Opportunity knocks
This whole week I’ve been in Vancouver at Opportunity International’s network leadership conference. (Little blogging due to little time and completely full schedule.) CEOs and Board Chairs from each of Opportunity’s international affiliates regularly gather to share best practices, celebrate successes, and refine their competitive advantage as one of the world’s leading microfinance organizations. So about 200 leaders gathered (and I hung out mainly with the Latinos and Canadians).
Opportunity has realized that the key to success in microfinance is to scale up. Greater volume allows for more entrepreneurial poor and their families to be empowered through an array of services - microloans, microinsurance, and other financial products – uniquely designed for people in diverse places as Ghana, Colombia, and Indonesia. Starter loans in Ghana, for instance, begin at $25. Some stats: the average loan size is around $280, repayment rates are at an astounding 98%, and 87% of the >1.1 million clients are women.
Trends in microfinance mean that the age of the mom-and-pop microlending organization will not be able to compete much longer – banks such as Citigroup are moving downstream. So Opportunity is trending towards greater professionalization and its NGO partners are themselves becoming banks (FFIs = formal financial institutions) capable of handling deposits and attracting their own capital.
Grant money is still required, however, especially in startups and in developing innovative products such as insurance for the poor. Opportunity International Canada is seeking $1.2 million in grants from Canadian donors for Mozambique and Ghana (which will be matched 1:1 by CIDA), and another $1 million for Colombia (to match Bridgeway’s investment).
Tonight we ended the conference with an informative dinner for interested friends from Vancouver, including Mayor Sam Sullivan, who gave a resounding vote of support for the organization in his speech. Tomorrow (Saturday) is our Canadian board meeting, where we are celebrating 7 years of service by our board chair, Tom McCullough, who is stepping down at the end of his term.
The Canadians are known for their zany humour and fun – and our board meetings are not dull, thanks to Norm. When anyone starts to bog us down in our meetings, there is a supply of jube-jubes which zip across the room.
