WilmaFund's portfolio will be diversified by sector and by business size to mitigate investor risk. WilmaFund will incubate enterprises that can be broadly classified into the following sub-sectors: (1) agribusiness (food and cash crop production including biofuels, livestock, and fishing); (2) potable water resources, irrigation infrastructure, and wastewater treatment/recycling; (3) solar power and other renewable energy such as wind and biogas generators, as well as fuel-efficient stoves; (4) information, communication, and computer/internet services; (5) transport and storage; (6) packaging and marketing; (7) visitor language and facilitation services and tourism; (8) small-scale mining and other small-holder extractive activities consonant with environmental objectives.
Businesses financed may be single-site or multi-site establishments or vertically integrated enterprises with production, processing, packaging, marketing, and transport operations distributed over a number of locations. Projected sizes of initial equity investments range from as low as $50,000 for a single site grain marketing operation, to as high as $400,000, to be used for working capital and equipment for a multi-site dairy business.
While WilmaFund will focus its lending operations in Tanzania, primarily for logistical reasons, WilmaFund was founded by leaders from several nations (including Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, and Uganda), and project planning work has been going on in these states as well as in Tanzania since 2002. WILMA expects that CDFIs patterned after WilmaFund will be created in these other countries in due course. Meanwhile, WilmaFund benefits from ideas and plans developed there.