The Ihsaas Trust was started in 2012 with a vision to improve social mobility for Karachi’s poor.

The Trust used microfinance as an approach to ease capital constraints for aspiring entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. It opened an application process for people to request funding for assets or working capital through an interest free micro-loan program. During four years of this program’s execution, salient categories of funded projects included setting up small grocery stores, buying equipment for small businesses and buying rickshaws.

Since then, we have learned from our experiments and failures to refine the enterprise facilitation approach and enable Karachi’s poor to start their own businesses. Our model brings together interest-free micro loans, proven micro business models, end-to-end micro-business advisory services and trainings to develop and sustain the micro-entrepreneur’s journey.