Fighting Poverty through the World Cup
By Clare Scanlan
Although my soccer skills are limited to what I learned playing recreational soccer during elementary school in my New Jersey hometown, I have always been a soccer fan. When the FIFA World Cup arrives every four years I love seeing the enthusiasm and intensity as people come together in restaurants, bars, living rooms, and even the ACCION USA New York office kitchen to watch the games. What has been most exciting for me this year, however, is seeing how the World Cup causes people with a love of soccer to unite around global issues, including microfinance.
The World Cup was held in Africa for the first time in history this year. Having such an important and highly-viewed sporting event in the most impoverished and underdeveloped continent has brought several issues to the surface and given many nonprofits and charities the opportunity to reach out to soccer fans and players alike to become more involved in fighting poverty.
- 20 Centres for 2010, FIFA’s official cause for the World Cup, seeks to create 20 centers that will promote public health, education, and soccer in African communities. The cause brought fans together at the FIFA World Cup Kick-off Celebration Concert, where all net proceeds were donated.
- The 1GOAL Education for All campaign is using soccer to attract supporters in its mission to provide schooling to 72 million children globally by 2015.
- The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign has seized the opportunity to call attention to poverty and homelessness in South Africa and the exclusion of poor communities from the official World Cup through the creation of the Poor People’s World Cup, a local tournament that has been running concurrently with the FIFA matches.
- Other organizations attracted soccer fans through viewing parties, such as Common Threadz, a nonprofit that supports children in developing nations and provides microloans to women in Africa and Haiti.
- VISA created a soccer game to promote financial education called Financial Soccer.
- ACCION USA even caught World Cup fever, using a financial tip about soccer to provide financial education.
Although this year’s World Cup may be over, I believe its impact will continue to be evident in the success of nonprofits that have reached out to soccer lovers. It’s my hope that by the next World Cup we will be well on our way to a poverty-free world.
The Land of Opportunity
This week we celebrated the Fourth of July. Hot dogs, swimming pools, fireworks – how better to ring in this annual occasion and take a few days to remember our country’s history? As I sat along Boston’s Charles River banks this Sunday evening, I couldn’t help but reflect on our country’s core principles of freedom, opportunity, and equality.
Moreover, my thoughts centered on those who come to the U.S. every day to realize the “American dream.” But we all know that U.S. soil doesn’t guarantee a life free of struggle.
Imagine two scenarios. In one, a Venezuelan women moves to Miami with her husband. She has limited English fluency and little personal savings, as her husband handles their finances. But she wants to begin a small sewing business to keep herself busy and contribute to the household income. In the second scenario, a young man comes to the United States from Ecuador. He has his Masters degree, nearly twenty years of business experience, perfect English fluency, and a hefty savings. He hopes to open a leather importing business in Boston.
Despite their many differences, these two individuals have two things in common: their lack of credit history and knowledge of the U.S. financial system. And because of these key similarities, neither can get an affordable loan.
These descriptions detail the experiences of two ACCION USA clients. Lack of credit history is only one of many challenges immigrants face when trying to access financing. Language barriers are also great, as detailed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s recent report, entitled Factors Affecting the Financial Literacy of Individuals with Limited English Proficiency. The report explains that language barriers can prevent individuals from understanding financial products’ terms, disputing charges or fees, managing accounts, and simply accessing financial education opportunities. Furthermore, many immigrants carry a negative correlation with financial institutions, due to prior experiences or institutional fraud and instability in their countries.
ACCION USA has many programs and services in place to address these challenges. For example, our small credit builder loans are specifically designed to help individuals with no credit history begin to build one. Our financial education workshops help immigrants understand not only how to build credit but also why building credit is important in the United States. And we continue to work closely with groups such as the Massachusetts Refugee Enterprise Achievement Program to establish ACCION USA as a trusted and reliable name among immigrant communities.
Through these programs and relationships, ACCION USA continues to help immigrants achieve the full “American dream.”
Tags: accion usa, english, Financial Education, fourth of july, immigrant, literacy, massachusetts, miami, report
I’m not Jerry Maguire, but Show Me the Money!
Show Me the Money event from ACCION USA on Vimeo.
by Amelie Busch
Business owners didn’t actually see dollar bills flying around at the ‘Show Me the Money’ event in June, but they did learn some great tools to see more of them in the future. ACCION USA and Citigroup hosted the event at LaGuardia College in Queens, NY, to respond to the economic uncertainty and lack of credit in the current financial crisis. The event was a big hit with its seven panelists and more than 70 attendees! Many came for the same reason: advice on building credit. Here’s what we learned from the panelists:
- The rules of credit
Florence Julliard of the East River Development Alliance mentioned three key strategies: always pay your bills on time, keep your credit card balances low, and be judicious about how often you apply for a loan. - Start your business with your own savings
Brian Gurski of the LaGuardia Small Business Development Center spoke to the types of initial funding of the top 100 start-up businesses: 74% used their own personal savings! - Keep your cash flow positive
Matt Norton of Citigroup stressed the importance of keeping your cash flow and ‘the bottom line’ positive. - Starting the loan process
Elizabeth Bueno of ACCION USA told us what we’ll need to apply for a loan: three months of bank statements, two years of tax returns, a business certificate, and a separate accounting of business and personal expenses. - ACCION USA’s loans
ACCION USA lends to microentrepreneurs for both personal and business loans. These loans range in size between $500 and $50,000.
At the end of the day, microentrepreneurs networked with panelists and other small business owners. The event was a great success, and many attendees soon contacted ACCION USA loan consultants to start the process of getting a loan. Our financial education events often open doors for many small businesses who thought a loan was out of their reach, by giving them the tools and contacts they need. Join us next time at one of ACCION USA’s upcoming events!
Amelie Busch is serving as the Kiva Coordinator Intern for ACCION USA during Summer 2010.
Tags: Citi, Financial Education, kiva, workshops
My Five Tenets for U.S. Microfinance
This post is presented as part of our Youth Microfinance blog series. By nurturing student thought leadership, ACCION USA is helping to build future leadership for the microfinance industry as a whole. We hope that you’ll enjoy the ideas and perspectives of ACCION USA’s youth leaders as well as Main Street Microfinance’s regular posts from industry professionals.
By Jameson Lee
Growing up in Orange County, California as a seventeen-year-old high school student, I have been fortunate enough to avoid the extreme cases of debt, lack of food, water or shelter that affect a large percentage of the world today. Introduced to microfinance by a teacher at my school, I soon recognized the potential that such a system holds to combat poverty.
While I do believe that helping business owners in developing nations will help to balance the financial inequality felt throughout the world, U.S. microfinance deserves equal attention, with the current economic times making it harder than ever for businesses to qualify for loans. Motivated to make a difference, I hope to reach out to my fellow teenagers to help spread the word about the power of microfinance.
I’ve read everything about microfinance that I can get my hands on, and came across Muhammad Yunus’s “16 Decisions.” I found them to be powerful messages for entrepreneurs in developing countries to move towards better social environments. Yet I believe that in an environment where concerns such as access to technology, transportation, education and safety are less significant, business owners in developed nations must have their own personalized guidelines.
I gave some thought to the “16 decisions” of Muhammad Yunus and felt inspired to think about a few that would be well-suited for U.S. microfinance.
Here are my “5 tenets” for U.S. entrepreneurs.
- To demonstrate independence, ambition, innovation and creativity in all aspects of life.
- To work within our means while also looking for economic opportunities in both local and foreign markets.
- To maintain a healthy social lifestyle to foster an ideal learning environment in which all family members can succeed in their own endeavors.
- To be economical in all aspects, making sure to place the welfare of family and business before oneself.
- To never take on more responsibility than can be managed, and to immediately confront issues concerning debt, education and living expenses.
Exposed to the change enacted by ACCION USA, I found such an MFI to be the logical organization to contact in my search for ways to influence my own community. While the need for microfinance in Orange County, California where I live may be less prevalent than other communities, by working alongside such an organization like ACCION USA, I hope to directly influence the lives of others in order to help business owners help themselves. As an advocate for microfinance, I look forward to the chance that it can give to local entrepreneurs, and to the entire world.
Jameson Lee is a teen blogger interested in microfinance, social business, entrepreneurship and helping small business owners to help themselves. His work focuses on explaining the fundamentals of Microfinance, while also questioning the basics foundations for a circumferential understanding of the system. You can follow his work at www.TheRevelationist.com or follow him on twitter @TRevelationist
It’s the Little Loans That Matter Most
By Elise Tosun, ACCION USA Loan Consultant
Have you ever had a day at work when it feels like everything falls apart, all at once? Recently, I began the day working with three potential loan applicants. Here at ACCION USA, our performance as loan consultants is partly measured by how many of these applicants get a loan. As the day progressed, I kept uncovering problems that each of these businesses had that I knew would stand in the way of them getting approved. Though I generally feel that my work at AUSA is
The author with Sarahi and her newborn baby
very meaningful, by 5 p.m., I was feeling pretty purposeless and frustrated. What did I deserve to be paid for, if my work was not translating to actual money in the hands of small business owners?
Shortly after my mini-breakdown, my client Sarahi came in to the office to get her loan for $1,500. This is one of the smallest loan sizes we give, and Sarahi was using it to start her own Green Cart business. Green Carts were developed by the City of New York to sell fresh fruits and vegetables in areas of the city where access to these kinds of foods is very limited. Sarahi’s loan would give her the initial investment she needed to buy a cart for her fruit so she could start selling in the Bronx.
As a loan consultant it is easy to put emphasis on the bigger loans (AUSA’s average is around $7,000) that help us reach our monthly lending goals. But the smaller loans are just as important. As my supervisor Wanda has repeated to me many times: every penny counts. That is exactly the right mentality that microfinance loan consultants need to have.
When Sarahi came to our office at 5 p.m. on Thursday with her husband and her newborn baby girl, I was reminded that their loan really counted, even though it was smaller than the other ones I had been working on all day. Sarahi, while pregnant, had trekked from her home in Queens to Manhattan to attend evening workshops on managing her food business and to work with me on her application. She was one of the most hard-working, ambitious clients I’ve lent to yet. Spending the end of the day with her last week reminded me why I do what I do. Sometimes I need my clients’ help as much as they need mine!
Tags: microfinance, microloan
Microfinance Week in Review- Week Ending July 02
Some of the week’s news in the microfinance, green business initiatives and the small business sector:
- Facebook for Farmers in Rural China- CNN
- Top 5 Tips for Scoring Your Business Goal- ACCION USA
- The 10 Most Creative Green People in Business- Earth & Industry