compensation
  • ARLYN GIGI GATTI (DIR., TECH. FOR DEV. (UNTIL 11/2024)): $175,458 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

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.

What it reported doing in 2024

Together 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 (scp) engages a total of 12 cooperatives, 2 partner oil mills and over 7,000 active smallholder copra (dried coconut meat) farmers. In fy25, cooperatives and farmers adopted the new training we introduced on copra quality and volume as well as climate adaptation strategies, resulting in improved price points from the mills. (2) the copra capacity development project is the second project, and it provides 5 of the 12 scp cooperatives pre-investment technical assistance. By supporting and strengthening the cooperatives to develop their short and long-term business plans, and to generate catalyst award proposals for the assets required for their growth, we are providing them with the skills required to become bankable, investable entities. In fy25, we completed the catalyst award process with the cooperatives. In india, grameen continued to engage 47 farmer producer organizations (fpos) across two states, reaching over 40,000 smallholder farmers in fy25. The project aims to strengthen the fpos' inclusive business lines that strengthen women smallholder farmer members' incomes and resilience. In fy25, the hub and spoke fpo (collaboration) model being trialed for greater aggregation/volume, market access, input access and financial access showed success when the fpos traded greater tomato (a woman-friendly value chain) volume than years past and were able to reach a larger market for a higher price. Similarly, in fy25, a vertical integration model (collaboration where each fpo plays a crucial production role; the model cannot exist without each fpo) was designed and is being trialed.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 67% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 94% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
  • Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and program spending has declined or grown slowly.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 63
  • Transparency & Controls: 76
  • Accountability: 100
  • Sustainability: 33
  • Growth: 0

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 62.1%; rating input score 62
  • Program expense ratio: 64.4%; rating input score 64
  • Fundraising efficiency: $29.92 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 93.8%; rating input score 94; 20th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Pass
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
    • Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
    • Requires narrative reports: Fail
    • Conducts field audits: Fail
    • May suspend future funding: Fail
    • Requires financial reports: Pass
    • Conducts site visits: Pass
    • Requires grant agreements: Pass
    • May require repayment: Fail
  • Grant itemization coverage: 96%; rating input score 96; 31st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 5.2%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.55; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.48; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 23%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -10.4% per year; rating input score 0; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -8.2% per year; rating input score 0; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -9% per year; rating input score 0; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 62.1% of revenue deployed · 64.4% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 5 filed program accomplishments · $5.1M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $307K · 26 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 3 contractors listed · $431K reported
  • Consistency: 36 of 37 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, executive pay, and related organizations
  • Filing history: 10 filing years from 2014 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 12 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 3 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.

  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 4 of 8 not reported.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 19/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 51/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 10/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 22/100.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.