Tell Us Why Microfinance Matters to You
Luz with her father, Carlos I. Gomez (1936-2006)
The StoryCorps Historias trailer came to town in late January and I had the opportunity to talk about why I’ve worked with small businesses for over a decade. My husband interviewed me about my dad, Carlos Gomez Arriola, who passed away in 2006. If you haven’t heard about StoryCorps, it’s an amazing oral history project that travels throughout the U.S.
Dad was a proud immigrant from Medellin, Colombia who owned his own home-based company in Los Angeles—COEXPO—for 30 years. When I started working with ACCION in New York, he came to visit several times and I would drag him along to site visits of clients all over the five boroughs. He even sat in on credit committee meetings! And when I moved to Miami to start ACCION’s Miami operations, he was there too, helping set up office furniture or providing advice for working with export clients. He totally got the concept of this work since he himself didn’t qualify for financing when he was first starting out in the early 1970’s. Even though I didn’t take over the reigns of his business, you could see that the importance of supporting small business was not lost on me.
So if you’re working in microfinance today—tell us your story about why you got involved.
Aftershocks for Miami’s Little Haiti for Many Months to Come
ACCION USA's Little Haiti, Miami-based clients are among those mobilizing to help Haiti recover.
From loan consultant Joann Milord in Miami.
It is more than one week later and the images on the TV have not changed. Haiti is still in chaos and people continue to die daily. I turn on CNN every chance I get to watch the latest news, the most recent rescue, or the updated death toll. I’ve never experienced anything close to such a traumatic event and cannot even imagine what the people of Haiti are experiencing. Speak to anyone in Haiti now and they tell you what you see on TV is not even close to the reality of the amount of suffering.
Every Haitian has been affected by this earthquake, no matter where you live in the world. I see it here up close in Miami’s Little Haiti—home to the largest Haitian immigrant community in the nation. Our families have either lost members, friends, colleagues, businesses or homes. We are all victims and heroes as we scatter to collect water, food, clothing and medical supplies. Those that can, add names of the missing to list on the Internet or send messages on Facebook. What about those who can’t or don’t know how? How are they able to find out about their families without access to electronic communication? They turn to fellow Haitians for assistance.
One thing is evident in Miami, Haitian organizations, government officials, and individuals are working hard to provide support to their homeland. Whether it is done collaboratively or independently, it is done with great momentum, love and dedication. Everyone has the same goal of progress for Haiti. After these immediate needs are met, then the process of rebuilding livelihoods is the next step. Hopefully this passion will continue and drive efforts to build a better Haiti in the near future.
Running on Alternatives: Meet ACCION USA Client Brian Duda
Brian Duda is an ACCION USA client from Alabama. Through his company DudaDiesel, he sells all the tools that “DIY-ers” need to make their own diesel vehicles run on biodiesel or vegetable oil. His mission is to make alternative fuel methods available to a wider market and to educate people about the use of biodiesel fuels. Elise had a chance to interview him last week about his effect on his local community.
Elise Tosun: Brian, you obviously provide a service whose need has not really been met yet in your community. How does your business support your local community in general?
Brian Duda with bio-fuel processing equipment
Brian Duda: Well, since my business has grown I’ve been able to provide jobs for some locals who do packaging, shipping, and cleaning in my warehouse. I also do a lot to educate my market about alternative fuels. When people want to learn about biodiesel, they know to go to the internet, but they often don’t know where to start. We’ve partnered with a website that provides very comprehensive and organized information to consumers about how to convert their vehicles to run on biodiesels. We direct our customers there so that they’re empowered to do it on their own, and then we sell them the materials to do so.
Another significant way we’re helping the local community is by providing restaurants with a market to sell their used vegetable oil waste. To do this, restaurants usually need to partner with a large company and must sign a multi-year contract. Our relationship is a much more flexible one.
ET: What were some of the challenges you’ve had getting your business to where it is today?
BD: The main challenge for me has been keeping up with demand! My business started straight out of my apartment, but now that I’ve begun selling on the internet there is so much more demand, not only for more of what I already am selling, but also for different products. It’s a tough balance because I want to expand to new products, but I also need to make sure I have the funding in place to keep up with new demand. My products sell out very quickly and keeping them in stock has been challenging.
ET: So has your ACCION USA loan helped out with that problem at all?
BD: Definitely – that’s exactly what I used my loan for. I was able to buy some inventory and now I’m about a month ahead of the curve keeping up with demand.
ET: What does the future hold for DudaDiesel?
BD: First, I really want to work on expanding to new product lines. One of those lines is solar energy; however I need to make sure there’s a market for it first because it’s an expensive investment. Once I have all of the product lines I want to carry, I’ll focus more on biodiesel production. My dream is to get to a point where I am producing fuel of a standard high enough to be sold to vehicles on the highway. Right now, there is one gas station in town that sells diesel at extremely high prices, so I’d like to put a station up right across the street to provide some competition. It would be great to get prices down to a more affordable level for consumers.
ET: Lastly, do you have any words of advice for small business owners who want to get involved in their community?
BD: My main piece of advice is to concentrate on serving your customer base and satisfying the demand that exists in your market, before getting too big too fast. Make sure you’re selling products that people want to buy and more importantly that they can afford. It also helps to team up with local businesses that can help you access different sections of your market.
Student MFI Leaders Meet to Discuss the Future
Student led-discussions generated fresh microfinance ideas at “Scale and Sustainability: Increasing the Impact of Student-Led Microenterprise Organizations”
The Aspen Institute’s FIELD, the Intersect Fund and Elmseed Enterprise Fund co-hosted an event for emerging student-run MFI’s this past weekend at Rutgers University with the headline: “Scale and Sustainability: Increasing the Impact of Student-Led Microenterprise Organizations.” Nine of these organization (students from Brown, Bentley, Cornell, Rutgers, Yale, Lehigh, Duke and grads from UCLA and MIT) got together to exchange best practices, talk about ways to engage with the field, and figure out the best way to collaborate and leverage their diverse strengths.
As a microfinance practitioner, it was so refreshing to hear their new ideas and visions for their local organizations. I feel strongly that members of the seasoned microfinance field need to find ways to engage with these students, whether through internships, mentorships, or partnerships. I walked away so impressed and realized that this really is our future.
You can read more about the event on the Intersect Fund’s blog.
Are you involved in a student microfinace group? Leave a comment telling us about your organization and your experience working in the field.
Live, Love, Lend
This guest post comes from Boston staff member Melissa Roberts…
Thursday night, Kiva held its very first lenders party in Boston with the spectacular tag-line “Live. Love. Lend.” ACCION USA, is one of only two Kiva partner 
organizations in the United States, and we dared not miss the event. Our Boston-based team bundled up and trekked through the unusually bitter weather to support micro-entrepreneurs.
Lenders, supporters, and curious minds gathered at the Mexican-Irish fusion pub Jose McIntyre’s. While the DJ spun hot beats, the true star of the night was ACCION USA borrower Doracy, owner of Dore’s Boutique in Fall River, MA, who had received her loan through our Kiva loan program. Before coming to ACCION USA, Doracy had tried to find a small loan through traditional venues, but was unable to get the small boost of capital she needed to stock her store’s shelves for the holiday season.
A splendid time was had, and much to our delight Jose McIntyre’s was not only serving Sam Adams Boston Brick Red, sales of which benefit ACCION USA’s Sam Adams Brewing the American Dream Loan Fund, but promoting it with coasters strewn all over the bar!
The simplicity of the event got me thinking: a group of people, all passionate about a cause can get together and support microfinance by doing something commonplace. We all gather with friends at bars and purchase beer to enjoy. Now, organizations like Kiva and Sam Adams are putting a socially conscious spin on these activities by linking them to microfinance!
I know that I, for one, will be more conscious about supporting small businesses as I go about my daily life, because being part of something bigger is thrilling.
I’ll sign out with a word to the wise: Live. Love. LEND! (And drink Sam Adams responsibly!)
Tags: jose mcintyres, kiva, live love lend, Sam Adams
Redefining Financial Inclusion
Last week, ACCION USA Georgia had the opportunity to present at the 2009 Reaching Out MBA Conference held in Atlanta. ROMBA is the annual conference of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) graduate business school students. ACCION USA Georgia Program Director Wole Ralph was one of three representatives on the Microfinance and International Development career panel.
Around 30-40 students attended this panel; the impressive turnout confirmed what I already knew— social responsibility is no longer just a warm and fuzzy concept that sounds “nice” among this generation of future business leaders. Instead, it is a valued necessity, and I am hopeful that more and more business professionals are seriously considering microfinance and development work as real career options for their future.
The LGBT focus of ROMBA also encouraged me to contemplate the diversity of our client base. Our invitation to participate in this conference is a signal that there is strong interest in microfinance within the LGBT community, and I believe our client base should reflect the LGBT community’s support and interest in micro-lending. As a leader in domestic microfinance, ACCION USA must set an example by serving a diverse group of clients, not just in terms of gender or ethnicity, but also in terms of sexual-orientation. ROMBA reminded me that we should continually strive to provide our services to diverse communities around us; after all, microfinance’s most important mission is to promote financial inclusion for all and provide financial access to all people.
Tags: financial inclusion, LGBT, ROMBA
“Coaching Relampago” a Hit in Miami
Miami small business owners at the ACCION USA/HSBC Coaching Relampago event.
As they continue to feel the pinch from the economic recession, small business owners everywhere are eager to have professional consultants to assist them with strategies to help their businesses survive. In an effort to address this need, earlier this year ACCION USA launched our “Survive and Thrive” campaign. As part of this initiative, on Wednesday evening ACCION USA hosted a rapid-fire business coaching session in Miami (”Coaching Relampago” or “Lightning Coaching”). Held on the waterfront in beautiful Coconut Grove, this event provided a great venue for Miami business owners to access the resources they need to improve and maintain their businesses.
Our eight coaches came from the event’s sponsor, HSBC, as well as from other local organizations. They spent the night bestowing valuable wisdom in focused, 15-minute sessions on topics ranging from managing business cash flow to web marketing tactics. We blew a whistle every 15 minutes (got to keep people on their toes!), signaling that business owners should move on to the next expert. Each coach also supplied valuable financial tip sheets at their table.
All in all, it was a very successful first event, and another example of our commitment to the communities we serve—not only with capital but with critical education to stay ahead. Many participants had not heard of ACCION USA before, so it was an excellent opportunity to raise awareness around microfinance. By the end of the night, we had a hard time convincing the attendees to leave! As the staff packed up flyers and brochures and cleaned up what was left of refreshments, people lingered on the floor in order to get in “just one more question” to our coaches.
Interested in volunteering with ACCION USA at events like these? Check out the current opportunities.
Meeting Muhammad Yunus
After listening to the pitch for the documentary To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America
Recently I reached a turning point in my career as microfinance professional at ACCION USA. I met Muhammad Yunus. Dr. Yunus was the keynote speaker at the Good Pitch, a documentary film forum where he was the subject of a new documentary titled To Catch a Dollar: Yunus Banks on America. The documentary, which is in its final stages of editing, chronicles the Grameen Bank’s U.S. pilot in Queens, New York. The documentary demonstrates the impact of microfinance in the United States. Anyone who has met Muhammad Yunus has been privileged to hear him speak with honor and passion about a project he began some 30 years ago.
He told a story to which I can wholeheartedly relate. Some of you may remember seeing the “60 Minutes” segent about the Grameen Bank. For months, a film crew followed women in Bangladesh who received $50 microloans, then made with diligence and pride weekly cash repayments. From the countless hours of footage in Bangladesh, a 14-minute piece was aired and people all over the world learned about the power of microfinance. A generation joined the mission to alleviate global poverty.
Sitting in a packed auditorium I began to retrace my steps to a career in microfinance. Still vivid in my mind, I can remember reading Banker To The Poor
Tags: grameen america, mohammed yunus
The Story of Tanto Dulce Cafe
Monica's drawing of her cafe, Tanto Dulce
When ACCION USA borrower Monica Gonzalez designed the interior of her new Harlem café, she did so from a hospital bed. Monica was recovering from major emergency surgery in the months before the opening of Tanto Dulce (“So Sweet” in English), a dream which had been years in the making.
Eight years ago, Monica moved to the U.S. from Venezuela, where she had worked as a lawyer, in order to give her children better opportunities. Not knowing English, she found it difficult to secure a legal job, so she turned to her hobby: baking. After an apprenticeship and classes where she learned to make classic Italian desserts, Monica opened up a wholesale basement space from which she sold to local food trucks serving the Hispanic community.
ACCION USA gave Monica a loan to open up a storefront on Broadway in Harlem. However, she started having stomach problems around the same time. When they became too painful to ignore, she saw a doctor, who told her she would need to have surgery immediately. As her family and friends were completing the move into the Tanto Dulce space, Monica directed their efforts from her hospital recovery room, drawing pictures like the one above.
Monica’s unassuming demeanor hides a fierce entrepreneurial drive that is evidenced by her perseverance. In addition to continuing to sell wholesale goods from the basement space, she is taking more classes to broaden her cooking repertoire so that she can open a wine bar one day.
On a recent visit, I found the tiny café full of both students and local patrons, all enjoying their late-morning snacks and coffees as studying as reggaeton radio music softly played in the background.
Check out a behind-the-scenes video here on our YouTube page!
Tags: baking, cafe, microcredit, pastry, small business, success stories, us microfinance, venezuela
Lofty Questions, Young Student
Teachable moments. Luz Gomez captured it well when she blogged recently about capitalizing on teachable moments. My opportunity came just over a week ago when a friend contacted me regarding a tour of ACCION USA. Since her nine-year old daughter had just read a special section in the New York Times about microfinance, she wanted to give her first-hand exposure. Now, as a fundraiser, I know that an individual’s propensity to give is shaped before the teenage years. So, of course, I wanted to show Amelia the power of microfinance to reinforce what I hoped would be a life-long commitment to economic development.
Martha's story of building a new life in the U.S. through self-employment illustrates the power of microfinance.
Amelia arrived on time (with mom in tow), prepared with a 4X6 note card of questions. Though we kept the conversation high level, we explored some pretty lofty subjects: sources of capital for entrepreneurs, the average ACCION USA loan size, uses for loan capital, typical client industries, and repayment rates. We also talked about individuals who might need an ACCION USA loan, immigrants like Martha who fled her native Colombia when guerrillas threatened to kidnap her daughter and who now makes her living as a seamstress thanks to an ACCION USA loan.
Because it was September 11, I also told her about Luis who was once homeless and lost his job delivering baked goods to businesses when the World Trade Center was attacked. Luis has an uplifting story because he went into business for himself using an ACCION USA microloan to buy the van he uses for his now-prospering baked goods delivery service.
After a tour of the office where she met some of the people behind the scenes who make ACCION USA’s lending possible, we took a quick a look at some of our clients’ products – the frilly dresses, jams, jellies, and artwork – that line our offices.
At the end of the day, what did Amelia learn? She learned that not everyone has equal access to credit, there is a need for alternative lenders, microfinance is every bit as necessary in the U.S. as it is overseas, and philanthropy is important to support disadvantaged individuals. At least, I think she learned all these things. But her mother is actually making her write a report on her visit to ACCION USA. And when I see it, I hope to share it here.
Tags: New York Times, students