Today I received a detailed update from Unitus, and I think you might find it as fascinating as I did, for both its honesty and its comments about the state of microfinance in general. I made a small donation a few years ago, and have been impressed with the organization’s communications ever since.  It begins: Dear Unitus Donors and Supporters: This is a follow-up to our July 2 announcement that … Read More >>

I recently saw a post on the Kiva groups pages by a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker who was looking for sellers he could represent, and in return he would donate %5-%10 of his profits to microfinance.  I wasn’t a very big fan of him advertising himself on the forum pages, however, I was a big fan of the concept.  Drew followed up with one of his contacts at … Read More >>

I can across Soap Hope this evening as a result of a Tweet I received as a result of retweeting this article. Soap Hope’s business model, named “Good Returns,” really impressed me and I thought worthy of sharing — they invest 100% of their profits every year, for the full year, into anti-poverty non-profits. They chose microfinance as a niche to support and are currently partnered with 3 microfinance institutions (Esperanza … Read More >>

I just returned from Nigeria’s 3rd Annual Microfinance Conference, where Mrs. Mariama Ashcroft of Women’s World Banking presented a paper on commercialization.  When I told her about Mykro.org, she was kind enough to give me an interview for the site. My questions and her responses below: Kirsten Weiss: How do you define microfinance commercialization? Mariama Ashcroft:  It’s a strategy to create a means of reaching large scale numbers of low … Read More >>

A few weeks ago I discussed an article about how Morgan Stanely was pulling its microfinance funding after trying to make a big push into the sector. Although Mogan Stanley defended that claim, I was pretty skeptical that they were actually going to make anything happen. From what I have always known, microfinance has been in the hands of NGOs and entrepeneurs who are trying to make a difference in … Read More >>