Contributed by The Global Good Fund
With a $100 gift from a mentor and an idea, Carrie Rich set out to create an organization to serve as a catalyst for social good, and The Global Good Fund was born. Nine years later, The Global Good Fund has supported 188 Social Impact Fellows, raised $119 million in capital, created over 3,000 jobs, and collectively impacted 9.9 million people around the world.
The Global Good Fund believes that growing leaders is the best strategy for solving complex social problems and achieving global good. They identify high-potential entrepreneurs and accelerate their success and impact through a year-long, virtual fellowship.
Global Good Fund Fellow Spotlights
The Global Good Fund invests in young innovators solving our world’s most pressing social challenges by way of executive mentorship, leadership coaching and targeted capital. Below are just a few of their stories.
Autumn Adeigbo, founder of Autumn Adeigbo Fashion, 2013 Fellow
When Autumn became a Global Good Fund Fellow, she was living in New York City, working as a hostess by night, freelancing as a fashion stylist by day. She had designed a few collections that received top tier press attention, and was trying to find a path towards building a sustainable business. Today, Autumn is a successful Black female business owner devoted to positively impacting the lives of women across cultures by utilizing female-owned production facilities in the U.S., and providing global artisans with meaningful employment and living wages. In 2021, Autumn launched at Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Nordstrom, as well as specialty boutiques across the country. She closed $3 million in seed funding, allowing her to expand the team and dig into principles of diversity, while developing her skills as a leader. Autumn also receives follow-on funding from The Global Impact Fund II.
Margo Jordan, Founder + CEO, Youth Enrichments, 2018 Fellow
Margo Jordan is a venture-backed award-winning serial social entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Youth Enrichments. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she served 10 honorable years in the United States Army. Margo’s passion for social impact compelled her to develop self-esteem-based solutions to help children reach their full potential. Starting with hosting amazing youth conferences featuring celebrity teens and tweens as guest speakers she also built the first self-esteem-based learning center for girls, and expanded her platform internationally. To date, Margo has impacted over 20,000 children around the world. Her most recent venture, Enrichly, was born out of the global pandemic and is a self-esteem-based digital health/e-learning SaaS platform and gaming app that uses machine learning, gamification, data and onsite curriculum for k-12.
Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey, co-founders and co-CEO’s of Esusu, 2017 and 2019 Fellows
Samir and Wemimo were named The Global Good Fund Entrepreneurs of the Year for 2022 at the organization’s Gala in May. Esusu, a financial tool that empowers communities to save better, manage their cash flow, and build credit, is one of the first Black and brown-owned start-ups to reach Unicorn status and be valued at $1 billion. Growing up living paycheck to paycheck in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria, Wemimo’s family was excluded from the traditional financial system and turned to rotational savings to pay for school fees and put food on the table. He understands firsthand the power of community savings and digitized this process to make it easy for people to use. Prior to Esusu, Samir co-founded and remains the Chair of Transfernation, a nationally recognized 501(c)3 social-profit that uses technology to ensure excess food from events gets distributed to underserved communities across New York City.
Immigrants in America often do not have robust credit profiles, and Samir and Wemimo aim to build financial resilience and provide access to those marginalized people.
Soumya Dabriwal, founder of Project Baala, 2021 Fellow
Project Baala is a social enterprise focused on tackling the main problems of menstrual hygiene in India: expense of commercial menstrual products, menstrual waste mismanagement and societal myths and taboos. Soumya, a native of India, was a student at the University of Warwick, England when she volunteered in Haryana and Ghana as a teacher. During this time, she discovered the common issues of menstrual hygiene problems in both countries. Troubled by girls missing out on school and following unhygienic practices like using cloth rags, Soumya started Project Baala while still in college. After returning to India in 2016 and visiting rural parts of the country, she understood the magnitude of the problem – only 12% of women in India have access to sanitary napkins – and Project Baala became a company. In the next three years, Project Baala is positioned to impact 1 million girls with better menstrual hygiene knowledge and menstrual product access.
You can read more amazing Global Good Fund Fellow stories in Carrie’s new book, Impact The World, a Wall Street Journal best-seller as well as at https://globalgoodfund.org/fellowship/entrepreneurs/