Posts Tagged ‘global brigades’

Session Summary: Student-Led Microfinance

posted: 2010-05-25 @ 6:50 pm EDT

By Delaine Zody, conference attendee

Take a room full of young, highly motivated college students with a desire to help others, mix in microfinance and entrepreneurship, and you have a combination that could change the world. Or at least a part of it.

At Microfinance USA 2010’s panel on student led microfinance clubs, Erica Dorn from ACCION USA led a conversation with student leaders and a faculty adviser as to what is happening in microfinance at a variety of college campuses:

  • Melissa Paulsen, professor at the University of Notre Dame, discussed how she worked with the small entrepreneurs in her community to find out what support they needed. She then built a two-semester undergraduate course, which includes an internship opportunity providing technical assistance to micro-borrowers.  She’s learning that many business owners need legal, which her students are unable to give.  So, she’s starting to engage the law school at Notre Dame to provide pro bono support.
  • Alex Dang of Global Brigades said, “The Kiva experience is not enough for college students.  This group wants to go further.”  He advocated for getting stores into the hands of alumni who can help with providing funds for various projects.
  • So many entrepreneurs are busy working IN their business that they have no time to work ON their business.  This is where the campus clubs can step in and make an impact.  Rohan Mathew of The Intersect Fund, and Paloma Pineda, a student, are both from Rutgers University. Rohan struck out on his own, and since has made 19 microloans through his organization.  Paloma talked about the club at Rutgers’ work consulting with the town businesses and making loans.

A key take-away from the session was that lending isn’t the only way for students to be involved. For schools in communities where it might be more difficult to make loans, it was advised to look into raising awareness on campus, helping at high schools and middle schools, offering lectures and guest speakers, and prepackaging loan materials to send on to microlending organizations.

The final message? Students can evolve and help change their communities through microfinance clubs AND skills to their resumes.

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Empowering Students to Empower Micro-entrepreneurs

posted: 2010-05-19 @ 3:14 pm EDT

By Alex Dang, “Student-Led Microfinance” panelist

I recently learned that there are more than 120 students registered for the Microfinance USA 2010 Conference.  For a second annual conference that grew tremendously in size, the group of students in attendance grew as well.

This burst in interest in microfinance among students is an indication of a broader trend of greater interest in public service and social entrepreneurship among young people.  Increasingly, students are looking for opportunities to start a career at an innovative non-profit or a socially-conscious company. The concept of combining finance and business to benefit low-income, hard-working individuals seem to be especially attractive to college students looking to devote their skills to a cause that is more meaningful than simply earning profit for shareholders.

I’m excited that the conference will help students learn of the numerous opportunities to contribute their skills towards helping small businesses in the United States.  Making microloans to underserved small businesses in the United States is, in essence, a tiny start-up compared to the Fortune 500 behemoth that is microfinance abroad. Having 120 students attend the conference will hopefully translate into 120 new talented individuals working in U.S. microfinance.

On a personal note, I started my career in microfinance as a student at UCLA with Global Brigades (www.globalbrigades.org), a non-profit organization that empowers university students that volunteer in community development abroad.  I was among 11 students who volunteered to advise a coffee cooperative in Honduras.  I returned from Honduras committed to finding a way to offer that type of technical assistance to small businesses in California.

I’m slated to speak on the student-led microfinance panel, but secretly, I am planning to just listen.  I want to hear how students want to get involved in microfinance and how Global Brigades can empower them. Imagine a U.S. microfinance world where college students across the country are providing financial literacy workshops on credit and savings… or teaching basic accounting and finance to their neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses…  or helping a start-up understand the lending process… I cannot wait!

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