Sunday November 7, 2010 I was engaged this week in an interesting email conversation among a number of community leaders about the limitations and possibilities of micro lending. The dialogue was spurred by the circulation of a report entitled, "A Sobering Assesment of Microfinance's Impact." Not surprisingly, perhaps, I opted for the side of the possible and outlined, from my perspective, why and how micro lending can work (and is already working!) right here in our community. Here are some of my thoughts:
What we're finding in making micro loans to local entrepreneurs here in Victoria is that the money is only a small part of what is actually necessary for success. Community plays a much larger part! Each of our entrepreneurs goes through a very rigorous (but not unnecessarily cumbersome!) application process including the development of a short business plan, a budget including both living and business expenses and revenues, a criminal record check, and a credit check.
We have staff on hand to assist with business plan development because a lot of the people we're working with require this support. That is to say, support is key even before the loan is made. When everything is ready, we do a loan viability calculation for precisely the reason that we don't want to leave anyone in a worse position then they were before getting a loan. Included in the viability calculation (and this was not part of our initial intention but emerged through the process of doing) we work out a plan for our entrepreneurs to service their current debt, pay back their loan to Community Micro Lending, cover their living and business expenses AND make money at the end of the day. The final decision about all loans is made by the loan committee comprised of members of our board of directors.
Then comes the fun part of matching people with mentors (volunteer business people in our community), developing with them a Personal Road Map to Success with a tonne of specific detail about how to get a business licence, how to open a business bank account, how to organize receipts, etc, including them in our monthly gathering of mentors and borrowers and walking side by side, in community, with people as they open their micro business and realize their entrepreneurial potential.
I guess what I'm saying, is that I can say from starting slowly and carefully and building from the ground up in a kind of "entrepreneur driven" manner right here in Victoria, what makes micro credit work is the community engagement piece as much as, if not more than the actual micro loan.
I appreciate the opportunity to share our experience.
Sunday October 31, 2010 Last Saturday evening I was at a harvest party for the Green Girl Gardens,Community Micro Lending’s first entrepreneurs. Over an amazing burger of locally raised beef and locally grown zucchini (the girls had a bumper crop of zucchini this year) made by Green Girl Alex Smith, drinking locally brewed beer, I got into a conversation with Nick Montgomery, who works at the Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy(CCCBE) up at UVic.
Nick and CCCBE are working on a new research project that looks at the social, environmental and economic impacts of co-operatives in Canada. Community Micro Lending is not a co-op. Nor is it a credit union. It's a community lending program (and note, not a community loan fund as they are set up in many other places in Canada). So he asked me what the difference is, to tell him a little bit more about Community Micro Lending.
And there, standing in the warm, softly lit kitchen, I launched into a mini lecture (perhaps a micro lecture!) about how in these current precarious economic times, organizations like Community Micro Lending and other citizen driven initiatives are the way of the future. What did I say?
Co-ops and credit unions, historically, came from a similar desire as did Community Micro Lending - to bring financial capital, ownership, control over work/housing, etc - to people who didn't qualify for these from mainstream institutions. Or for people who sought an alternative. Over time, some of these co-ops and credit unions grew into giants, competing with mainstream financial institutions and organizations. There is nothing wrong with giants. But sometimes as organizations grow, they lose touch with their founding principles and with the people they were meant to serve in the first place. I'm not knocking credit unions. Vancity is one of our key supporters and is helping to build the financial literacy of our entrepreneurs. These types of partnerships are both desirable and necessary.
But what I am saying - and this was the thrust of my kitchen party lecture, the moment I realized I was lecturing - is that large scale financial institutions, even credit unions, are no longer nimble enough to pave (or greenway) the way for the economic transformation that is already taking place. The great crash of 2009-2009 put an end to business as usual whether the ever-hopeful writers in the Globe and Mail's Report on Business(which I read with great interest) and others are ready to admit it or not.
The economy will not return to its consumer-driven, production-based, debt-inducing post-World War II self. Those times are over. Small, inspired citizen-sector organizations like Community Micro Lending are well poised to shape a new economic future because we are neither advocating for a return to business as usual nor have we viewed the past few years as an economic crisis. We're not looking back wondering what went wrong and how we can fix it.
We're looking around us at the incredible assets and bonds of a social nature of which our communities are comprised. And we're creating with these assets and bonds what the Summer 2009 issue of Yes magazine called "real, living wealth"; wealth that is life giving, wealth that is sustainable, wealth that as Juliet B. Schor writes in Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth is not less materialist but more so, wealth that takes the "materiality of the world seriously." Wealth that enables each of us and the planet to flourish.
Sunday October 17, 2010 "It's a privilege to be able to reach out," wrote Community Micro Lending volunteer Kathi Springer to David Hahn, CEO of BC Ferries. Plans for our November 16th fundraiser are well underway. BC Ferries has generously donated funds for food; AJ's Organic Café has graciously agreed to cater the event. "I could have used a micro loan myself a few years back," said AJ's Alesha Davies.
If everything seems to revolve around the gorgeous new Atrium building on Blanshard Street, it's because the Jawl family too has excitedly stepped up and donated the spacious foyer for the evening. Mayor Fortin has agreed to speak. Meribeth Burton of the A-Channel is the Master of Ceremonies. Our borrowers - creative and passionate members of our community who are seeking to create for themselves work that is inspiring and nourishing - will be there displaying their wares and promoting their services. Marian Fortner of Kenmar Flower Farms, one of our many volunteer mentors, has agreed to say a few words. I could go on and on.
My point? Just like the founding of Community Micro Lending  which has been in existence for just under a year  organizing the fundraiser is reminding me again of possibility: the possibility of engaging a broad range of folks from the community from Gary the Bug Manto the CEO of BC Ferries from the mayor to the flower farmer. The possibility of doing things a little bit differently. Okay, well, the possibility of of "changing everything."
Do you want to know more about the 'everything' we're changing? Read on.
Community Micro Lending aims to move from social service provision to people living in or in near poverty, to engaging these folks as partners in community economic development. We're undoing a stereotype of laziness and welfare dependency (we hear from our entrepreneurs that these seemingly old attitudes are still very much alive) to seeing people living in poverty as they are: creative, entrepreneurial, desiring to change their own lives.
We're making a leap from charitable giving to charitable investment.
We're pushing past old dichotomies of left–right, non-profit–business, government–citizen to a sense that communities are places that everyone shares no matter what their political affiliation, their standing in life, or what they do for paid work.
Finally, we're moving away from words like basic, adequate, sufficient work, housing, food, etc. to the creation of work that is nourishing and inspiring, living spaces that are vibrant and alive, and access to healthy, local, organic food. In other words, we aim to change the very definition of wealth, to move towards the creation of real wealth, that is, wealth that enables life to flourish.
