Today, Caquelac collects approximately 12,000 liters of milk every day from 180 rural families and transforms it into fresh and specialty cheeses. Around 60% of its suppliers are Nasa and Piaroa Indigenous producers, while the remainder are smallholder rural families living in the Colombian Amazon. 

For decades, the Lozada–Guayabero region where Caquelac operates was deeply affected by Colombia's armed conflict. Its remote geography and limited state presence contributed to low investment, inadequate infrastructure, and few formal economic opportunities for rural and Indigenous communities. While security conditions improved following Colombia's 2016 Peace Agreement, rural development remains a challenge.

Against this backdrop, the consistency of dairy matters. Unlike agricultural businesses that depend on a single annual harvest or unpredictable export markets, dairy can generate income throughout the year while producing food for local communities. Caquelac collects milk seven days a week through 11 routes connecting dispersed farms with its processing facility in San Vicente del Caguán.

By purchasing milk year-round and paying producers every 15 days, Caquelac provides families with a more predictable source of income. In 2025, the company paid producers an average of 17% above the local market price, with each family receiving an average of approximately $9,600 over the year from milk sales.

Caquelac's relationship with producers also goes beyond buying their milk. The company provides technical assistance and production advances and helps farmers access veterinary services and other essential inputs. It also promotes more sustainable livestock production, including silvopastoral systems that integrate trees, pasture, and grazing animals to improve productivity while protecting soil, water, and biodiversity.

The Reciprocity Fund recently provided Caquelac with a $60,000 working capital loan. The financing addresses a simple but important mismatch: Caquelac purchases milk every day and pays producers every 15 days, while its own customers can take between 8 and 20 days to pay. The loan helps the company continue paying farmers on time, provide production advances when needed, and purchase more milk as the business grows.

For rural families in Caquetá, something as simple as milk can provide food today and a steady source of income for tomorrow. The Reciprocity Fund's financing is helping Caquelac continue providing the reliable market that makes both possible.

Komodo Water, a women-led social enterprise and Certified B Corp, is addressing this challenge by bringing solar-powered clean water and ice production to Indigenous Manggarai communities and Bajo sea nomads. Working alongside local cooperatives, Komodo Water helps communities own and operate their own water facilities, making clean water more affordable while creating local jobs and keeping economic benefits within the villages.

Today, the enterprise serves more than 33,000 people across nine communities.

The impact extends beyond drinking water. Fishing is an important source of income across the region, but without reliable access to ice, fishermen risk losing part of their catch to spoilage. Komodo Water's solar-powered ice allows them to preserve their catch longer and earn more from the fish they have already harvested rather than catching more.

The Reciprocity Fund approved a $50,000 loan to help finance two new community-owned water facilities in Flores. The new systems will provide reliable access to safe drinking water for Indigenous Manggarai communities, reducing the cost of water by up to 40%.

Local cooperatives play a direct role in operating the facilities and distributing water, helping ensure that the benefits—and profits—remain within the communities.

For us, this is what impact investing looks like: financing practical businesses that solve everyday challenges while creating lasting opportunities for people to build better lives.

The Reciprocity Fund provided a $75,000 loan to help Simbiosis install solar dryers that are far more efficient than their legacy dryers, leading to a 30% increase in dried mushroom yield and stronger earning opportunities for Quechua women and their communities.

But the opportunity extends beyond mushrooms.

Simbiosis works with communities on forest management practices that help make pine forests more productive and economically valuable. In parts of the Andes where families may otherwise turn to mining for additional income, Simbiosis demonstrates another possibility: creating livelihoods from a natural resource that was once largely overlooked.

By connecting healthy forests with economic opportunity, Simbiosis gives communities another reason to care for the landscapes they depend on—while creating income close to home.

Wayakana works with 25 Wayuu women artisans who create traditional handwoven textiles using techniques and designs passed down through generations. Their work preserves Wayuu culture while creating income opportunities for women and their families. By connecting artisans to higher-value markets, Wayakana helps ensure that more of the value created by their skill stays within Indigenous communities.

Each textile reflects generations of knowledge. Traditional Wayuu weaving is more than craftsmanship—it is a way of passing on cultural identity, stories, and artistic traditions from one generation to the next. By creating sustainable market opportunities for these products, Wayakana helps ensure that this knowledge remains a living practice while allowing women to build stronger livelihoods within their own communities.

Access to electricity, financing, and basic infrastructure can shape what is possible for a family, a business, or an entire community. Through investments like these, we're proud to support entrepreneurs who are helping ensure that more Indigenous and rural communities have the opportunity to build the futures they choose for themselves.

​In the Wawee Valley of Northern Thailand, Akha and Karen women are creating livelihoods that allow them to stay rooted in their land and close to their families and traditions.

For many Indigenous communities in the highlands of Northern Thailand, economic opportunity has often meant leaving home. Younger generations frequently migrate to cities in search of work, separating families and distancing communities from traditional ways of life rooted in the land.

Hilltribe Organics is helping create another option.

Founded in 2014, Hilltribe Organics launched Thailand’s first organic free-range egg enterprise and remains the market leader today. The company works exclusively with Indigenous communities in the Wawee Valley of Chiang Rai, partnering primarily with Akha and Karen women farmers.

Today, the enterprise supports around 50 egg farmers. Each family receives hen chicks, housing, and organic feed sourced locally from more than 200 families practicing organic agriculture. Hilltribe Organics then purchases every egg at a premium price for sale in selected supermarkets and hospitality chains across Thailand.

The impact extends well beyond egg production.

Each farm generates a consistent daily income that roughly doubles household earnings, allowing families to remain together in their communities. Women are able to care for their children while participating in meaningful and dignified work, and younger family members often join in daily activities — from collecting eggs to caring for hens.

The model also supports environmental stewardship. Hens roam freely with significantly more space than in commercial egg systems, contributing to healthier soil and a more balanced ecosystem. Chicken manure is composted to improve fertility, while organic feed production supports regenerative agriculture throughout the valley.

A $50,000 loan from The Reciprocity Fund helped the company increase its chick-raising capacity and support more women farmers across the region.

As Reciprocity Fund Associate Marta Julia Ixtuc Cuc reflects:

Hilltribe Organics demonstrates how Indigenous-led enterprise can strengthen livelihoods, preserve culture, and care for the environment at the same time.

Cooperativa Agraria Achuar Shakaim is a fully Indigenous-led cooperative that produces natural oils from these forest plants and connects them to growing markets for natural cosmetics and wellness products. Founded and governed by Achuar leaders, the cooperative operates as the commercial arm of the Achuar people’s national federation, creating a business that aligns with community priorities and traditional ecological knowledge.

The cooperative works with 100 Achuar families across remote river communities in the Amazon basin. Women represent about 60% of participants, and youth play an active role in production and leadership. By organizing harvesting, processing, and sales, the cooperative allows families to generate income from resources they have stewarded for generations.

Importantly, these products are non-timber forest products, meaning they are harvested without cutting down trees. Families collect fruits and resins from the forest using methods that follow natural ecological cycles, allowing trees and palms to regenerate. In this way, the cooperative turns standing forest into a sustainable economic asset.

To support this work, the Reciprocity Fund recently provided a $20,000 loan to the cooperative. The financing allows Shakaim to purchase more oils from producers during peak harvest seasons, ensuring families receive prompt payment while enabling the cooperative to fulfill growing orders from natural product companies.

Enterprises like Achuar Shakaim demonstrate a powerful model for the Amazon: Indigenous-led businesses that generate dignified livelihoods while protecting the forest and strengthening community autonomy.

Soluna Energía was created to work precisely in these conditions. Founded in 2020 as a joint venture between Iluméxico and Colombia-based Hybritec, Soluna delivers off-grid solar power through an energy-as-a-service model designed for remote, low-income communities. Rather than requiring families or schools to purchase costly equipment upfront, Soluna installs and maintains solar systems and provides reliable electricity through affordable monthly fees.

Today, Soluna provides clean energy to nearly 7,000 people across households, community centers—including schools and health posts—and small businesses. More than half of the people it serves belong to indigenous communities, particularly the Wayuu in La Guajira and the Maibén Masiware in Vichada.

For these communities, access to energy is about far more than electricity. Reliable power enables refrigeration for food and medicine, lighting for education and connectivity, and energy for small businesses and productive activities. Just as importantly, it supports Indigenous families’ ability to remain on their ancestral lands, strengthening livelihoods, cultural continuity, and community autonomy.

A loan from The Reciprocity Fund enabled Soluna to install 34 additional solar systems across La Guajira and Vichada. The financing supports the enterprise’s liquidity and asset productivity, allowing Soluna to expand without relying on short-term, high-cost capital. Rather than funding a pilot, the loan builds on a portfolio of existing systems that already generate predictable, recurring revenue.

By replacing diesel generators, kerosene lamps, and firewood, Soluna’s solar systems help reduce carbon emissions, improve indoor air quality, and ease pressure on fragile ecosystems. The company enforces a strict no-deforestation policy, adapting installations to the natural environment rather than altering it.

Soluna shows what’s possible when clean energy and patient capital come together—delivering solutions that power daily life, protect the environment, and help historically excluded communities thrive on their own terms.

​Below are a few borrowers we’re excited to introduce.

​Puramazonia is a nonprofit enterprise working with over 100 Indigenous and Afro-Colombian families in Colombia’s southern Amazon. Most producers belong to the Inga, Koreguaje, or Kamentsá peoples and cultivate native fruits such as arazá, copoazú, and sacha inchi using agroforestry systems that regenerate degraded land and protect biodiversity. Through technical training, organic certification support, and value-added processing, Puramazonia helps communities earn higher prices while strengthening stewardship of the Amazon rainforest. A loan from the Reciprocity Fund supports harvest-season working capital, enabling timely payments to producers.

​The Union of Horticultural Cooperatives of the North (UCHON) is a second-level cooperative aggregating six smaller cooperatives and working with 677 farming families in Nicaragua’s horticultural corridor. Centered in Matagalpa and Jinotega, UCHON supports smallholders through fair prices, certified processing facilities, and technical assistance in regenerative agriculture. Approximately 26% of members identify as Chorotega, Nicaragua’s largest Indigenous group. With support from the Reciprocity Fund, UCHON expanded production and distribution through new delivery vehicles, increasing farmer incomes and reaching more communities with fresh, locally grown vegetables.

​SIMPLi is a vertically integrated social enterprise working directly with smallholder quinoa farmers in southern Peru. Nearly 80% of its 541 supplier families come from Indigenous Quechua and Aymara communities. By shortening the supply chain, guaranteeing offtake, and supporting certification, SIMPLi strengthens farmer incomes while preserving native quinoa varieties. Through its Regenerative Pathway Program, farmers transition to organic and regenerative practices that improve yields and protect ancestral Andean farming knowledge. A loan from the Reciprocity Fund supports expanded organic quinoa purchases and timely payments during harvest.

​Komodo Water is a women-led social enterprise bringing affordable, clean water and ice to remote fishing communities in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Using solar-powered desalination and ice production, the enterprise serves Indigenous Manggarai farmers and Bajo sea nomads across the Komodo Islands. Communities co-own and operate the facilities, ensuring water costs are reduced, fish spoilage declines, and profits remain local. With a loan from the Reciprocity Fund, Komodo Water expanded two new facilities, improving access to safe water for thousands while strengthening climate resilience tied to both land and sea.

With a loan from the Reciprocity Fund, Wari purchased 130 more metric tons of quinoa, guaranteeing that farming families could sell their entire harvest at fair prices. Supporting enterprises like Wari means protecting cultural traditions, strengthening food systems, and ensuring prosperity is shared across communities.

Wari Solid Foods shows how an ancestral practice like minka can be reimagined today — a living example of ancient wisdom fueling sustainable futures.