Our Investment Model

 
 

Innovative Social Impact Investing That Fairly Benefits Investors and Partners Alike

Grassroots organizations located in developing countries such as Guatemala typically face a number of challenges to accessing financial capital. Local capital markets historically charge high interest rates and involve significant red tape while international capital markets are often inaccessible for low-resourced grassroots organizations. This is where Wilkes Investments (WI) comes in.

WI provides capital at affordable interest rates which are lower than those offered by most private international investment institutions operating in the country. Due to our lean and nimble organizational structure, we are also able to pay our investors return rates that are on par with longer-term returns from the U.S. stock market. We hedge our investments by using commercial paper (purchase and sale agreements) and the physical assets of our partnering Guatemalan organizations.

With our investments, WI’s partners have been able to:

  1. Export more than $5 million USD of organic, Fair Trade-certified coffee, honey, sugar cane, and produce that’s sold in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Costa Rica;

  2. Extend over 150 microloans averaging $1,000 USD to Guatemalan smallholder farmers and small business owners, the majority of whom are women and youth under 25; and

  3. Finance the expansion of three small, indigenous, Guatemalan-owned companies, enabling them to increase their incomes by more than 30%.