OptInNow.org - Opportunity International’s New Kiva-Like Site

This is something really cool.

I had coffee this evening at the HW55 Starbucks in Durham with Sam Serio from Opportunity International. Opportunity International is a Christian microfinance organization that’s been around since 1971.

Opportunity International has launched a site called OptInNow.org. OptinNow allows you to make small loans directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Comparison to Kiva

OptInNow is similar to Kiva, with the exception that the loans made are contributions to Opportunity International and are re-loaned over and over again to entrepreneurs with microenterprises in developing countries instead of paid back directly to the lender. Another difference is that Opportunity International has a Christian affiliation whereas Kiva does not.

OptInNow.org is in the early stages, so the site does not yet have as extensive inventory of loans and projects as Kiva, but does allow loans to be made to entrepreneurs in Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, and Mexico with many more to come soon.

Props to the folks at Opportunity International for creating a well-designed usable interactive site that will get a lot more visibility and unique donors for their organization.

Aid 2.0

As opposed to the old-school ‘top-down’ Easterly-criticized bi-lateral government-to-government aid model where funds were given to oft-unelected semi-corrupt dictators for cold-war geopolitical reasons that indebted the populace without providing much benefit to them while sometimes forcing the funds to be used to pay Western contractors (okay I’m being a bit harsh here but do read Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Stiglitz’ Globalization and Its Discontents), OptInNow’s model is from the grassroots–from the bottom-up. It gives small amounts of funds that can make a world of good directly to the local entrepreneurs who know how to best use them. It’s market-based aid versus the top-down centrally controlled aid of the past.

Who Is It Run By?

Opportunity International is currently run by CEO Christopher Crane, an entrepreneur, YPO member, and Harvard MBA who took commercial real estate information provider COMPS InfoSystems to 450 employees and took it public in May 1999 before being acquired by CoStar (NASDAQ:CSGP) in February 2000. I haven’t met Christopher yet but look forward to meeting him soon.

Here’s a video about OptInNow. Spread the word!

————————

About Opportunity International

Opportunity International, the largest not-for-profit microfinance organization in the world. OI began in 1971 and specializes in working with the poorest of the working poor, those who make less than $2 a day. OI has 1.2 million active loan clients in 28 countries and 85% of their clients are women. Here are some key facts.

Opportunity International 2007 Highlights
Current loan clients worldwide:	1,121,786
Value of current loan portfolio worldwide:	$500,891,820
Number of loans made in 2007:	1,772,139
Value of loans made in 2007:	$702,278,911
Average loan size:	$227 (excluding Eastern Europe)
Average first Trust Group loan:	$162 (excluding Eastern Europe)
Loans to women:	84.13%
Loan repayment rate:	98.5%
Source: http://videos.opportunity.org/website/media-center/Opportunity_International_Fact_Sheet.pdf

————————

About OptInNow
Our mission is simple. We’re working to end global poverty. Faster. How? By providing those who live in chronic poverty with one vital thing they need to transform their lives: Opportunity. Along the way we hope to transform additional lives, like yours. That’s why we’ve made it so simple for good people everywhere to come together, to fund small loans, to witness big and lasting impact, and to truly change the world. That’s what we’re really about. We’re about every land becoming a land of opportunity. And with your help we’ll get there.

Update: Project Polaroid in Ghana

Back in September I posted on Project Polaroid, an effort started by UNC student Carly Brantmeyer to provide children in developing countries with the first pictures of themselves they’ve ever owned. I wanted to post some of the recent Project Polaroid photos from Ghana.

Project Polaroid in Ghana

Earlier this month in Accra, Carly interviewed a family of steet beggers via a translator who had emigrated from Niger to better understand their lives and challenges. Afterward, she shared Project Polaroid with their children. Here’s an excerpt from her post, “Exploring Niger.” I think you’ll agree: for a 20 year old–it’s quite a piece of investigative journalism.

I wanted to know why they came to Ghana, what they experienced in Niger and in Ghana, how they lived, how much they make per day as beggars, their struggles and their joys, the hopes for their children, how they use their money, if they want to return to Niger, and so much more.

 

Before migrating to Ghana, the Niger people lived in the “bush” in Niger, in extremely hot conditions, as the country is located among the Sahara Desert. Niger is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, with over 80% of its territory covered from the Sahara desert. In the interview, they said that it sometimes would not rain in Niger for months, even years at a time. Thus, they lived very simple, constricted lives.

 

In the bush, they lived in shacks constructed from logs, leaves, and other scraps. They wore only pieces of leather as clothing, and survived hunting their own animals and by tapping water from trees. They described the bush to be a place of struggle, where it was difficult to make ends meet. As I tried to dig deeper into the hardships they have experienced, the man became short, unwilling to disclose too much detail as he reflecting on their struggles in Niger would flood back sad memories.

 
I interviewed four Niger adults, one of the men speaking for the others the majority of the time. They each came for various reasons, but all mainly because of the government unrest in Niger and because as West Africa is now approaching the dry season, living conditions are growing more unbearable in Niger. As water becomes more scarce in Niger, there are less animals to hunt, thus less food to intake. Subsequently, they migrated in hopes of being able to provide food for their family each day.

 

I asked about their hopes and their desires, about the dreams they have for their children. The man answered simply, by saying (in Hausa), “We are human, too, we have the same hopes and desires for our children that all humans have–I hope that my children are able to one day receive a good education and that they will be able to eventually provide for themselves.”

 

He continued by saying, “I want my oldest son to have a sewing machine, so that he can sell goods to provide a larger income. He currently has no means of making money, besides begging, and he is growing too old to be a [child] street beggar.” I would love to get this child a sewing machine. If I have learned nothing else, I have learned the power of investing in a child, by means of education in school or education in trades. Education, whether formally or in a particular trade enables a child to be self-sufficient, giving him or her the knowledge needed to be successful off of the streets.

 

These people are some of the friendliest, most receptive, loving people that I have ever met. If nothing else, this investigation taught me to take a closer look into someone’s life before judging. I think that lesson is so important, especially with the groups of people that our world and society often deems as the “untouchables”. Like it says in Matthew, Jesus taught us to love the poor, the distressed, and the poverty-stricken.

Here are some of the Project Polaroid pictures of the Nigerien children… 

$1M Prize for Best Developing Country Technology Innovation

Legatum Group, founded by Chris Chandler and based in Dubai, has announced today at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Half Moon Bay, California a $1 million prize for the best technology innovation from a for-profit company in the developing world. I will update this blog when they post details on how to enter.

I wanted to write this post as from all appearances, Legatum seems to be making a concerted effort to invest in long-term sustainable development in developing countries and putting their money where their mouth is. They are a sponsor to the Fortune conference here, and are mostly unheard of. Even their original company Sovereign Global, is nearly unheard of. Yet they manage over $4B in capital invested in India alone.

Legatum is the donor to the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. They invested $50M in the Center to obtain naming rights. Here is a short video I took this afternoon of Iqbal Quadir who is the founder and Director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT.

Although Dubai-based, the group is made up strictly of Westerners, mainy of whom previously worked at Chris Chandler’s Sovereign Global. They claim a 40% CAGR over the lifetime of thier original fund started in 1986. The President of Legatum, Mark Stoleson, attended Occidental College and Duke. The other chief team members attended Wharton, London Business School, Babdon, Oxford, and University of Brisbane and has worked at law firms, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and PWC.

I do wonder if most of these individuals are based at the head office in Dubai, which is slowly on its way toward challenging London and New York for the global capital headquarters. If you can find any statistics on capital under management for equity investment firms based in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Dubai please let me know.

Legatum Group is also the creators of the Africa Prize, which gave away $450,000 in 2007 to the most innovative businesses in Africa. Their philosophy is simply that for-profit businesses are more efficient at creating positive social improvement than bi-lateral foreign aid which in their Easterlyan-like view too often has created dependency.