Our top three highlights from 2025

We are proud of the strides we made to support women’s entrepreneurship and economic justice in 2025. As the year comes to an end, we’re looking back on the milestones and achievements we reached thanks to our friends and supporters around the world. 

In 2025, the world faced many challenges — from economic uncertainty to shifting political landscapes and setbacks to social justice. Like many charities, the Foundation has had to navigate these and other obstacles as we’ve continued working toward our crucial mission. With support from partners, donors, and allies around the world, we have reached around 27,000 women entrepreneurs and counting, providing training and mentorship, building confidence and opening new opportunities. That means we’ve supported 300,000 women entrepreneurs since our inception in 2008! 

Along the way, we had some fantastic milestones and achievements. Here are some of our highlights: 

1. We piloted our sixth flagship programme

In addition to our five existing programmes, HerVenture, Mentoring Women In Business, Road to Growth, Road to Finance, and Road to Leadership, we worked with DHL Express and Smart Regional Consultants (SRC) to create our sixth programme, Road to Markets. 

The programme was developed in response to our research findings on the challenges that limit women entrepreneurs’ access to new markets and expanding the existing ones. It was launched in early 2025 with a pilot in Nairobi, Kenya, supporting 20 women entrepreneurs to increase their market access. Here, graduates from the programme share their insights and reflections:

2. We launched crucial research on women’s entrepreneurship

Released for International Women’s Day 2025, in partnership with Intuit and the World Bank’s “Women, Business and the Law” project, our report, “Empowered or Undermined? Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Economy”, explored the challenges facing women entrepreneurs and offered actionable recommendations for global stakeholders. 

The research drew on survey responses from 2,870 women running businesses across 96 low and middle income countries. It found that although a lot of women entrepreneurs have been quick to adopt digital tools that help them developing their businesses, especially social media marketing and digital payments, they still have to overcome big systemic barriers: from every-day online and offline gender based violence, to unequal access to devices, internet and data, to gender-bias built into Artificial intelligence, to social norms that hold them back. Key examples of such biased norms were those preventing women from accessing loans because of banks often requiring collateral such as houses or land – owned primarily by men, as well as unpaid care commitments or limited financial literacy. 

Insights from the report made global headlines. They were featured in major outlets like Forbes, Reuters or BBC, and provided us a foundation to advocate for an economic and social system where women can thrive without having to overcome barriers that others rarely have to think about. 

3. We laid plans to bring our HerVenture app to new countries.

We are working with our partners to translate our award-winning HerVenture app and bring it to two new countries – Egypt and Mexico –  adapting it to be relevant to local contexts, and putting plans in place to disseminate it to women entrepreneurs.  Watch this space! 

So far, HerVenture has supported over 130,000 women entrepreneurs in 6 low and middle income countries. Here are some of their stories: 

Looking ahead

These fantastic accomplishments remind us that even in uncertain times, compassion and commitment can create lasting change. The work we do is more important than ever, and our generous supporters are the ones who make it all possible. 

We want to thank every single one of our partners and supporters who are making this possible, whether you fund our programmes, donate, attend events or share our messages on social media. 

As we look ahead to 2026, we are excited about the opportunities to deepen our collective impact. Join us in building on the progress we’ve made and supporting more women business owners than ever before. Here’s how: 

• Partner with us
• Make a donation
• Mentor a woman entrepreneur
• Join our online community