Heifer International is a development organization working in partnership with a diverse base of people to address the root causes of hunger and poverty, and to create and promote economic prosperity through sustainable community-directed solutions. Heifer International’s goal is to end hunger and poverty in a way that protects and improves the environment.

 Heifer partners with local organizations on four continents (Africa, Americas, Asia-South Pacific and Europe), and works with a broad base of community, public/private sectors, and other development organizations.

Since it began in 1944, Heifer has worked directly with 12 million families in more than 125 countries and in 38 U.S. states.

Animals from Heifer International provide milk, eggs, plowing power and other benefits that for families across the planet can mean improved nutrition, education for children, health care, improved housing and literally a new way of life.

What makes Heifer unique is the practice known as “passing on the gift.” Families receiving animals agree to pass on the first offspring – or an appropriate equivalent – to another family in need, starting a chain of giving that often touches thousands of lives.

But Heifer International’s most striking qualities are its simplicity and effectiveness. In short, Heifer’s common-sense approach to sustainable development works – one family at a time.

• We principally work with small-holder farmers (SHF), with an emphasis on agriculture-livestock development.

• We work with a wide range of small-holder farmers, from the most impoverished to impoverished (also known as the peasant web).

• We know livestock and animal-source foods (ASF) are critical for the nutritional, cognitive and physical development of humans, and for household livelihoods.

• We work to link small-holder farmers to commercial markets, so that all benefit, and do so with particular attention to the most impoverished and most vulnerable, as projects mature.

• We work at a scale to ensure long-term sustainability for the peasant web.

• We seek to cluster at-scale projects to ensure that all project families, communities benefit from the network effects:

Ø               community building and cohesion;

Ø               economies of scale; infrastructure viability;

Ø               political visibility;

Ø               creation of a range of economic and social opportunities for women; and

Ø               creation of opportunities for other vulnerable populations, including men, adolescents and children; and

Ø               Third-party (non-Heifer-related) synergies.