Encounter. Empowerment. Enlightenment.
These three powerful words encapsulate Missio Invest's mission, and as board members, we've recently witnessed their profound impact firsthand. Our privilege of attending the "Faith and Financing" conference in Rwanda confirmed our conviction in Missio Invest's fiscally responsible approach. We saw how the process begins with personal encounter, truly listening and collaborating to meet needs, which has allowed Missio Invest to thoughtfully expand beyond agribusiness into healthcare, education, and microfinance.
Our initial draw was Missio Invest's commitment to empowering communities through self-sustaining, faith-based initiatives rooted in Catholic social teaching. The use of loans, not donations, resonated deeply, instilling self-reliance and worth. As one bishop noted, "Missio Invest teaches us to fish." This model provides a clear, accountable gateway to empowerment, moving communities towards self-sufficiency.
Through it all, a deepening sense of enlightenment emerges. Sharing our resources responsibly not only uplifts others but also enriches our lives as we witness human flourishing. A decade after its inception in Rwanda, Missio Invest's transformative impact now spans sub-Saharan Africa. We are deeply inspired by the authentic partnership we witness—Global North and South working as one Church through Missio Invest. We are confident this model represents a wise and impactful investment in the future.
Antoinette Mensah, Ph.D.
(VP – Missio Invest BOD)
Director, World Mission Ministries
Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Theresa Sandok, OSM
(Missio Invest BOD)
President, Servants of Mary
Ladysmith, Wisconsin
About Us
Missio Invest is a social impact fund providing patient capital and technical assistance to institutions of the Catholic Church in sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2016, we have partnered with Church-owned enterprises to strengthen their financial sustainability and deepen their social and spiritual impact within their communities.
Our journey began with agriculture loans in Kenya. Since then, we have expanded operations to 10 countries and are actively onboarding new borrowers in DRC and Ivory Coast.
In response to the proven success of our model in agribusiness — and in recognition of the Church’s broad and trusted role in delivering basic services — Missio Invest expanded its focus in 2021 to include three additional high-impact sectors: Education, Healthcare, and Microfinance. Today, our portfolio includes institutions that operate schools, clinics, savings cooperatives, and more, helping to extend the Church’s reach in delivering vital services to underserved communities.
This report follows the arc of Missio Invest’s impact model — from capital deployed to lives transformed. Our Theory of Change serves as a compass, connecting investment strategy to real-world outcomes across agriculture, education, healthcare, and microfinance. Together, these sections illustrate how patient capital entrusted to Church-owned institutions yields tangible social, economic, and spiritual returns in underserved communities.
At the outcome level, Missio Invest’s model leads to measurable improvements in community well-being and institutional strength. Increased food security, expanded access to education and healthcare, and greater environmental stewardship are just some of the ways Church-run enterprises are delivering impact. These outcomes reflect the effectiveness of pairing long-term capital with tailored technical assistance.
Keep scrolling to see how our 2024 impact results deliver on our TOC's promise to foster resilience, prosperity, and deeper engagement across all areas of mission-driven development:
Our borrowers invested nearly $53 million USD in their local economies, driving job creation, commerce, and community development.
They employed over 33,000 people, and supported 53,000 SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) either through loans or trainings.
They cultivated agricultural produce worth more than $5.7 million USD.
Their farms often are the heart of their social networks, modeling best practices, feeding school children and financing their community work.
Missio Invest borrowers are advancing environmental sustainability, with 92% of agricultural enterprises using clean energy.
Beyond agriculture, 3/4 of our borrowers use clean power sources, and 7 institutions (5 schools and 2 hospitals — even are powered by a combination of hydro, solar, and biogas.
Across the entire portfolio, borrowers planted over 228,000 trees 🌳 in 2024.
On average, each of our borrowers supports 51 social institutions — such as schools, clinics, youth programs, and environmental initiatives — underscoring the Church’s vital role in expanding access to essential services.
In 2024, our 37 agribusiness borrowers were responsible for managing over half of all institutions, totaling 2,344 or 54% of the entire network.
Our borrowers operate these networks of social institutions often in rural areas and as only providers. A loan to one of their enterprises has a positive ripple effect on the entire web of their institutions and the communities they serve.
In 2024, 19.6 million people benefited from our borrowers' work in the 4,364 social institutions they operate.
This diagram shows how Missio Invest’s capital and technical assistance flowed through 86 borrower institutions — schools, hospitals, and farms — to reach and serve over 19.8 million people in 2024. It offers a visual snapshot of how our support powers a wide network of Church-run social enterprises that deliver essential services and strengthen communities across Africa.
Our 37 agribusiness borrowers offer a compelling example of the positive ripple effect of Missio Invest’s approach, often serving as anchors for networks of related social enterprises that multiply their impact across entire communities.
Together, our agribusiness borrowers operated 145 hospitals and health care institutions in 2024.
...serving almost 5.5 million patients.
...and running 1,961 schools that educated 4.1 million children.
Please take a moment to follow the flows — from investment to impact, and all the connections in between. This snapshot shows how Missio Invest’s support moves through a vibrant network of schools, clinics, farms, and more to reach millions.
And among all these sectors, one is growing faster than any other — education.
A Spotlight on Education
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental provider of healthcare and education in the world, serving over 62 million students globally, including 77,714 schools in Africa in 2020* educating over 27 million students.
As of 2024, the 10 countries Missio Invest operates in account for 76% of the continent's Catholic educational institutions of Africa, and 84% of Catholic students (based on 2020 figures).
With a presence in this core region, Missio Invest has seen education emerge as its fastest-growing investment sector — a reflection of the Church’s unparalleled grassroots reach and the strategic importance of educating the world’s youngest continent to build healthy, resilient societies.
Learning Together: Building Capacity Through Borrower Workshops
In 2024, Missio Invest launched a new chapter in borrower engagement by hosting its first-ever regional workshop — designed to bring borrowers together not just as loan recipients, but as leaders shaping Africa’s future. These workshops reflected a core belief at the heart of our model: that providing hands-on technical assistance alongside capital is essential to long-term success. They offered a space to share knowledge, introduce best practices, and build relationships that strengthen impact far beyond financial returns.
We held two highly successful regional workshops in 2024: one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in May and another in Abuja, Nigeria in November. The 42 participants included current borrowers, prospective borrowers, and select invitees from neighboring countries, creating a diverse and dynamic space for shared learning. Over several days, participants engaged in technical trainings, field visits to borrower-led institutions, panel discussions, and peer exchanges — covering everything from procurement and compliance to diversification and finance.
These sessions helped create a shared baseline of understanding across our borrower network, while spotlighting sector-specific innovations in education, agriculture, and healthcare. Just as importantly, they became a powerful space for fostering trust, building peer networks, and exchanging lessons rooted in lived experience. For Missio Invest, they were a vivid demonstration of how we aim to accompany borrowers not only as lenders, but as partners — providing over 15,000 hours of technical assistance in 2024 alone.
These regional workshops are now a core part of Missio Invest’s capacity-building approach — helping to build shared understanding, strengthen leadership, and deepen partnership.
As one participant shared, “Thanks to Missio Invest for partnership in the struggle for self-sufficiency — a lot of lessons learnt from all participants.” This is just the beginning: more workshops are planned in the years ahead as Missio Invest continues to walk alongside its borrowers — not just as a lender, but as a long-term partner in impact.
Looking to the Future
All our efforts reflect a core belief that capital alone is not enough — success comes from pairing investment with shared learning, trust, and long-term support.
Now, we are turning to our partners and investors. As of early 2025, Missio Invest has fully disbursed all funds under management ahead of schedule — a testament to both borrower demand and our growing capacity to deliver. To continue scaling our impact, we are actively seeking new investment to expand this proven model.
In March 2025, more than 80 Catholic leaders from Africa, Europe, and North America gathered in Kigali, Rwanda to endorse this next chapter. In the Kigali Declaration, cardinals, bishops, sisters, and lay leaders affirmed Missio Invest as a powerful new model for Church-based development and called on those who manage Catholic and faith-aligned investment portfolios to step forward:
“We are not only pastoral workers and spiritual directors, but we are humanitarian workers... Missio Invest is leading the way.” — Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, Archdiocese of Abuja
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