What Self-Help International does

Self-Help International is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 42-0844679), founded in 1959 and headquartered in Waverly, Iowa, with a secondary office in Des Moines, Iowa. The organization delivers four interconnected humanitarian development programs — Accessing Clean Water, Empowering Women and Girls, Ending Malnutrition, and Improving Agriculture — to rural communities in Ghana (Ashanti Region and Upper West Region) and Nicaragua (Department of Rio San Juan). Its operational model rests on locally-hired field staff and community-based delivery structures, including micro-credit groups, Women's Empowerment Program groups, Teen Girls Clubs, and Community Water and Sanitation Committees (CAPS). The Clean Water Program deploys CTI-8 manual chlorinators (PVC pipe systems using chlorine tablets) maintained by CAPS leaders; the agriculture pillar provides biofortified seeds (INTA-Nutrader corn, Bio-Apante beans), double-row planting training, push planters, and Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags; the women's pillar provides micro-credit, business training, and seed donations; and the GHFGHC program targets maternal-child nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life. The Graduate Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) and Teen Girls Club extend the beneficiary pipeline to youth and recent university graduates.

The organization's revenue model is donation-based and event-driven, with no commercial product sales. Income is sourced from individual donations, planned giving and bequests (including Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs and charitable trusts), gifts of property and in-kind contributions, and signature fundraising events in Iowa (the Empower Women Luncheon, Spring Gala, LAGS Memorial Golf Tournament in its 16th year, Holiday Happy Hour, and Giving Tuesday with matching gifts). Donations are processed through Blackbaud and Square via the selfhelpinternational.org website, with wire, check, and stock transfer accepted. Programmatic inputs are delivered to beneficiaries at subsidized cost or in-kind — micro-loans carry favorable terms, push planters are sold at approximately 1,000 Ghana cedis (~$83 USD), and seed recipients often return double the input to community seed banks. Programs are explicitly evidence-based, modeled after methodologies from World Food Prize Laureates Dr. Lawrence Haddad, Jan Low, Dr. Surinder Vasal, and Dr. Evangelina Villegas, and the organization is independently audited annually and top-ranked by Global Giving and Candid GoldStar. Strategic partnerships include the Agricultural Development Bank (Ghana) for financial inclusion, Marie Stopes International (since 2017) for reproductive health integration, WIAD of the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture (since December 2023) for value-add training, and Together Women Rise for GHFGHC scale-up.

Name

Self-Help International

Legal name

Self-Help International

Website

https://selfhelpinternational.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1959

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Self-Help International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded 1959, delivering clean water, micro-credit, agriculture training, and maternal-child nutrition programs to rural communities in Ghana and Nicaragua, funded through individual donations, bequests, and Iowa-based fundraising events.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

International Development & Humanitarian Aid

NAICS

Social Assistance (624), Other Individual and Family Services (624190), Community Food Services (624210)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300), Services-Misc Health & Allied Services, Nec (8090)

akta.pro primary industry

Rural Livelihoods & Economic Empowerment (BPAGABAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Nutrition & Food Security (Global Health) NGOs (HLAJAKAH), Health, Population & WASH Aid Programs (BPADABAC), Maternal, Newborn, Child & Adolescent Health (MNCAH) Partnerships (HLAJAOAG)

Keywords

• Rural community development
• Hunger alleviation programs
• Women's microcredit lending
• Clean water access
• Agricultural training services

Headquarters

HQ city

Waverly

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations and Contributions: Self-Help International is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 42-0844679) that raises funds from individual donors. The organization runs fundraising events including the Empower Women Luncheon, Spring Gala, LAGS Memorial Golf Tournament, Holiday Happy Hour, and Giving Tuesday campaigns with matching gift programs. Donors can contribute via the website using encrypted third-party payment processors (Blackbaud and Square), wire transfer, check, or stock transfer.
2. Planned Giving and Bequests: SHI accepts Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRA accounts, bequests under wills and trusts, beneficiary designations on retirement plans and bank accounts, gifts of life insurance, and charitable remainder/lead trust arrangements. The Gift Acceptance Policy outlines these structured giving vehicles.
3. Gifts of Property and In-Kind Donations: SHI accepts gifts of real property (subject to environmental review), grain, tangible personal property, and publicly traded securities. Restricted gifts may be designated to specific country programs or endowed funds.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Self-Help International is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that alleviates hunger and poverty in rural Ghana and Nicaragua through integrated development programs. It delivers clean water access via CTI-8 chlorinators and CAPS committees, women's economic empowerment through microcredit and business training, maternal-child nutrition support, and agricultural productivity improvements using biofortified seeds, double-row planting, and post-harvest storage solutions. Programs are delivered at no or subsidized cost to beneficiaries via locally hired field staff and community groups, with revenue raised from US-based individual donors, planned gifts, and grants.

Product overview

Self-Help International is a nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) that does not offer a technology product. Instead, it provides a suite of humanitarian development programs focused on alleviating hunger in rural communities in Ghana and Nicaragua. The organization's programs include the Clean Water Program (providing chlorinators and CAPS training), Women's Empowerment Program (microcredit and business training), Agriculture and Entrepreneurship Development (AED) program (agricultural training and high-yield seeds), Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children nutrition program, Teen Girls Club leadership program, Graduate Entrepreneurship Program, and School Feeding Program. These are programmatic services, not technology products or software platforms.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Clean Water Program Provides rural communities in Nicaragua and Ghana with CTI-8 manual chlorinators for water disinfection, trains Community Water and Sanitation Committees (CAPS) on water system management, and supports water quality testing and ongoing chlorine tablet supply. The program targets rural communities lacking access to safe drinking water and is operated and maintained by trained CAPS members.
• Women's Empowerment Program (Microcredit) Provides microcredit loans, business training, and entrepreneurship education to women in rural Ghana and Nicaragua to help them start or expand small businesses and achieve financial independence. Includes basic accounting, social media sales training, biofortified seed donations, and follow-up visits from program officers.
• Agriculture and Entrepreneurship Development (AED) Program Offers agricultural training, biofortified seed provision (INTA-Nutrader high-protein corn, Bio-Apante beans, and high-protein rice), double-row planting technique education, microcredit for farm inputs, and PICS bag training to small-scale farmers in Ghana and Nicaragua to improve crop yields and farming productivity. Subsidized push planters are provided to farmers.
• Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC) Maternal-child nutrition program supporting families in the first 1,000 days of life in rural Ghana through Tom Brown fortified porridge, egg distribution, nutritional counseling, lactation coaching, and postpartum support. Over 200 families supported to improve child health outcomes.
• Teen Girls Club Leadership and educational program for teen girls in rural Ghana and Nicaragua providing education on reproductive health, life skills, civic engagement, and community service project opportunities to keep girls in school and develop civic skills.
• Graduate Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) Training program for recent university graduates focused on agricultural entrepreneurship in Ghana, providing hands-on experience in crop cultivation, livestock management, and business development. Graduates have moved on to roles at Agri-Impact, Kumasi Institute for Tropical Agriculture, and Agritop.
• School Feeding Program Provides breakfast meals to schools in partner communities, supporting children's nutrition and helping families keep children in school.

Quantifiable outcome

• Increases in farmer yields after training and input loans from Self-Help (specific percentage varies by crop and farmer)
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Women In Agriculture Development (WIAD) — Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Ghana)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 December 2023In December 2023, SHI collaborated with WIAD of the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture to train 34 women from five communities in the Ullo traditional area on processing agricultural products (pastries, soya milk, soya khebab, and weanimix). The partnership addresses post-harvest challenges and creates additional income-generating opportunities for women farmers.
• Marie Stopes International (MSI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 August 2017In August 2017, SHI partnered with Marie Stopes International (MSI) to deliver reproductive health education and screening services to SHI micro-loan beneficiaries and Teen Girls Club members in Ghana. MSI health workers provided talks on teenage pregnancy, reproductive health, and the dangers of unsafe abortion at leadership summits and community events in Timeabu and Bedabour. MSI offered free screening services to women who requested further attention. The partnership was initiated when the SHI executive director visited Ghana and connected MSI's health expertise with SHI's existing women's programming network.
• Agricultural Development Bank (Ghana)coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSHI's micro-credit program has linked women beneficiaries (approximately 59 women from Kwaso and Timeabu communities) to the Agricultural Development Bank to open savings accounts, receive bank identification cards, and obtain checkbooks. Approximately 98% of targeted women opened bank accounts for the first time through this partnership, enabling them to access formal financial services.
• Agri-ImpactminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSeveral graduates of SHI's Graduate Entrepreneurship Program (GEP), including Richmond and Dennis, were recruited by or linked to Agri-Impact as employees or business partners. Agri-Impact connects SHI-trained graduates with investors and opportunities in greenhouse agriculture and related fields.
• Kumasi Institute for Tropical AgricultureminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerJustice, a 2019-2020 GEP graduate, was hired part-time by this institute as a project manager to help other students learn about agriculture. The institute serves as an alumni destination for SHI-trained graduates.
• Ghana/Israel Greenhouse Agriculture Training ProgramminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerDennis, a GEP graduate, applied to this Israel-Ghana joint training program and was accepted, demonstrating that SHI's GEP alumni are competitive for international agricultural training opportunities. Dennis was unable to travel due to COVID-19.
• Agritop (Government of Ghana and Israeli Government Initiative)minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerJuliana, a GEP graduate, was undergoing training in greenhouse technology with Agritop, a joint initiative of the Government of Ghana and the Israeli Government to train young agripreneurs.
• CARGOTRAN (Delivery Service Provider)minorOthersEveling, a Women's Empowerment Program client, uses CARGOTRAN for product deliveries when she places orders online. This is a beneficiary-level logistics arrangement rather than a formal organizational partnership.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Heifer International: U.S.-based nonprofit addressing rural hunger and poverty through livestock, agriculture, and women's empowerment programs in developing countries; SHI's rural-livelihoods-and-agriculture focus closely mirrors Heifer's 'Passing on the Gift' model.
• CARE: Major international NGO delivering women's empowerment, maternal-child nutrition, food security, and WASH programs globally; overlaps with SHI on gender-equity, nutrition, and rural agriculture in lower-income geographies.
• WaterAid: International nonprofit focused exclusively on clean water, sanitation, and hygiene in low-income countries; directly comparable to SHI's CAPS-led Clean Water Program in Nicaragua and Ghana.
• Opportunity International: Microfinance-focused NGO providing small loans, savings, and training to entrepreneurs in developing countries; directly comparable to SHI's Women's Empowerment micro-credit program.
• TechnoServe: Business-solutions-to-poverty nonprofit working with smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs in the developing world; overlaps with SHI on agricultural training, micro-credit, and women's entrepreneurship.
• Grameen Foundation: Microfinance and poverty-alleviation nonprofit serving rural poor through credit, savings, and farmer-support programs; comparable in mission on women's micro-enterprise and rural agricultural finance.
• Water.org: Global nonprofit tackling water and sanitation through microfinance and utility partnerships; overlaps with SHI's CTI-8 chlorinator distribution and CAPS governance model for safe water access.

Broad incumbents

• World Vision: Large incumbent international humanitarian organization running WASH, nutrition, agriculture, and child-sponsorship programs across many countries; broader portfolio but overlapping program categories with SHI.
• Mercy Corps: Large international development and humanitarian NGO operating across food security, WASH, and economic development; broader geography and budget than SHI but conceptually adjacent.
• Catholic Relief Services: U.S.-based Catholic international development agency running agriculture, nutrition, WASH, and women's empowerment programs globally; broader scale but directly comparable thematic priorities.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SelfHelpIntl
• Facebookfacebook.com/SelfHelpIntl

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Self-Help International