I just went to a really interesting CPIC seminar with Emily Gasner, the Program Director of Working Solutions, a 501c3 nonprofit that provides microloans (5k-25k) at around 7.5% interest to people within the San Francisco Bay area who otherwise would not qualify for loans from a bank. They also link the loans with job training, with 1 on 1 sessions, PR help, budgeting help, the works. They are able to be a nonprofit via a $250k grant from Comerica and a $500k loan (at 2%) from Wells Fargo.
Before tonight, I was not aware of microloans in the U.S., I associated it more with developing countries because of kiva and the Nobel Peace prize recipient in 2006.
Pretty awesome stuff, here's the website, needs a bit of graphic design work, but the nuts and bolts about Working Solutions is all there.
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We just talked about Muhammad Yunus a few weeks ago in our peace class, and his book 'Banker to the Poor'.
Pretty cool stuff.
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