In pursuit of its mission to identify, develop and disseminate best practices in the field of U.S. microenterprise development, FIELD has engaged in a range of projects that aim to support innovations and improvements in key areas of program practice. FIELD has used a range of tools to achieve these aims: innovation grants, quantitative and qualitative data collection, literature reviews and other secondary research. Central to all of its efforts, however, is FIELD’s signature approach – the participatory learning assessment.  Through this approach, FIELD works jointly with microenterprise practitioners to identify key learning issues and questions, to gather and reflect on data, and to share key findings broadly across the microenterprise field.

FIELD has engaged in projects focused on the following areas of microenterprise program services and operations:

Access to Markets: Services that assist entrepreneurs to expand and reach more lucrative markets.

Business Growth: Strategies for assisting businesses to grow past the start-up phase of operations.

Financial Products and Services: Products that meet the financing and financial needs of microentrepreneurs.

Health Insurance Resources: Information on the health insurance challenges facing microentrepreneurs, and emerging strategies for addressing those challenges.

Management Information Systems: Information to support the development of more appropriate and effective management information systems for microenterprise program operators.

Scaling-up Services: FIELD’s work in support of organizations seeking to expand their microenterprise services to reach larger numbers of clients.

Rural Entrepreneurship: Information on various aspects of rural entrepreneurship, based on FIELD research.

Training and Technical Assistance:  Research and information on best practices in business development training and technical assistance for microentrepreneurs.

Additional resources related to these areas of program practice can be found in the Moving Forward/Practitioner Resources section of this Web site.