Microfinance month

We're celebrating microfinance month!

Activities at colleges and universities

• 5 ways to get involved
  


• Kiva on campus


• Twitter: #MoMF


• Kiva on Instagram: @kiva_microfunds


• Inspiring stories and ways to get involved posted by CGAP

Some of our favorite organizations and individuals working to improve microfinance's impact:

• CGAP
  The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor is an independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world's poor. It is supported by over 30 development agencies and private foundations who share a common mission to alleviate poverty. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP provides market intelligence, promotes standards, develops innovative solutions and offers advisory services to governments, financial service providers, donors, and investors.
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Financial Services for the Poor Initiative
  The initiative helps poor people access a range of safe, affordable financial tools. Through supporting distribution channels, researching financial systems and innovating savings products, the Gates' initiative is delivering quality savings accounts and other financial services to the doorsteps of the poor.
• SEEP Network
  The Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network, the largest association of microfinance and enterprise development organizations worldwide, enables microfinance networks and associations to connect, collaborate, set standards, and share knowledge.
• David Roodman, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, whose recent book, Due Diligence: An Impertient Inquiry into Microfinance and blog, Microfinance Open Book Blog, have added significantly to the debate about microcredit. For a quicker read, he gets to the bottom of five microcredit myths, from both supporters and detractors, in “Think Again: Microfinance,” in Foreign Policy.

Global Envision's most recent articles about microfinance

• Why the future of rural microfinance looks a lot like the one acre fund, by Max Mattern, Master's candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Tufts University


• Death by finance: Why for-profit mfis are giving microfinance a bad name, by Max Mattern


• Microfinance can energize local economies, by Jean Payton, Portland State University senior


• The 2011 global microcredit summit meets in face of increasing criticism, by Monica Gerber, 2011 Reed College graduate

And of course, Microfinance at Mercy Corps, our parent organization. Click to read inspiring stories from around the globe.