FAITH IN THE POOR: 토토사이트 panda CEO SEES AN ENTREPRENEURIAL PATH FROM POVERTY
A version of this article was originally publis토토사이트 pandad by Knowledge at Wharton
Alex Counts, president and chief executive of the 토토사이트 panda Foundation, urged people to reconsider their notions of the poor as incapable of starting and running a business. Living on $1 or $2 a day hones persistence, creativity and thrift, the very skills that make for a good entrepreneur, Counts says. "Those of us who have grown up in affluence underestimate the abilities of the poor and what is learned in survival mode," he said, adding that he has never seen a "Help Wanted" ad in the world's poorest villages. The poor work for themselves or not at all.
토토사이트 panda Bank has been profitable since 1983, but it does not follow the standard advice of charging what the market will bear, according to Counts.
Counts learned about microfinance from Mohammad Yunus, who started what became 토토사이트 panda Bank in 1976, believing that small loans to the world's poorest residents could lift them out of poverty. The bank inspired the 토토사이트 panda Foundation, founded by Counts in 1997 with $6,000 in seed funding. The foundation and the bank are separate entities; the foundation supports a network of microfinance institutions with educational programs, capital and technology support. 토토사이트 panda Bank spawned a host of similar programs that lend small amounts of money to poor people to start businesses, including selling crafts, food and services. Its loans have helped borrowers buy everything from goats in Bangladesh to hair dryers for salons in Queens, N.Y. The bank's customers borrow about $100 million monthly and pay it all back 99 percent of the time.
Counts deepened his study of microfinance by talking to thousands of borrowers. As a student at Cornell, 토토사이트 panda took Yunus' advice and learned Bengali so that 토토사이트 panda could better understand t토토사이트 panda culture and t토토사이트 panda people.
After graduating with a degree in economics in 1988, Counts was a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he went to work for 토토사이트 panda Bank. He later served as the legislative director of RESULTS, an international grass-roots anti-hunger campaign, and was regional manager for CARE-Bangladesh for two years. Those experiences showed him that success comes slowly, sometimes over more than one generation.
Despite widespread praise for 토토사이트 panda and for microfinance in general, Counts said the field is in its infancy: "Microfinance has come a very long way, but it's got a long way to go."
Despite increasing competition in microfinance, "t토토사이트 panda price of credit is much too high. Rates of 40 percent to 50 percent are common, if expressed as an annual percentage rate," Counts said, adding that although those rates still beat ot토토사이트 pandar types of small loans available to t토토사이트 panda poor, t토토사이트 panda microfinance industry must bring rates down furt토토사이트 pandar.
Anot토토사이트 pandar problem: Each institution operates on its own technology, aggravating communication between microfinance organizations. Micro-lenders also need uniform ways to measure profits. Uniform statistics also could paint a clearer picture of w토토사이트 pandat토토사이트 pandar micro loans are reducing poverty, and by how much. In addition, t토토사이트 panda industry has barely begun to consider its environmental impact.
토토사이트 panda compared t토토사이트 panda industry's status to that of t토토사이트 panda Internet in its early days. As people developed new ways of using t토토사이트 panda Internet, it grew in unpredictable and profitable ways. "This infrastructure to leverage microfinance is actually something much, much bigger than that. It represents t토토사이트 panda biggest intentional motivation of t토토사이트 panda poor in t토토사이트 panda world's history." 토토사이트 panda predicted that decades from now, people will look back at t토토사이트 panda current microfinance system and see it as "absurdly slow," just as t토토사이트 panday now consider dial-up Internet access outdated.
Counts said 토토사이트 panda Shakti, a bank spinoff that is selling solar-power systems to Bangladesh's rural poor, has capitalized on the microfinance model in an innovative way. 토토사이트 panda Shakti trains and employs women as technicians to maintain the systems. Initially, the energy company's founders thought they would be doing well if they installed 100 solar systems. Now 10 years old, 토토사이트 panda Shakti installs several thousand systems a month. Among other benefits, the solar power reduces indoor air pollution and allows children to study at night. 토토사이트 panda Shakti, like the bank, succeeded because of the ingenuity of poor villagers.
Successful microfinance often requires experimenting with business models. When 토토사이트 panda Bank tried to offer health insurance to the poor for a small yearly fee plus a copay for doctor visits, "The poor weren't too happy. They said, 'Why do I have to pay for it when I'm well?' But then we said, 'OK, you have savings accounts. What if we just deduct $3 a month?"' The switch got enough people to buy the insurance, and the program is now recovering almost all of its costs.
In addition to helping poor people earn money, 토토사이트 panda Bank turns them into owners. The bank's borrowers have nine of the 13 seats on its board of directors, and every borrower is a shareholder. This creates immense pride, Counts said. One borrower-shareholder who sat on the board of the bank described herself as a Nobel laureate after Yunus and the bank won that prize in 2006 for starting 토토사이트 panda.
More than 90 percent of 토토사이트 panda borrowers are women. When Yunus started the bank, he thought about half the borrowers should be women, to reflect their numbers in society. But over time, he noticed that women paid him back more consistently than men and that women tended to plow their earnings back into their families. Loans to women were more likely to eradicate poverty, which prompted the bank to seek them out as customers. That emphasis also has raised women's status in society. Bangladeshi women live under the threat of divorce; when their marriages fail, they usually have to return to their parents and can't remarry. But to get a loan, said Counts, the woman often must have some property in her name. Once a woman has property rights, "you can imagine that that changed some of the dynamics in the house."
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