Mills Scofield

JUNE 16, 2013

This week''s post is by Andy Posner , Co-Founder & Executive Director of Capital Good Fund ( CGF ), a non-profit microfinance organization targeting the root causes of poverty through innovative micro-loans and personal financial coaching. It’s time for us to finally put poverty out of business for good. [1]

Innovation 161

Innovation Microfinance Business Model Self-aware 161

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 10, 2011

So far, the Andhra Pradesh (AP) microfinance crisis has largely been viewed as a local issue, with relatively little impact beyond AP or India's borders. Other microfinance crises, in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Bosnia, have not spread beyond the borders of a particular country. That could likely have consequences.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Debt to Equity Ratio MFI Crisis 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 1, 2011

Microfinance has come under fire in the past 18 months, triggered in part by SKS Microfinance's IPO. Critics complain that the institutions supporting microfinance have become too greedy, and many are using this as an argument to deeply regulate or, even more, cut support to microfinance operations. I hope not.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance IPO Bottom-up Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 16, 2011

We're a network of microfinance organizations; we exist to share practices and develop the leadership skills required by a sector that has grown up fast. And as you might be aware, microfinance is a phenomenon that, while it did not set out to be "for women," has mainly turned out to be.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Diversity Leadership Banking 15

CO2

JUNE 4, 2012

My solution was to found a microfinance organization that puts women in a position to create their own destinies and achieve their full potential. I shared young Jacqueline’s same passion and mission—to help the world’s poorest people meet their basic needs and live with dignity. Where does one start? Chingwell Mutombu. May 2012. ###.

Microfinance 121

Microfinance Open-book Travel Books 121

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2016

The Grameen model of microfinance gained a great deal of attention in the international development field after early data showed that it was associated with high repayment and low default. Our findings are captured in a working paper which we summarize below. This model makes small loans, usually to women, without requiring collateral.

Microfinance 12

Microfinance Insurance Bottom-up Banking 12

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 22, 2011

The microfinance industry has in just a few years gone from making headlines for the Nobel Peace Prize to stories about limited impact, allegedly abusive tactics, client suicides, government crackdowns, major lenders struggling with insolvency and the forcible removal of Mohammed Yunus as Managing Director of Grameen Bank.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Entrepreneur Crisis Politics 15

Mills Scofield

AUGUST 27, 2012

One of his main tasks was to structure a hedging derivative that negated foreign exchange risks so that Microfinance institutions could take safer loans from the developed world. I think that microfinance is one of those rare game changing social initiatives that manages to use market forces to drive social change.

Incentives 171

Incentives Entrepreneur Microfinance Marketing 171

Chartered Management Institute

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Rupert is the CEO of the foundation for International Community Assistance, a leading microfinance institution. The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook by Rupert Scofield is written to guide the aspiring social entrepreneur through the full range of activities of starting, building and running a social business. Review by David Stephens FCMI.

Handbook 56

Handbook Microfinance Review Books 56

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Career paths are not one-size-fits-all, yet in emerging markets, it's often assumed that microfinance — the use of small loans to foster self-reliant small businesses in a community setting — is the only path for women seeking economic opportunity. Microfinance was one issue that we considered.

Microfinance 9

Microfinance Flextime Globalization Mentor 9

Mills Scofield

MAY 5, 2015

She's spending the summer in Dhaka doing microfinance. She is now the core programming director for the Brown Entrepreneurship Program and Head of Design for The Intercollegiate Finance Journal.

CEO 70

CEO Microfinance Skills Class 70

Mills Scofield

MAY 5, 2015

She's spending the summer in Dhaka doing microfinance. She is now the core programming director for the Brown Entrepreneurship Program and Head of Design for The Intercollegiate Finance Journal.

CEO 70

CEO Microfinance Skills Class 70

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 8, 2011

On this 100th International Women's Day , it is right to reflect on how women have become the heart of the microfinance industry. It is easy to forget that the initial motivation for microfinance roughly 30 years ago was, to a great extent, gender neutral. Microfinance is about much more than extending credit.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Banking Globalization Insurance 15

Modern Servant Leader

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Peer-to-Peer Microfinance: A Sustainable Solution to Poverty. To Our Military: Thank You For Your Service. Publishing The New Advanced Degree Model? Servant Leadership Observer – December 2010. Careers for Servant Leaders. The Value of Making Time for Gratitude. Know Your Social Media Hierarchy.

Servant Leader 150

Servant Leader Leadership Microfinance Edmondson 150

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2012

The microfinance industry is a rare D and E success story. Microfinance banks, which provide desperately needed loans to low-income consumers, draw mainstream investors because of their attractive returns. The result has been explosive growth. And in D and E markets, the environment demands a very high contribution per transaction.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Prahalad Bottom-up Morale 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

Shameran Abed, who runs BRAC's microfinance program, explains what happened: "In the first couple months, a lot of our borrowers would send the money through their mobile phones and then physically show up at the branch to check with the accountant that the money had turned up.". Immerse yourself in the details.

Technology 19

Technology Microfinance Banking Learning-by-Doing 19

Harvard Business Review

MAY 18, 2016

A critical part was adapting a proven model in a related field: microfinance. By increasing or jump-starting these institutions’ housing microfinance lending, Habitat aims to create robust markets for this financing that can continue on their own.

Microfinance 10

Microfinance Strategic Planning Finance Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 1, 2013

Sasikala, a Block Development Officer (BDO), talked to the Kodapattinam villagers about microfinance , only Shantha, of all the villagers, saw the opportunity and took action. Undeterred, Shantha persisted until she persuaded the required number of people to sign up for the microfinance project.

Microfinance 9

Microfinance Innovation Committee Banking 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 4, 2012

"We wanted to do this because we recognize that small enterprises are a very significant engine for development; they create employment, which tends to be more sustainable and better paid than you would find in the more informal microfinance sector," says Oxfam's Nicholas Colloff. But times have changed.

Entrepreneur 15

Entrepreneur Globalization Microfinance Finance 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2013

Six years ago, David and Donna Allman approached Opportunity with an idea that fell outside our traditional microfinance model: to build a Community Economic Development (CED) program in Nicaragua. We know that microfinance alone will not break the poverty cycle.

Microfinance 8

Microfinance Rogers Tourism Learning-by-Doing 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

Shameran Abed, who runs BRAC's microfinance program, explains what happened: "In the first couple months, a lot of our borrowers would send the money through their mobile phones and then physically show up at the branch to check with the accountant that the money had turned up.". Immerse yourself in the details.

Technology 8

Technology Microfinance Banking Learning-by-Doing 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

Experiment #5: Microfinance Institutions. In emerging markets, microfinance has been a key economic engine in helping low-income households fund businesses and other important purchases in daily life. If our customers are liquidity constrained and risk averse to purchasing a pricey item, was there a model to solve for that?

Microfinance 8

Microfinance Marketing Development Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2013

Social entrepreneurs have also been some of the most attentive followers of the academic debate between the likes of Mark Pitt and Jonathan Murdoch about whether microfinance really helps reduce poverty. Prahalad's " bottom of the pyramid ," that began life as academic research. That's because the stakes are higher for social entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur 10

Entrepreneur Microfinance Prahalad Supply Chain 10

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2013

Following Abed's twist on Schumacher — "small may be beautiful, but big is necessary" — it now touches the lives of an estimated 126 million people with healthcare, education, enterprise development, microfinance and a slew of other programs. Today it runs a sprawl of surplus-generating businesses across diverse sectors.

Microfinance 8

Microfinance Follow-up Bureaucracy Self-aware 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 22, 2015

” Microfinance and other market-based interventions don’t generally reach them. Unfortunately, these trends still have little to no impact on the lives of a critical and chronically marginalized subset of the extreme poor around the world, those living on less than 60 to 70 cents per day. And we may have found a way to do this.

Microfinance 8

Microfinance BHAG NGO Participative 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 15, 2016

.” Laudable as these may be, USAID, the State Department, and other government agencies should really be backing programs that stimulate and support scalable, innovative, job-creating businesses – the kinds of companies that are antidotes to mass unemployment and economic hopelessness, not microfinance.

Microfinance 8

Microfinance Entrepreneur Policies NGO 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Upon graduation, the governments, nonprofits, or (more recently) microfinance companies give them loans to buy tools and opens shops. Across most developing countries, there is a model for job training where youth are assisted to acquire basic skills. Unfortunately, the results of most of these government assisted projects are not stellar.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Seminar How To Education 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 9, 2011

David McKenzie's research in Sri Lanka, Mexico, Brazil and Ghana has shown that urban male entrepreneurs typically earn far higher returns from microfinance than women do (in Sri Lanka average returns on capital for women were 0%, for men 10%). Consider the undeniable costs of a caricatured bias toward women.

Microfinance 15

Microfinance Long-term Entrepreneur Globalization 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2012

Commercial microfinance organizations are perhaps the best-known hybrid organizations, but social entrepreneurs now use hybrid models to address a diverse set of social issues that includes hunger, healthcare, economic development, environment, education, housing, culture, law, and politics.

Entrepreneur 16

Entrepreneur Microfinance Incubator Short-term 16

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 21, 2014

Over 1,900 beneficiaries have established micro-enterprises for which microfinance has been facilitated. Over 6,000 people have been made functionally literate through adult literacy program. 30 children are passing through every year through its play school for the past six years.

Innovation 9

Innovation Microfinance Parcell Human Resources 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Firms are realizing what microfinance has known for a while: Local self-policing groups, or village headmen who police honor codes, can hedge cash flows in far-flung places. Toyota and Yamaha have found motorbike customers through such social group structures.

Microfinance 8

Microfinance Entrepreneur Hotels Hedge 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 20, 2012

Grameen Bank, the microfinance bank in Bangladesh, is well known for its use of peer groups: Self-formed clubs of five to 10 people, usually women, share responsibility for microloans. Peer groups also drive up the size of sales transactions: A single sale aggregates the demand of many customers.

Bottom-up 14

Bottom-up Microfinance Price Learning-by-Doing 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 2, 2014

Or consider Kwabena Darko of Ghana, who helped found that country’s microfinance sector by forging a collaboration between global NGO Opportunity International , his national startup Sinapi Aba , and a myriad of village- and town-based trust groups. Amplify the voices of the constituents you seek to serve.

Entrepreneur 13

Entrepreneur Microfinance NGO Mission Statement 13

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 17, 2016

And if you need access to money, crowdfunding platforms and microfinance options make that easier than ever. To be a freelance worker today, you need an internet connection and a service to sell, whether it is coding, copywriting, or cartoon drawing. To be a taxi driver, you need a car and a GPS. To be a hotelier, you need a spare room.

Drucker 8

Drucker Microfinance Maslow Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Popular games also tend to spawn communities who share information and strategies about how to overcome hurdles, suggesting that peer to peer education is also possible (this has been seen in microfinance). The impact of social networks on individual behavior can also be observed.

Banking 14

Banking Microfinance Risk Management Pharmaceuticals 14

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2014

We allowed microfinance and the venture capital industry the time and space to develop over a few decades. In impact investing, we need to find a way to place that same premium on social impact by valuing the public good being created – just like we do in early stage R&D in science, IT, health, and biotechnology.

Development 9

Development Microfinance Business Model Entrepreneur 9

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 4, 2013

This makes sense to Milaap.org , a social enterprise in Bangalore that crowdsources low-cost capital for microfinance institutions through its online platform. Similarly, Twitter followers are more numerous when the venture is active on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Microfinance Follow-up Media 8