Microfinance Opportunities
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 300075787
- IRS 990-PF coverage
- 2025–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-PF 2025
- Location
- Cambridge, MA, USA
- Phone
- 8579289137
- Rating
- 20
- Verdict
- REVIEW
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Education N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $560,230
- Expenses
- $494,358
Source: IRS Form 990-PF. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Overview
Mission
Microfinance Opportunities is a global non-profit committed to understanding the economic realities of low-income and marginalized people. By describing and analyzing these realities we inform the policies and practices of government, the private sector, multilateral organizations, civil society, and low-income and marginalized people themselves. We do this through the collection, analysis, and visualization of data, and the dissemination of the results through interactive and engaging materials and education efforts.
Microfinance Opportunities (MFO) is a global nonprofit that works to understand the economic realities of low-income and marginalized people. It collects, analyzes, and visualizes data to inform the policies and practices of governments, the private sector, multilateral organizations, and civil society. MFO is known for its Garment Worker Diaries initiative in Bangladesh, which conducts weekly telephone interviews with 1,300 garment workers to understand their living and working conditions. The organization also offers technical assistance to financial service providers, policymakers, and private sector organizations to help financially empower low-income consumers.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Other-operating. 99% of the foundation's positive operating resources came from other operating revenue.
- Distribution model
- No current program activity. The filing reports no charitable disbursements for the current year.
The verdict
REVIEW - The filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of spending goes to grants and the filing does not identify all grant recipients.
Rating breakdown
- Grant Deployment: NotEnoughData
- Cost Efficiency: 0
- Transparency: 0
- Compliance: 100
- Endowment Health: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Grant Deployment
- Grant deployment ratio: Limited
Cost Efficiency
- Grant expense ratio: 0%; rating input score 0; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency
- Grant recipient disclosure: Scored; rating input score 0
Compliance
- Part VII-B activity disclosures: 19 of 19 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Property sale or exchange with a disqualified person: Pass
- Borrowing from or lending to a disqualified person: Pass
- Goods, services, or facilities involving a disqualified person: Pass
- Compensation paid to a disqualified person: Pass
- Assets transferred to a disqualified person: Pass
- Payment to a government official: Pass
- Uncorrected prior self-dealing: Pass
- Prior-year undistributed income: Pass
- Excess business holdings: Pass
- Investments that may jeopardize charitable purposes: Pass
- Uncorrected prior-year jeopardizing investments: Pass
- Attempt to influence legislation: Pass
- Attempt to influence an election: Pass
- Grants to individuals: Pass
- Grants to organizations: Pass
- Spending for a noncharitable purpose: Pass
- Funds received for a personal-benefit contract: Pass
- Premiums paid on a personal-benefit contract: Pass
- Prohibited tax-shelter transaction: Pass
- Filing consistency checks: 10; rating input score 100
Endowment Health
- Endowment-health comparison: Limited
Details
- What they fund: 9 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 2 operating locations identified
- Where the money goes: Financial trends and filed revenue, expense, asset, and liability detail
- Payout: Filed payout detail
- Trustees: Filed trustees detail
- Self-dealing: 100% of reviewed questions answered “No”
- Investments: Filed investments detail
- Consistency: 10 of 10 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- 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.
- High — Cost Efficiency: Grant expense ratio scored 0/100.
- High — Transparency: Grant recipient disclosure scored 0/100.