Self-Employment Learning Project

BOI began its work to advance business ownership as an economic opportunity strategy with the Self-Employment Learning Project (SELP), the first multi-program evaluation of US microenterprise organizations. Between 1993 and 1998, SELP worked with the seven largest microenterprise organizations in the US to address a set of key questions regarding the practice and value of microenterprise as a strategy to address poverty.

BOI was born out of the experience with SELP, as microenterprise practitioners and funders asked us to continue and expand our work to use evaluation, peer learning, and common metrics as tools to build knowledge and support the continued development and evolution of the field.