Grameen America: Advancing Financial Inclusion Through Innovation

In 2008, Grameen America (GA) launched in Queens, New York, with the mission of extending Muhammad Yunus’s Nobel Prize–winning microfinance model to low-income women entrepreneurs in the United States. Under CEO Andrea Jung’s leadership, GA scaled dramatically to 39 branches in 29 cities by 2025, disbursing $5.5 billion in loans to more than 230,000 women. Chief Product and Innovation Officer Marcus Berkowitz drove a digital transformation—moving disbursements from paper checks to prepaid cards and then to direct push payments, while shifting weekly meetings to Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. These innovations not only safeguarded GA’s operations during crises but also positioned it for sustainable growth. With bold new goals of serving 750,000 low-income entrepreneurs and deploying $40 billion in loans by 2034, GA faced questions of how to adapt its model for continued impact. Could the organization maintain the solidarity group lending model at its foundation while expanding into new regions and populations? The case provides an introduction to the core concepts of social impact and challenges students to consider how nonprofits can scale social innovations and balance financial sustainability with mission.