S.E.

VEN Fund Company Overview:

“Ending Global Poverty through Enterprise-Based Solutions”

The S.E.VEN Fund is a non-profit organization founded by entrepreneurs; whose goal is to cul-
tivate enterprise-based global poverty solutions. In doing so, S.E.VEN invests in a variety of
mediums that support progressive perspectives and resolutions to bring about wide-scale aware-
ness and evolution. From media and art, to websites, to enterprising political divisions in devel-
oping nations, S.E.VEN aids promising social avenues that bring humanitarian issues to the fore-
front of public discourse and engender a new appreciation of how the private sector can be util-
ized to reduce global poverty.

Their mission is to spread information on how entrepreneurial business and economic develop-
ment can be fostered to create wealth in places where poverty is widespread. S.E.VEN takes a
bottom-up approach in terms of their choice of investments to promote solutions to global
poverty, countering traditional top-down government approaches. This non-profit organization
gives non-traditional enterprises the funding that they would not otherwise have access to in or-
der to support alternative, business-based poverty solutions around the world.

S.E.VEN Fund has a number of primary goals in order to promote and progress business innova-
tion to increase wealth and reduce poverty on a trans-national scale. One of these goals is to pro-
mote fields of scientific inquiry that have been recognized as salient forces in successful entre-
preneurship and economic development. Additionally, S.E.VEN works to strengthen ties
between researchers and primary actors working on enterprising solutions to poverty, and to
make the public more widely aware of the potential of this approach to reducing indigence on a
worldwide scale. Foremost, this organization seeks to attain philanthropic and government fund-
ing to support enterprise-based poverty solutions, and to realize the capacity for betterment that
lies in such strategies.

The two company co-founders, Michael Fairbanks and Andreas Widmer, possess a unique com-
bination of humanitarian goodwill and business savvy that renders global poverty solutions re-
plete with potential. At the same time, their methodology is rooted in concrete, practical know-
ledge of economic processes on an international scale. Andreas Widmer has worked as an exec-
utive at booming venture capital firms, is well versed in international business strategy consult-
ing and economic development, and has helped launch four successful start-up companies. His
international education and spirituality contribute to his concern for social welfare, while his
multilingual ability facilitates his transnational leverage through S.E.VEN Fund. Michael Fairb-
anks has worked on both sides of the corporate divide, as U.S. Peace Corps veteran and a
founder of a strategy-consulting firm, the first national venture-supported firm to concentrate on
developing nations. Both co-founders have contributed to best selling books about economic de-
velopment in emerging nations; Fairbanks most recently came out with a book entitled, "In the  
River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty," to which 
Widmer contributed several chapters.
With the publication of this book, S.E.VEN Fund has launched a global poverty essay competi­
tion seeking the essay best written in the style and sentiment of “In the River.” S.E.VEN Fund is 
asking individuals to assume the same task as the authors of the book, in writing about a first­
hand experience living or working in a poor, developing nation.  This essay should demonstrate 
your personal involvement and experience in enterprising solutions to poverty, and detail your 
own personal take on this endeavor.  In selecting a winner, S.E.VEN is looking for candor and 
authenticity of narrative voice as well as compelling content; your story need not be artificially 
crafted or overly optimistic, but simply an account of your experience, realizations, and undertak­
ings, large or small scale, regarding to entrepreneurial­based solutions to poverty.

SevenFund.org | Global Poverty Solutions