 | | We are borrowing an idea that was originated
by the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyar and carried forward by the Grameen Bank in
India, that of offering small loans in what is called "micro-finance"
to people who otherwise could not obtain the most valuable assist in starting a
new or expanding an existing small business, CREDIT. This
idea was originally intended to be implemented after the death of our Founder
because the
administrative time and/or the funds would not be available until then. However,
should this Foundation obtain sufficient volunteers now who can carry the workload until
the Founder dies, he has promised initial funding even prior to his death.
[[[Note as of 10/17/07 - some volunteers have stepped forward and we are
progressing with early attempts to move this program along. However, we will
still need local organizations to serve as "holders and administrators of
the loan pools" (which we will fund) for this to continue.]]] [[[Note
as of 3/30/09 - although we spent countless time obtaining and training
volunteers, we finally gave up on this --- although we came so close to making
this happen, in the end, this turned out to be our biggest failure and biggest
disappointment]]]
Some time after the Founder's Trust enables
this Foundation to obtain all of its promised endowment (which will be something in excess of
us$2,900,000), the Founder would like the Foundation's Trustees to implement all
of the
following, presented below in current sketched-out form:
 | Put aside a small portion of the Endowment
(perhaps us$10,000 for starters) for this program. |
| Write up the principles under which this
Loan Program will operate. As a start, the following ideas should be
considered:
 | The individual loans should be around
us$100 to us$500. |
| Each recipient should have some sort of
written idea and written plan, and if not written, at least formulated
sufficiently so that the Foundation's overseer can write up something to
both see that the plan has a good
chance of working and also to measure results against the original plan. |
| The re-payment schedule must be part of this plan. |
| Interest on the loan must be charged, but an extremely low rate
should be used (anywhere from 2% to 4% annually). |
| so as to NOT compete with local banks, each
applicant should
demonstrate that she could not get a loan from such banks. |
| if possible, "loan pools" can be utilized wherein each
member of the pool is encouraged to pressure each other member of the
pool to repay on time. This idea is new to us and therefore sketchy and details should
be pursued on the internet with searches made on words like microfinance,
"loan pools", collections, etc. |
| Although there should be an effort to collect all loans, I think
that this program should not expect more than maybe 75% to 90% return of loans
and therefore may really be considered, in sum, as a separate "grant" program of this Foundation. |
| As a result of the above point, the initial us$10,000 or so will
have to be reviewed from time to time and, if the program is considered
a success, probably increased based upon results. |
| this program will require more supervision than the time required
for the original programs of grants, investments, etc., but it has
the best long-term possibility of causing positive economic change here
in town. Credit causes businesses to grow and prosper and create
new jobs and improve the economic situation of many people surrounding
the originator of each business. |
| Perhaps personnel from Mujares en Cambio (or Rotary, or others
close to this concept of helping local women) may be enlisted to aid us in this process. Spreading the word of availability of credit as well as
obtaining responsible recipients of loans as well as training people in
how to run a business (in ways other than just making a product) are all
quite necessary to make this program work. |
|
| Be careful to make sure that this is not
merely a giveaway, but in reality is a REAL attempt to make credit work in
this town. And, if successful, this becomes a real attempt to build
more local businesses and work opportunities. In the attempt to make
this program succeed, attempts should be made to enlist as many of our other
grantees in small parts of the overall process. For instance, those
grantees who provide scholarships can be encouraged to provide volunteers
(from among their graduates) to work in any part of the process, either in
the acquisition of women for loans, or administration of the various parts
of the loan process,
or even the training in how to run a business. Skills acquired in
scholar's education could certainly be utilized in the ongoing needs of the
various start-up businesses and later these same businesses may need
additional graduates in full or part-time paid employment. |
It should be revealed here that we made an
attempt to start the Loans to Women project in late 2007. We got
sufficient volunteers and other people interested in the project and moved ahead
with it. We found a stumbling block at the point of needing a unmanned
"desk" at some permanent public location where we could tell
applicants to apply for (and later repay) their loans. This was a place where we
also intended to give periodic lectures and answer questions on how to run a
business. We had interest from DIF but no follow-up from them. We
asked for but received no help from the Biblioteca, Mujeres en Cambio, and other
obvious organizations. The results of our planning of the processes and
procedures, "ready to roll" on this, are still available in the files
of Michael Wein and some of the volunteers to the project.
Some links to other web-sites that may prove
to have useful information:
http://www.GrameenFoundation.org
http://www.grameen-info.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfinance
http://kiva.org/
http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/kiva-chronicles
http://www.spbd.ws/
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/ites/0204/ijee/casagrande.htm
http://www.promujer.org/
|
bravenet.com
