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Strive Women: Her Business, Her Financial Future

Three women, two of whom are wearing vests, stand together with their arms crossed in a store aisle.

Strive Women helps women entrepreneurs by supporting their confidence, resilience, and their ability to control their businesses. This empowers them to gain economic power, benefiting their households, communities, and economies. The program addresses unique challenges faced by women-led businesses, such as access to finance and childcare, and aims to create a supportive ecosystem for long-term success.

Overview

Strive Women, a four-year program led by CARE and supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, strengthens the financial health of women-led small businesses in Pakistan, Peru, and Vietnam. Women-led small businesses are critical contributors to economies, communities, and households worldwide.

Working with local partners, Strive Women takes an intentional approach to deliver tailored financial products and support services, such as digital skill building and strengthening women’s networks. The program explores innovative solutions in areas like sustainable business practices and childcare. Building on a long-term commitment to women entrepreneurs, CARE is also creating an inclusive ecosystem of stakeholders. While the program will directly support over 300,000 entrepreneurs, Strive Women plans to reach over 6 million entrepreneurs in total through its campaigns.

Strive logo

The opportunity

Micro, small, and medium enterprises account for 90% of businesses, 60-70% of employment, and 50% of GDP worldwide (UN, 2023). Women-led small businesses are critical contributors to economies, communities, and households worldwide. However, women do not always have access to finance. By not recognizing the potential of the women’s market, businesses are losing out on a huge opportunity. In the financial services sector, 80% of women-owned small businesses with credit needs are either unserved or underserved—a $1.7 trillion financing gap (UNSGSA, 2018).

Financial health

By focusing on the financial health of a woman entrepreneur, CARE and its partners will support her to balance both her household and business cashflow, prepare for and manage financial shocks, and increase her decision-making power. Ultimately, Strive Women supports women running small businesses to feel confident, in control, and able to invest in what matters to both her family and her business.

Our focus

Strive Women supports micro and small enterprises, 70% of which will be women-led with at least two employees, and who have been in business for at least two years. The program runs from 2023 to 2027 in Pakistan, Peru, and Vietnam where women face a variety of barriers and there are large segments of unserved and underserved micro and small businesses ready for investment.

Latest news

Strive Women Micro-Report: Measuring Women Entrepreneurs’ Financial Resilience

Our report explores how women entrepreneurs navigate financial shocks and build long-term business stability.

Strive Women Micro-Report: Measuring Women Entrepreneurs’ Financial Resilience

Read more

World Financial Review: “Why pinkwashing is not women-centered design, and never will be”

March 5, 2025

In a new OpEd, CARE’s Rathi Mani-Kandt highlights the power of women-centered design to create financial solutions that drive both impact and profitability. Read More

World Financial Review: “Why pinkwashing is not women-centered design, and never will be”

Read more

Small business, big impact: The transformative power of women entrepreneurs

By Sarah Hewitt, Director Strive Women, Women’s Entrepreneurship at CARE · June 20, 2024

There are more women than ever in business today, yet most have only three-quarters of the legal rights that men have when it comes to career, finances, and work-life balance – this despite the fact that women-led businesses are vital not just for their reinvestment into household incomes and national economies, but also for their transformative power. Read More

Small business, big impact: The transformative power of women entrepreneurs

Read more
Mastercard Strive

Strive Women is part of Mastercard Strive, a global portfolio of philanthropic programs aimed at helping small businesses around the world thrive in the digital economy. The program is implemented by CARE, supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and funded with a $9 million USD investment from the Mastercard Impact Fund.

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