Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Spring 2007 : President's Message: 3 Million Client Mark
President's Message: 3 Million Client Mark Crossed
"Alex- we have great news! Our partners have crossed the three million client mark."
I received this brief but wonderful news in January, along with a stream of other emails about more milestones, including our largest loan guarantee ever deployed, and one of our partners in India, SKS, growing from 22,000 clients at the start of our partnership in 2003 to cross the half million client mark. With April marking Grameen Foundation’s (GF) 10th anniversary, I took a moment to reflect on our origins and look forward into our future.
Grameen Foundation began in 1997 with just $6,000 in seed capital donated by Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate with Grameen Bank. We began by mobilizing support for a small group of microfinance institutions (MFIs) that shared our goal of significantly expanding access to financial services to poor women so that they could work their way out of poverty. In 2001 we opened our technology center in Seattle, which has since produced innovative technology to combat poverty. Its Village Phone program has enabled thousands of women in Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon and the Philippines to start profitable cellular pay phone businesses, and Mifos is an open source management information system for the global microfinance industry that is empowering microfinance practitioners. Seven years after our founding we helped our partners reach one million clients. Since then we have reached one million additional clients per year, and are on target to bring microfinance to five million of the world’s poorest families by 2008.
Thank you for the role you have played in achieving these results, which have inspired us to dream of much bigger impact in our second decade.
On my recent visit to the Kashf Foundation, GF’s leading partner in Pakistan, I was reminded that there are still millions of women who we have yet to reach. By supporting MFIs worldwide like Kashf Foundation, we are helping to create the next generation of Grameen Banks around the world. Our vision is to transform our partners into institutions capable of meeting the demands of the poor, so that one day abject poverty will be relegated to history books and museums.
Thank you for caring,
Alex Counts
President and CEO
Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Spring 2007 : President's Message: 3 Million Client Mark
Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans and financial services, we help the poor, mostly women, start businesses and escape poverty. Our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including our Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. In addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.
+1-202-628-3560 www.grameenfoundation.org
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