Making a Big Pivot — While Staying True to Your Original Mission

It can be hard to differentiate what your firm does from how it does it — and that means finding new ways of accomplishing your core mission can be hard. For Accion, a nonprofit that had pioneered the commercial model of microfinance, its identity was bound up with its role as a leader in its field. But when new technology made it possible to achieve its mission through different means, it needed to decide whether its history as a microfinance innovator would prevent it from investing in fintech. Its CEO explains how — and why — the organization was able to make major changes to its approach while remaining firmly grounded in its mission.