The four founding funders of FIELD were:

Core Activities
Since its inception, FIELD has worked with more than 100 U.S.-based microenterprise programs on various research and demonstration projects. FIELD's core activities include:

• Assessing the "State of the Field." In 2005 FIELD concluded a comprehensive review of the industry that involved gathering and analyzing data on both program operations and client experiences, as part of the report: Opening Opportunities, Building Ownership: Fulfilling the Promise of Microenterprise in the United States.
  
  That report detailed a number of important attributes of the microenterprise field. It also described a set of challenges facing the industry and set out eight recommendations that could help move the field in a more positive and sustainable direction going forward. Since its release, FIELD has continued to work, along with other partners, to develop and implement the directions recommended in the report. For details, visit the Moving Forward section of this Web site.
  
  
• Funding learning and innovation. FIELD makes targeted grants to microenterprise practitioners and intermediaries that are exploring issues of critical importance to the field. FIELD’s current grant-making centers on participants in its Scale Academy, which is designed to provide financing, technical assistance and other intensive services to organizations poised to achieve greater scale in their operations. FIELD also is managing the Citigroup Microenterprise Researchers Program, which provides funding to 25 microenterprise organizations to hire interns to collect data on clients. Other recent grants have supported work on market research and credit scoring. During its early years, FIELD disbursed $3 million in grants to 33 organizations clustered around five key issues of practice: Training and Technical Assistance, Scaling-up Services, Financial Products and Services, Institutional Models, and Business Growth. All FIELD grants are made through a request for proposals or invitation process.
  
  
• Evaluating new ideas and approaches. Building on the research expertise developed during its predecessor program, the Self-Employment Learning Project, FIELD has conducted evaluations of several demonstrations in the areas of microenterprise and entrepreneurial development. FIELD is currently conducting the national evaluation of the W.K. Kellogg Rural Entrepreneurship Development Systems (EDS) project.
  
  FIELD has played an ongoing role in conducting the learning component of the Ms. Foundation's Collaborative Fund for Women's Economic Development. FIELD's past evaluation work includes two projects supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation: A Welfare to Work Demonstration (1998-2003) designed to test how self-employment can be a viable source of work and income for welfare recipients, and an Access to Markets demonstration (1998-2001) designed to identify innovative ways to help low-income entrepreneurs link their goods and services to the marketplace.
  
  
• Building infrastructure. FIELD initiatives also have helped build the microenterprise industry's infrastructure. These include MicroTest, a performance measurement system that has contributed to the establishment of industry standards and is now the largest database on performance and client outcomes; and MicroMentor, an Internet-based service created to match entrepreneurs with mentors across the United States, and enable programs to efficiently offer a helpful service to clients. Operation of MicroMentor transferred to Mercy Corps, the international humanitarian relief and development agency, on October 1, 2006. To learn more about this spin-off, click here.
  
  
• Sharing knowledge. Dissemination is key to FIELD's efforts to build the microenterprise field. FIELD has created numerous guides, manuals, tools and resources, designed to help practitioners provide services that reflect the latest innovations, and has become widely known as the premier source of such information. FIELD also creates products designed for donors and, occasionally, policy makers. FIELD products include:
• An On-Line Resource Bank, which provides descriptions and links to resources that support the eight critical directions for the field identified in Opening Opportunities, Building Ownership.
• The FIELD forum, a periodic publication designed to share findings from FIELD's research and grant-making.
• The FIELD Funder Guide series, brief 2-4 page publications that provide donors with insights into the field and effective ways in which it can be supported.

FIELD products are described in the Publications section of this Web site.

Supporters
Over time, FIELD and its affiliated projects, including MicroTest and MicroMentor, also have received grants and other support from a number of sources: