UCity Micro Credit Club

Making a Difference One Small Loan at a Time...
UCity-Micro-Credit-Club

University United Methodist Church has a new ministry focus to reach out into the University City and Washington University areas and welcome and invite others into conversation and mission with us. The UCity-Micro-Credit Club is led by Tom Mitchell and Rich Wymore utilizing the www.kiva.org system. First and foremost we ask you to pray for this new small-group ministry. It is a new effort in our church to bring together a small core of people from UUMC with people from our community. You are also welcome to join this small group.

Kiva has been established to help poor entrepreneurs in the world and alleviate poverty by making micro-loans to people so that they can establish their own businesses and income. Kiva has an extremely high success rate with more than 95% of all loans being paid back in both a timely manner and in-full. The UCity-Micro-Credit Club chooses specific individuals to fund and follow their progress. Funds channel through on-the-ground organizations selected and monitored by Kiva. Participants make contributions of $25 or more to a common fund.

This group meets regularly every month to select new projects, monitor progress and recycle repayments.

Next meetings are Tuesday, September 14th and November 9th, 2010 at 7PM at the University City Public Library, Delmar and Kingsland in the Loop.

Please contact Tom Mitchell at 314-725-4003 for more information.

See www.kiva.org for more information on micro credit lending.

See www.kiva.org/lender/ucity9377 for information specifically about the Club's activities with Kiva.org.

See a short video about U-City Micro-Credit Club: click here> MissionCast #149

Current Status as of June 13, 2010: 60 Loans Made -- 5 Continents and 35 Countries

The UCity microcredit club met on July 13 and made the following 5 loans.

Monica lives in Valparaiso, Chile and is treasurer for LaGula Group. She works for her father ina business he has run for 30 years. She purchases the ingredients for supaipillas, empanadas and cakes. She is borrowing $3700 to purchase a fryer, aluminum plates, oil and cheese in bulk. We participated in the amount of $50. This is our first loan in Chile.

Melinda lives in LaRomana, Dominican Republc and is a member of the Las Responsables & Intelectuales Group. The group is comprised mostly of Haitian refugees who live in a rural area where electricity and running water are unreliable. She is borrowing $1700 to purchase underwear to sell. We participated for $50.

Twaha lives in dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and operates a tailoring business. He hopes for an $850 loan to buy a bigger roll of mosquito netting and to buy more T-shirt material. Twaha is part of the Tupendene C Group which has six members. In all the groups,the members are accountable to pay back the loan. We particiapted for $25. This is our first loan in Tanzania.

Sani lives in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and is a farmer. He is borrowing $1100 to buy more land in order to grow more crops. We participated for $25.

Bahodir lives in Spitamen, Tajikistan and he is a taxi driver. He also runs a grocery sales business. He wants to borrow 5,000 somani ($1150). to repair his vehicle, purchase additional foodstuffs for his grocery store and buy an additional deep freezer. We particiapted for $50.

We have now made 60 loans in 35 countries totaling $2800. At this point, $930 has been repaid and we have had NO defaults.

Our next meeting is September 14.

Summary of loans as of June 8, 2010

We have now made 55 loans for a total of $2600 of which 6 have paid back in full. 34 loans are paying back and are current through June, 2010. For 13 newer loans, the first repayment is not yet due. Finally, 3 loans are paying back and are current through May, but not yet June. As these have been current in the past, we are not greatly concerned yet. We have one loss - $.01 - due to currency exchange. We've had $745 of repayments so far, which have been recycled into new loans (notice we have had $1,960 in contributions, but have made loans of $2,600 -- your contributions are leveraged through this recycling!)

About Interest Rates

The Club's loans are interest free -- we do not receive any interest. Kiva's partner NGO's or financial institutions charge interest on the loans to pay for their services, which include having representatives visiting villages, educating, gathering information on the projects, orginating the loans, disbursing funds and receiving repayments. Kiva's loans average $250 or so, which means that the operating expenses are a greater portion of the loan than would be the case for regular loans to businesses. This produces some high interest rates, that have been criticized.

We monitor the average interest rates charged to entrepreneurs by Kiva's partner organizations, and avoid partners which don't meet guidelines we have adopted. Our standard is that the average loan interest rate for the NGO or bank lender does not exceed the equivalent of $10 administration on an average size loan, plus 10% annual interest plus a risk fee of 10%. We feel this is fair both to the entrepreneur and the lender. Opinions vary on this issue.

Thank you to our 24 contributors who have contributed $2,060 to date. Please note that due to repayments by our entrepreneurs, we have been able to loan out $2,800. Our contributions are beginning to be recycled in a meaningful way.

Summary of Loans Made in 2009

We loaned a total of $1,000 to 25 entrepreneurs to assist in funding $38,000 in loans for average loan size of about $1,500.

(The only loan we participated in in the United States was for $10,000)

The 13 of our 20 loans from 2009 that had repayment schedules beginning in 2009 all began to repay their loans, and are on schedule or ahead.

As you can see, a little bit of money goes a long way toward improving the quality of life in many parts of the world.

Here are the countries and Kiva's lending partners where we have assisted in funding entrepreneurs.

El Salvador Apoyo Integral

Azerbaijan Aqroinvest Credit Union

Mexico Fundacion Realidad A.C (FRAC),

Bolivia CIDRE

Nigeria Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO)

Paraguay Fundacion Paraguaya

Mozambique Hluvuku-Adsema

Guatemala FAPE

Cambodia AMK (Angkor Microfinance Kampuchea)

Uganda BRAC Uganda

Philippines Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc.

Costa Rica EDESA

Cambodia CREDIT, a partner of World Relief

Mongolia XacBank

Nicaragua AFODENIC

Peru FINCA Peru

Uganda Pearl Microfinance Limited

Peru Manuela Ramos / CrediMUJER

Lebanon Al Majmoua (2)

Ghana Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT) (2)

United States ACCION USA

Bolivia Fundacion AgroCapital, a partner of ACDI/VOCA

Dominican Republic Esperanza International Dominican

Our next meeting is September 14, 2010 7 to 8 PM. Please drop in to see how we operate!

Thank you all for your support. We are convinced that this is a small way that a few people can make a big difference in the lives of persons less fortunate than ourselves.