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The Montgomery College Business and Economics Club Microloan Initiative to Help Eliminate Poverty in the World

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This Microloan Initiative is a grant funded joint project experiential learning opportunity between the Montgomery College Business and Economics Club, the Gordon and Marilyn Macklin Business Institute, Kiva.org, and possibly Summer Work Student Exchange Internships. Students evolved in this effort will learn the benefits of volunteerism and civic engagement by funding entrepreneurs in third world countries with microloans.

Montgomery College Business and Economics Club students will evaluate profiles of startup businesses, choose those nearing 100% funding, fund up to 60 business in $50 increments, monitor and report back on the progress of those businesses until the loan is paid back in full, and write about the experience to share with others.

The need addressed by this initiative includes encouraging student achievement and retention by promoting increased civil engagement and community service, and the development of a sense of personal responsibility and accomplishment in helping others. Moreover, first-year students will gain a better sense of civic responsibility, organizational philanthropy, and volunteerism. This experience will engender a higher sensitivity to philanthropy, business efforts in other country’s, and volunteerism in context to our new global economy along with the efforts of other organizations such as USAID (http://www.usaid.gov) and the World Bank (http://web.worldbank.org)

Objectives: Students involved in the Business and Economics Club will coordinate with student leaders from the Macklin Business Institute (MBI) to conduct fundraising activities in order to add to the existing microloan fund created by this grant, manage the microloans made to entrepreneurs in Third World countries in $50 increments, and decide upon the kinds of intercultural exchange opportunities afforded to students in the form of summer work internships in a foreign country.

Specific goals include the following:

• To promote and encourage service learning.
• Students will conduct fundraising events to increase the size of the loan portfolio each semester in order to fund intercultural exchange opportunities.
   
• To allow every student in the Business and Economics Club to fund and track at least one microloan of $50 at 0% interest for approximately six months to one-year to needy entrepreneurs located in Africa, Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or South America.
• All transactions are made and tracked through Kiva.org.
• Students will receive email journal updates from the businesses they’ve sponsored.
• As loans are repaid, the money get puts back into the Paypal account set up between Montgomery College and Kiva.org.
• All Paypal transactions are free through a special agreement with Kiva.org and tracked via the Kiva.org account Portfolio (As with all loans, there is no guarantee although Kiva.org’s repayment rate is 100%).
   
• To either send students on summer work internships to a foreign country funded through a combination of sources including a percentage of funds paid back to the Kiva.org account or to fund a guest speaker from USAID, The World Bank, or some other organization that exists to help entrepreneurs in countries outside of the United States.