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| Philanthropy |
Priming the Free Enterprise Pump
Jan Alexander
02/02/2004
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An Indonesian trust group whose loans came from an Opportunities International-affiliated bank once went and serenaded a woman who had not made her payment. "Why don’t you come outside? You know we love you," the borrowers and the loan officer sang through the night until she came out and agreed to explain her financial problems and cooperate with the others to find a course of action.
Stories of that kind of determination are part of what draws philanthropists to microfinancing. "I’ve heard statistics that as few as 30 percent of the recipients in a given area ever get out of poverty," says Scott Reardon, chairman of the Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund and president of Dakon Group, a venture capital firm in Sioux Falls, S.D. "But it’s still good, that that many have made it." Illustration by Nicholas Wilton
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