The F. M. Kirby Foundation and the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business  are pleased to announce that Essmart has been selected as the winner of the 2022-2023 Fred Morgan Kirby Prize for Scaling Social Impact.

Essmart is a for-profit social enterprise in India, on a mission to grow rural livelihoods by connecting local retail shops and the customers they serve with high-impact livelihood products. After ten years in operation, Essmart is already impacting more than one million people and reaching 20% of India’s pin codes, with 5,000 shops on its platform. Over the next three years, it plans to leverage its operational modularity, technology platform, and strong networks to scale to serving 10,000+ retail shops. Essmart also continues to change the lives of the shop owners in its network, 83% of whom live below the poverty line, by significantly increasing their earnings.

The prize, consisting of $100,000 in unrestricted funds, is designed to help amplify and accelerate an enterprise’s impact on social or environmental problems around the world. In the 2022-23 application year, four finalists were chosen from a pool of 180 applicants. The four finalists include both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises working across India, Africa, and the U.S., focusing on impact areas such as economic growth, early childhood education, digital access, and racial justice.

Read more about Essmart and the three other finalists: Connecticut Veterans Legal Center, Hello World, and Kidogo.