What is the ESR Center


The latest World Bank figures estimate that two-fifths of the world's population or approximately 2.7 billion of our brothers and sisters live in poverty - subsisting on a per-capita income of less than two dollars per day. Others live outside of poverty's grip yet are unable to manage their resources appropriately and find themselves in economic distress.

In the last few decades, an increasing number of social entrepreneurs have completely altered the human development landscape by creating both nonprofit and for-profit businesses specifically aimed at helping families become economically self-reliant. These social entrepreneurship efforts focus on improving the attitudes and behaviors, skills and abilities, and the resource availability for these vulnerable families.

Our mission is to help millions of families throughout the world become economically self-reliant by helping practitioners to deliver better interventions to these families and to be more effective organizations. This is accomplished through a rigorous applied research methodology that utilizes the unique and common capabilities of researchers, practitioners, and sponsors. The BYU Marriott School created the Economic Self-Reliance Center in response to the BYU community, students, faculty, and alumni, interest in utilizing their professional, business, and academic skills to improve the economic situation of economically vulnerable families around the globe. The Center is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the university's ongoing initiatives to help families throughout the world become economically self-reliant.
 

Vision

The ESR Center believes that we can help millions of the world's economically vulnerable families to become economically self-reliant.

The core value associated with this vision is leverage.

Leverage: If the center is interested in helping millions of families then the work, applied research, and activities of the center must have a multiplying, leveragable benefit for other programs, organizations, and families. Though helping a single individual or family has infinite worth, we recognize that we must utilize our resources in ways that bring the same benefit to large numbers of communities and families.

The Economic Self-Reliance Center is:

  • an academic center that helps economic development and humanitarian organizations (practitioners). We do not deliver services ourselves, but are involved in delivering services through our practitioner partners as part of learning and research experiences.
  • led by a research agenda. This research agenda provides the scope needed to ensure that the research and learning opportunities build upon themselves and help us achieve our goals.
  • multidisciplinary in its approach. We recognize that many disciplines and practices contribute to economic self-reliance.
  • both international & domestic in its geographic scope. We are interested in helping economically vulnerable families throughout the world.
  • self-funded. We receive no funds from BYU or the LDS Church. Our operating funds come entirely from outside donations.


Our Goal

By leveraging the extensive networks of our partners, we facilitate the Economic Self-Reliance of Millions of Families throughout the World by:

  • Addressing Poverty Through Economic Self-Reliance
    Instead of focusing on poverty, we focus on self-reliance. By facilitating self-reliance, we help families remove themselves completely from the effects of impending setbacks that could otherwise be devastating.
  • Providing an Economic Self-Reliance Model
    We provide our partners with a universal self-reliance model that can help each organization most effectively accomplish its mission.
  • Plugging the Research Gap
    As nonprofits, many of our partner organizations do not have the resources to conduct research to help them serve their clients most effectively. Through our team of volunteer researchers, the ESR Center plugs the research gap to help our partners succeed.
  • Becoming the Clearinghouse for Economic Self-Reliance
    The ESR Center is working to become the clearinghouse of content, information, and connections for anyone interested in economic self-reliance.


What We Do

The Economic Self-Reliance Center achieves its goal through innovative action research, application, and sharing best practices in various venues.

The ESR Center hosts conferences and workshops, publishes journals and articles, and provides prepared students as volunteers, interns, and employees to practitioners throughout the world. Some examples of the Center's activities include the Economics Self-Reliance Conference, service-learning opportunities, mentored learning, the Journal of Microfinance, practitioner network, workshops, internships, executive training, and action research.
 

ESR Network

The ESR Center invites you to participate with us in a close network of committed organizations and individuals that are interested in determining the best ways to help families become economically self-reliant. Our network consists of: