ACCION USA, Opportunity Fund, and Kiva bring you the Microfinance USA 2011 Conference this May 23-24 in New York City!

Are you a student interested in local economic development? Are you passionate about being part of the growing microfinance movement in the U.S. – and interested in learning from industry experts about the impact you can make? If so, this conference is not to be missed. Microfinance USA provides a unique setting for networking and learning from the industry’s top practitioners, funders, and researchers.

Topics that will be discussed at this year’s conference include:

• What does “Microfinance” mean? – debating and defining our terminology
• Impact of microlending in the U.S.
• Social Entrepreneurship and Microfinance
• Promise and Peral of Microfinance Impact Evaluations

Over two days, you can:

• Network with leading practitioners and researchers in the U.S. microfinance field
• Attend plenary sessions and panels led by the nation’s leading microfinance voices.
• Deepen your understanding of the challenges facing Microfinance Institutions through case-study analysis.
• Experience microfinance first-hand by touring local microenterprises in New York.
• Debate current microfinance topics during small group sessions and networking dinners.
• Discover how students LIKE YOU are impacting the domestic microenterprise industry in remarkable ways
• Collaborate with student microfinance clubs and young professionals across the country

For More Information please visit the website:

http://www.microfinanceusaconference.org/home/

Student Price: $75

Join us, December 1^st

Their online presentation will include:

• Case studies of recent loan approvals
• Common microloan application strengths and weaknesses
• Internal processes (and the evolution of processes) that have lead to improved and quicker loan decisions
• Plenty of time for virtual Q&A with webinar participants

The webinar will give a sneak peek into the types of topics and sessions that the Microfinance USA 2011 Conference will explore. We’re excited to co-present the conference in New York City on May 23-24, 2011, in partnership with Opportunity Fund and Kiva. We’ll make sure you’re the first to know when registration opens later this year. In the meantime, this webinar is not to be missed!  Register now and mark your calendars for this exciting event.

I recently met an ACCION USA client named Maria. The day that I met her, she had just been approved for a loan to purchase more inventory for her NYC Green Cart, where she sells fruits and vegetables in the South Bronx. And just one week prior, Maria had given birth to her third child, who was in her arms while she completed her loan disbursement.

Upon meeting Maria, I immediately connected her business with the mission of many social ventures. And while I’m only beginning to understand the breadth of the conversation surrounding the definition of “social entrepreneurship,” I intuitively feel that all female microentrepreneurs have an inherent social mission. My logic is in part derived from my experiences working in the microfinance field – experiences that have entrenched my belief in localized social change and the positive reverberations that it can cause. I’m now becoming more comfortable defending the belief that all female microentrepreneurs are social entrepreneurs, since well… no one can seem to agree on the correct definition anyway.

So if many female microentrepreneurs don’t intentionally incite a wake of social change, can they still be categorized as social entrepreneurs? Let us know what you think…

Maureen needed a microloan to help expand her media consulting and production company.

By Maika Hemphill, Loan Consultant, New York

When I first met Maureen it had been two years since she started her own business, Moped Productions, a dream realized after eight years working in video editing and production.  At the time, Maureen’s sales were down due to the economy, but she knew that hiring an employee to develop a blog and newsletter would help her turn the corner.  Maureen received from ACCION USA a $7,000 loan to make the hire, and her loan was posted to Kiva.org, where it was funded.  Maureen’s relationship with ACCION USA led to more media coverage, and with it, increased sales.  A few months later she landed a deal with a major cable TV network, pushing her business to expand further.  With 40% paid down on her original loan, Maureen came back to ACCION USA in need of a larger loan to fund more projects.

Unfortunately, past family and personal matters resulted in a financial situation that was damaging to her credit, and her most recent credit did not prove she had experience handling large loan amounts.  It is always tough to see cases where a client comes to us with credit issues due to circumstances that were out of his or her control.  Maureen was left in a position where it would have potentially taken years to rebuild her credit to match the success of her business, impeding her ability to take on new projects.  Maureen needed to partially fund her upcoming project and, in the process, improve her credit quickly to prepare for future business growth.

Through partial cash securitization of the loan, ACCION USA worked out a loan that was larger than her first.  This gave Maureen the chance to pay off a larger loan amount and prove she could handle higher amounts of debt.  Now her business’ credit is quickly catching up to its revenues.  I worked for nearly seven hours on Maureen’s application, including the time I spent with underwriting to highlight her character and strengths.  It was incredibly rewarding to find an effective solution because Maureen, like most of our clients, is a successful entrepreneur at heart; she just needed the chance to prove it.

Education, energy and climate change, global health, poverty alleviation, and a special focus on women and girls were all topics of impassioned, informed, and lively discussions that engaged private investors, NGOs, multinational corporations, policy makers and world leaders.

Those of us whose work is dedicated to economic empowerment found our thinking informed by those who understand that hunger, water, infrastructure and health are driving factors in success or failure; that women and girls face incomprehensible challenges, yet are a natural resource capable of changing the world.

(This short video does a great job of presenting the case for investment in women and girls.)

Regardless of the issue, the need to get essential programs to scale was always a point of commonality and of struggle.  I listened to those whose work has touched hundreds and those whose programs reach hundreds of thousands.  I heard a commitment to see that three million additional girls receive an education.  (According to statistics shared by Jordan’s Queen Rania, the cost of getting these girls into school is $11 billion, which is what Americans spend on pets every three months.)

During all this, I couldn’t keep my thoughts from wandering to the microfinance field here in the U.S. Our numbers remain small, yet the impact on each borrower, his or her family, and the communities in which they live is large.  Commitments are the promises of change at CGI.  Our commitment, though not announced on the stage by Brad, Demi, Bill, or Hillary, is to focus on innovative ways to reach those microenterprises where small infusions of capital will unleash extraordinary power to change the world.

We have a great deal to be proud of and oh so much more to contribute.

Vogue's Anna Wintour sets out to save fashion, and helps boost consumer spending and microbusinesses along the way.

Our country’s microbusinesses haven’t been the only thing threatened by the lingering recession. According to Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue, the future of fashion is in jeopardy, too. Tonight, she sets out to save the latter with “Fashion’s Night Out” – an effort to “enliven again the consumer spirit that churns the economy and boosts the local industry of America’s fashion capital, New York City.”

So, hats off to you, Anna—but only if they’re in style this season.

From left to right: Robert W. Walsh, Commissioner, NYC Small Business Services; Mayor Michael Bloomberg; ACCION USA President and CEO Gina Harman; Kevin Burke, CEO, Con Edison; Eileen Auld, New York State Community Relations Director, Citi

Last week, the NYC Department of Small Business Services hosted its seventh annual Neighborhood Achievement Awards at Gracie Mansion, the vacant mayor’s estate. (If you’ve ever seen Mayor Bloomberg’s extravagant, Upper East Side residence, you understand why he doesn’t live there.)  Every year, the Neighborhood Achievement Awards, or the “hoodie” awards for those of you fluent in the local urban vernacular, honor NYC’s most dedicated community development organizations and inspiring small businesses.  As one of twelve proud recipients, ACCION USA was recognized for our work serving the minority and women small business community, taking home the Minority and Women Business Enterprise (M/WBE) Advocate of the Year Award.  Currently, ACCION USA’s NY portfolio consists of 96% minority and women clients.  This comes as no surprise given that both of these populations continue to be disproportionally affected by the lack of access to business credit in the U.S.

It wasn’t until I attended the ceremony last Monday that I realized just how big of a deal these awards are within the city’s small business community.  I guess mention of the Mayor as the event’s emcee in the invite was not an obvious hint for me.  I figured these awards were your standard media-powered vehicle for showcasing the city government’s dollars at work.  And, as an NYC taxpayer, I felt a catered evening at Gracie Mansion was deserved, seeing as how I pay one eight millionth of the rent.  As it turns out, fancy cocktails and photos ops aside, my assumptions and cynicism were unfounded.

The Neighborhood Achievement Awards were a refreshing look at the organizations and entrepreneurs who are creating real change in our local communities, whether it be economic, social, or aesthetic.  More importantly, it was a celebration of the close-knit network of neighborhoods that create the city’s five boroughs and make NYC, arguably, the city with the strongest sense of community.  Especially at a time when gloomy economic news floods the headlines, positive reinforcement is a worthy reminder to us small business folks that we continue to play significant part in revitalizing our local economies and communities.  I know I can speak for ACCION USA in saying we view our award as added motivation to advance our critical mission into our twentieth year serving the individuals who are the backbone of the NYC economy.