CALI is a joint program of four founding organizations: The Aspen Institute, INCAE, FUNDEMAS, and TechoServe. The Initiative is underwritten by an array of private individuals and foundations from both Central America and the US.

The Aspen Institute is a global forum for leveraging the power of leaders to improve the human condition. Through its seminar and policy programs, the Institute fosters enlightened, morally responsible leadership and convenes leaders and policy makers to address the foremost challenges of the new century.

Founded in 1950, the Aspen Institute is a non-profit organization with principal offices in Aspen, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Washington, D.C. and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The Aspen Institute operates internationally through a network of partners in Europe and Asia.

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, leaders of high-tech companies, diplomats, city leaders, world-renowned artists and writers gather at the Aspen Institute to address the challenges of leadership. For the past fifty years, the Aspen Institute Executive Seminar has brought together diverse groups of leaders to learn from each other and from some of the greatest thinkers of all time. Today, the seminar programs have expanded to address corporate responsibility, the character dimension of leadership, Asian cultures and values, and dilemmas of the digital age. Aspen Institute participants often return every few years for continued growth, development, and reflection with other leaders.

INCAE is the number one business school in Central America, is a private, non-profit, multinational, higher-education organization devoted to teaching and research endeavors in the fields of business and economics aimed at training and instructing, from a worldwide perspective, individuals capable of successfully holding top management positions in Latin America.

In 1964, the business community and the governments of the Central American nations founded INCAE as an initiative. Since its inception it has had the technical supervision of the Harvard Business School.
INCAE is presently focused on three key activities:

• Masters programs in areas critical for Latin American development.
• Executive training programs and seminars.
• Research projects on competitiveness in the region. INCAE has an applied approach combining the best practice and the world frontier of knowledge with the realities in Latin America.

FUNDEMAS. The entrepreneurial foundation for social action, FUNDEMAS is born on May 25 0f 2000 with the aim of contributing to the economic and social development of El Salvador through a strengthening of the private sector’s social responsibility, the promotion of entrepreneurial philanthropy and a support for outstanding behavior.

FUNDEMAS works through a series of three programs, which claim to facilitate the development of social values and an entrepreneurial culture with accordance with the challenges and goals that globalization and the mainstream economy present. Many activities are accomplished through the help of volunteers who in solidarity look to contribute and support with time, talent and resources, in favor of the social development.
The three programs of the Foundation are:

• EMPRESAL, Empresa Salvadoreña para la Responsabilidad Social.
• EMPRETEC, Programa para el Desarrollo de Emprendedores.
• FIDES, Fondo para Iniciativas de Desarrollo Educativo de El Salvador.

TechnoServe helps entrepreneurial men and women in the developing world to build businesses that provide jobs, income and economic opportunity. Since its founding in 1968, the U.S.-based nonprofit has helped to create or expand more than 2,000 businesses, benefiting millions of people in more than 30 countries. TechnoServe has been recognized as one of the world's "Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs" by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2007, Charity Navigator also once again awarded its highest Four Star ranking to TechnoServe.

• TechnoServe focuses on business development for a simple reason: Businesses create jobs and incomes for families and communities to provide for themselves.
• TechnoServe helps to build businesses that will be competitive in a global economy. Clients range from individual entrepreneurs to medium-scale companies, and are chosen based on their ability to increase the incomes of the rural poor, create employment and generate profits and new investments.
• TechnoServe helps entrepreneurs to identify and meet customer needs by tapping into market information that is immediately useful for their purposes, including consumer preferences, market requirements and new high-value products. TechnoServe develops entrepreneurs’ capacity to assemble capable managers, create sound business plans, raise financing, and penetrate markets.
• TechnoServe helps countries, industries and businesses to think and act strategically so that they can continue to grow and increase their impact on the rural poor. TechnoServe is focused on building a culture of competitiveness in the countries where we work.