MINN Educational Event on Microfinance

Today was our first official conference outing here at The 7th Street Microfinance Project, and let me tell it was all very professional. Yes, very professional, and at least for us very last minute so I was the only one of us who could make it. I’m not sure how they decided on the 2:30 to 5 p.m. Monday time slot but I suppose non-profit folks and beatniks tend to work pretty odd schedules. Either way I was pretty impressed how many people they got to come. The event was put together by the Midwest International NGO Network (MINN) and co-sponsored by the Minneapolis Council of Nonprofits (MCN), and featured a number of guest speakers including two from local microfinance nonprofits. I was particularly interested in hearing about those two since like much non-profit activity most of it takes place in D.C. and maybe a couple other hot spots (in the case of microfinance, the other hot spot appears to be San Francisco).

The first guest speaker was Chingwell Mutombu* from First Step Initiative, an organization she founded that helps provide microloans to entrepreneurs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. First Step Initiative is a classic example of a country specific microfinance institution (or MFI, as we say in the industry). One common piece of feedback you hear from MFIs is about the need to customize the solution to the country or region you are operating in, so it’s no surprising that was one of the topics people asked about. Like a lot of the countries with a large microfinance presence, the DRC presents a number of gender-related challenges and like many MFIs, First Step Initiative makes loans exclusively to women. While this may have a number of positive side effects, upsetting the status quo must be handled with care which is why it is important for groups to understand the local cultural norms (which is not to say that you shouldn’t work to change them). The issue of women’s rights and microfinance is sure to occupy many chapters in microfinance textbooks, so I’m sure we’ll revisit that in another post. I’m sure you’ll also be hearing about Chingwell again, since we’ll probably be reaching out to her sometime in the future.

The second guest speaker was Terry Isert, from the American Refugee Committee, another Minneapolis-based non-profit. ARC specializes in helping those in post-conflict environments such as refugees. They are not exclusively an MFI, but incorporate microfinance into their package of services and has a rather sophisticated financial services program. In fact, they had copies of a brochure for their SAIL program (Stepped Approach for Improved Livelihoods), a hundred-or-so page "implementation manual for refugee camp and post-conflict environment programs" which gives pretty detailed information about business training and creating access to capital. So, I guess I'm ready to head off to the developing world and start my very MFI now (or not).

The presenter was Rob Scarlett, who worked with ACCION International back in the day and currently serves on their President's Council and is a pretty frequent speaker on the topic of microcredit and microfinance. Also in the crowd were several members of the Goldin Institute**, based out of Chicago, which does a number of things but recently did an extensive project called the Improving Microfinance by Listening to Recipients, which amazingly they did not try to make into an acronym. Like a lot of non-profit sectors, impact studies are a hot topic in microfinance since there is no easy metric for measuring success - but again that is another topic that could take several blog posts. Finally, we had some members of the infamous Microfinance Alliance (MA), an association mainly made up of current and former students at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Phew, I think that's enough links and acronyms for now. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about these folks again though.

* No relationship to Dikembe Mutombo as far as I know, who is also from the DRC, although she looks like she might be able to block a few shots herself

** No, Sharz, I didn't spell it wrong so get off my back