Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination (FIELD)

About this grant

The Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination (FIELD), created by the Aspen Institute, serves as a research and development fund for micro-enterprise in the United States. It contributes to the micro-enterprise field through seeding innovations, documenting and disseminating lessons learned, informing federal policy, and helping programs access additional funding.Funding will enable FIELD to capitalize on completed research and use it to inform funders, policymakers and practitioners. In addition, FIELD will conduct various dissemination activities and facilitate a set of meetings at the national and local levels to address the intersection between micro-enterprise and the informal U.S. economy and the state of the micro-enterprise industry and the challenges it faces. FIELD will also research ways to increase the income that micro-enterprises provide to low-income households and explore how practitioners can better support the growth of potential entrepreneurs.During the past year, FIELD produced two new best practices guides regarding technology services and entrepreneurial networks; and completed a set of publications that define and describe the intersection between micro-enterprise and the informal economy.