Recap of the Net Impact Conference with Katherine Rosenberg

Last weekend Grameen America’s Director of Evaluation and Education, Katherine Rosenberg, attended the 18th Annual Net Impact Conference at the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School. The conference, entitled 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Decade, was very successful with over 2,500 MBA students and sustainable development professionals participating in the panels, lectures and expo.

Katherine took part in a panel called Markets For Good: How Social Investors Will Change the World. Other participants on the panel included Mari Kuraishi (Co-Founder and President of GlobalGiving Foundation), Brian Walsh (Director of Liquidnet for Good) and David Wilcox (Founder of ReachScale). About 100 people attended the panel, which focused on gaining access to capital markets on international and domestic levels in the non-profit world. The speakers explored how the profit and non-profit worlds can combine to create access to capital without jeopardizing the ultimate mission of creating opportunities for the poor.

During the conference, one of the recurring questions that Katherine was asked was “does microfinance actually work?” Her response: “Microfinance has become a broad spectrum. Speaking on behalf of Grameen America, we offer small loans and have great stories about how we have already pulled people out of poverty”. Although the term microfinance is slowly beginning to register as a household term, people are still uncertain about how effective it can be, especially on a domestic level. This is one of the challenges we are continuing to explore and one of the benefits of being able to attend these conferences.

One of the most informative panels that she attended was called Philanthropy 2020: How is Philanthropy Changing and what are the Implications for Nonprofits. The panel focused on the measurement of social value in the nonprofit sector.

Katherine also found the keynote address by Gary Hirshberg, Chairman, president and CEO of Stonyfield Farms inspiring. He spoke on the transformation of his company from a small dairy farm to the worlds leading international organic yogurt producer with over $366 Million in annual sales. One of topics he touched on, which helped Stonyfield experience such rapid growth, was innovative marketing technique such as advertising on the tops of yogurt and milk containers. It was a simple method but one that clearly produced results – certainly something that could be applied in the non-profit sector as well.

Although Grameen America was only involved directly through Katherine’s participation in the panel, Professor Yunus’ name came up several times because of his focus on promoting social business. It was apparent during the conference that his influence has encouraged people to change their way of thinking – not just to run a business but to be socially minded about it as well. We can only hope that his influence can do for social business what it has already done for popularizing microfinance.


Follow this link for more information about the 2010 Net Impact Conference.
2010.netimpact.org

Follow this link for more information about Gary Hirshberg on the Stonyfield website.
www.stonyfield.com

To check out Professor Yunus' latest book Building Social Business please click here.

Grameen America Week: Grameen U Events!

To raise awareness about Grameen America week, our Grameen U chapters all chipped in to spread the word. Check out what went on at their campuses and maybe they'll inspire you to go out and spread the word too!

University of Wisconsin-Madison

We combined this event with our kickoff meeting for the semester, giving prospective members information about our group and our recent collaboration with Grameen America. We hope to see many of them at our next meeting!

McGill

McGill's SNED (Student network for economic development) hosted a bakesale in the Desaultes Faculty of Management lobby to support Grameen America as part of our celebration and to publicize about our events and the power of microfinance. The yummy treats were all baked by SNED club members and everything sold out!

University of Pennsylvania

We had an activities fair at Penn on the college green, so we thought of it as the perfect place to set up a Grameen U table asking people to donate via the Text2Give Campaign. Above is a picture of a couple of people asking for the details of the campaign and one of my colleagues from Penn MFC explaining the campaign and urging them to donate.

Bucknell

In support of Grameen America week, the Microfinance Initiative at Bucknell ran a campaign called Spread the Thread. The idea behind the campaign was that just like one dollar can create two, one string can make two. So we distributed blue string bracelets with the message “Wear, Tear, Share”. Simply tie it on your wrist, tear it in half, give it to a friend and you can spread the idea of microfinance one bracelet at a time! All in all the event was a huge success and by the end of the week, half take campus had little blue strings dangling off their wrists!

Rutgers

As a group, we are trying to get "official" club status on campus before we can hold events, but we met to work on getting our club formed as well as brainstorming how we could get the Text4Give campaign out there. We posted on facebook, emailed all our friends, classmates, and professors. More to come!

Recap from Grameen America Week’s Event at Whole Foods

Last Monday, in honor of Grameen America Week, we partnered with Whole Foods to celebrate our third successful year of microloans in the United States. Whole Foods was kind enough to provide us with ice cream, banana split toppings, and a small space to distribute information at five of their stores in Manhattan.

We arrived just before 5pm at the Whole Foods store in Union Square, which was completely packed with shoppers. Whole Foods set us up in a prime location, right in the front of the store, which encouraged people to come chat even before we began serving food. Once the ice cream and toppings were brought out we attracted quite a crowd.

Dozens of people stopped by in the first half hour alone and were genuinely interested to hear about Grameen America while they waited for their banana splits. Quite a few people recognized Grameen’s name but most did not know about our programs in the U.S. It was great to be able to talk to everyone and let them know how successful microfinance has become and that GA is helping low-income entrepreneurs create successful business ventures right here in NYC.

Talking about GA while making a banana split was a challenge but I was very lucky to have had the help of Danielle from GA and two great volunteers: Gabrielle from Credit Suisse and Cecile from BNP Paribas.

Thank you to all the other volunteers who came to help and to all the great Whole Foods shoppers who stopped by, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Jonathan Katz, Grameen America

(Images above were taken at the Upper West Side Whole Foods - Grameen America volunteers Jason, left, and Sandy, right, are pictured.)

Notes From the Field With GA Intern Alexandra from St. Johns University

Grameen America has partnered with St. Johns University & the Ozanam Scholars for the second year. This year, Ozanam Scholars are working with Grameen America Center Managers in the field in New York City. Take a look at Alexandra’s first blog post and be sure to check back weekly to see what she’s up to!


Hey everyone. I’ve been interning for Grameen for about two weeks now and already my experiences have been interesting. Last Monday my fellow intern Annysa and I went out into the field, handing out flyers—trying to connect with potential clients.

I’ll be honest I was intimidated at first. I’m not a native Spanish speaker. I learned it in high school and let me tell you that that type of Spanish is not how most people actually talk. Adjusting to speaking like a native speaker and being able communicate with people is going to take me a little time but it’s absolutely worth the effort.

I already love getting out and meeting people, listening to their aspirations and trying to help them. I was only handing things out for a few hours, but I feel like I’m working for something bigger than myself—towards a greater good. I can’t wait until I really learn how to do this job well.

Grameen America Week

We are thrilled to announce that next week is our second annual Grameen America Week.

Save the dates!

Grameen America Week is a celebration of our third successful year of providing microfinance services to low-income entrepreneurs in the United States. For the week of September 20th-24th we will be hosting a number of events and kicking off several exciting new campaigns.

On Monday, September 20th, in honor of Grameen America Week and Whole Foods 30th anniversary, we are going to be partnering with them at each of their six Manhattan stores. The Grameen America staff will be on hand to serve up inexpensive Ice-Cream Sundaes. 100% of the proceeds will go to providing microloans for low-income entrepreneurs. Stop and chat with the Grameen America staff and make sure to get an Ice-Cream Sundae for microloans!

On Thursday, September 23rd, we will host a webinar for supporters around the world with an informational session conducted live from the headquarters of Grameen America, New York City. Register now!

Beginning this week we are also running a texting campaign called Text “America.” It’s easy, just text 85944 and donate $10 to Grameen America. The aim of this campaign is to raise $7,500, enough to form a group of 5 borrowers, five first time loans of $1,500 each. We think this is a great way for each donor to become a microlender and discover the power that a small donation can have in the lives of our borrowers. Please help us by donating and by telling your friends and family about the program.

Grameen America week also marks the launch of Grameen U, a program that enlists student representatives from universities across the country who are interested in microfinance to help a growing Microfinance Institution. We hope this is just the beginning of our involvement with students in North America. During Grameen America Week, schools participating in Grameen U will be hosting events to commemorate this special occasion.

We will be updating the blog throughout the week with updates from of all these great events. We hope to see you there!

"Poverty exists because we've built our philosophical framework on assumptions that underestimate human capacities (...). Let's dedicate ourselves to bringing an end to it at the earliest possible date, and putting poverty in the museums once and for all."
- Muhammad Yunus