From the President
Global Perspectives | Spring 2010

Dear Friends,

Last week, several staff members—including our new Vice President of Latin American Programs, Lara Puglielli—returned from a scouting trip to Colombia, buzzing about what they’d seen. They had visited several potential microfinance partners that offered “microfinance-plus” programs for their clients. One microfinance institution (MFI) based in the city of Medellín, for example, boasts a large training center with model businesses—from a bakery to a sewing business—where microentrepreneurs can get extensive hands-on training.

A new market is an exciting prospect. Global Partnerships (GP) started 15 years ago by focusing on the four poorest countries in Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Over the last three years, we have expanded our geographic range significantly, with new microfinance partners in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Mexico (see “Mexico Matters”). As of this writing, we are visiting potential partners in not only Colombia, but Paraguay, Guatemala and Mexico.

As Global Partnerships scouts new microfinance partners, site visits like the recent one to Colombia are a critical part of how we identify the best possible partners.

GP’s work begins long before our team conducts a site visit. First, we familiarize ourselves with the culture, the regulatory environment and the patterns of poverty within a prospective country. We also work to identify MFIs who are both well managed and share our commitment to a social enterprise model. In broad strokes, this means that they generate and reinvest profits to reach underserved populations with little access to credit, such as rural communities; and/or they develop “microfinance-plus” programs such as business education, affordable health care, small enterprise development, or rural economic development.

In Colombia, for example, in addition to visiting two potential partners that focus on education, we spent time with a potential partner in the southern part of the country that works primarily with agricultural loans and rural clients. In Mexico, we’re identifying new partners that offer an alternative to the commercial model that dominates the country.

The due diligence process with potential partners in Colombia is far from complete; we still have to gather more data, analyze business plans, and work with our Impact and Investment committees to evaluate each MFI. But we’re hopeful about finding partners that will help us have the greatest possible impact in the lives of those living in poverty.

While in Medellín, our staff met a young woman who offered a particularly striking example of the social enterprise model we support. She had arrived in the city as a teenager, finding work as a maid. After learning to sew, she started a small business with an MFI loan, benefiting from business training as well as classes in specific sewing skills. Today, she owns a six-machine sewing enterprise that employs her husband and other family members, creating jobs where they are needed.

While it is exciting to see the GP footprint expanding, it’s more exciting to see what that growth represents in terms of the high impact of your investments and donations, and real progress in the lives of people living in poverty.

Warm regards,

Rick Beckett
President & CEO


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