Impact 2006 May-Jun

IMPACT

M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 6

A publication of Opportunity International

Celebrating cycles of hope

G

CE

L

R AT

IN

EB

Serving Poor Families

Y

I

N

with Microfinance

E A R S

S

I

D

E

2 Models of transformation Clients & loan officers of the year.

2

4 Honor Your Mother Your gift is a great Mother’s Day tribute.

P H O T O G RA P H S BY R O N L O N D E N

4

W

orld poverty is not a faceless crisis.

Behind the numbers are real families in a constant struggle to obtain nutritious food, clean water and a decent place to live. Only when poverty is personalized — seen in faces as well as statistics — can we truly begin to understand the depth of world poverty, as well as real reasons for genuine hope.

Opportunity International offers poor entrepreneurs the tools for economic, social and spiritual transformation. We see lives truly changed — parents able to provide their children with nutritious food, better shelter and education that holds genuine promise for the future. And with each story, we see the positive, global impact of Opportunity’s products and services — a hope spreading among families and the communities in which they live.

Every year, thanks to the generosity of

Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital Management (and member of the Opportunity Board of Governors), we honor a client and loan officer from each of the four regions where Opportunity serves the poor.

The six women and two men cited on pages two and three represent more than the personal transformation of a single client or community.

Their stories are a symbol of the work being done around the world as loan officers become mentors and counselors to a growing number of poor entrepreneurs.

By offering access to capital, as well as business training to start and expand small businesses, Opportunity International helps the poor provide for their families and live with dignity. This cycle of hope is changing the face of world poverty — one face and one family at a time.

»

(continued on page 2)

Of the estimated 500 million people who could benefit from microfinance services in developing countries, only 92.2 million had access to it in 2005. (Unitus)

5 Ask the Expert Chuck Day looks at estateplanning mistakes.

6 A Mother’s Dream 6

Growing together through Insight Trips.

Major mark for Opportunity in the Philippines For the first time in any country in a single year, Opportunity International financed more than 500,000 poor entrepreneurs in the Philippines in 2005. That mark represents a major milestone toward a long-standing target of financing 2 million microbusinesses world-wide in 2010.

“Over the last eight years, Opportunity’s program in the Philippines has grown from financing 30,000 microbusinesses to more than 500,000 annually — a compound annual growth rate of over 42 percent,” said Christopher Crane, President and CEO, Opportunity International.

Innovative operations and cuttingedge technology have sustained Opportunity's growth in the Philippines, which currently enjoys a 13 percent operational surplus, even after financial adjustments.

w w w. o p p o r t u n i t y. o r g

Clients and Loan Officers of the Year From the CEO’s desk

GLORIA NANONO KIGUNDU Africa Client of the Year

a grassroots level.”

Moses says that he loves the teaching aspect of his job best. “I want my clients to learn how to benefit from these loans. And I want them to be able to pay them back, so that we can give loans to others.

“I feel this job is a calling,” he says. “I am called to come and serve these poor people. I ride several kilometers to reach these people, because if we don’t move out and touch them and lift them up, then no one is going to do it.”

A

fter her husband died in 1997, Gloria Nanono Kigundu struggled to support her family by selling handmade crafts. Today, thanks to loans from Opportunity International, Gloria has expanded her business. She employs 25 Gloria Nanono Kigundu

CHRISTOPHER A. CRANE

P H O T O G RA P H S BY R O N L O N D E N

President & Chief Executive Officer

E

very May brings Mother’s Day — a chance to thank our mothers and

other special women by celebrating their unique nurturing role. Around the world, the essential work of mothers is remarkably similar.

Opportunity International is founded on the transformational abilities of empowered women. Eighty-six percent of our clients are women — most of them mothers, doing what is necessary to provide for their children. When we consider women such as Gloria Nanono Kigundu (page 2) and Doris Christopher (page 5), we quickly see that while their circumstances are as far apart as their locations, their stories are one story: A woman uses loans

people to help create a diverse selection of goods: from baskets, purses and hats, to tablemats and fabrics. By working alongside Gloria, each employee learns productive skills like how to turn banana fibers into valuable goods to sell in local markets around Kampala, Uganda.

In addition to paying university fees for her three children, Gloria has been able to take in four AIDS orphans — all because of the proceeds from her business.

As her business has grown, so has Gloria’s role as a leader in her community. She has often helped former employees start businesses of their own, multiplying yet again the transforming power of loans from Opportunity International.

MARILYN OBDANIELA Asia Client of the Year

E

ach day, basket weavers gather under shady trees in Tayabas, Philippines, to tirelessly craft their products. Marilyn employs more than 20 families that create more than 2,000 baskets each week for export, and every member of those families benefits from Opportunity International’s loans.

Marilyn’s business has grown steadily, including regular sales to customers in Europe and Britain. Closer to home, her business

to grow a business and becomes a mentor and role model for others.

Through the work of Opportunity International, we see that story in a thousand ways around the world. Each of

Marilyn Obdaniela

MOSES LUWEMBA Africa Loan Officer of the Year

D

espite traveling long distances to meet with clients, Moses Luwemba works passionately for his clients’ transformation.

these stories is yet another example of the power of microfinance — a work that

Moses Luwemba

cannot continue to grow without the shared vision of people like you.

Thank you, again, for helping to give the poor a working chance!

provides jobs and steady income to the families that work for her. Her commitment extends beyond her role as an employer: Marilyn plans to help every one of her weavers’ children complete their schooling.

“My goals are not only for my family, but also for my workers,” Marilyn says. “So it is always included in my goals to help these families.”

Through Opportunity International, Marilyn Obdaniela is weaving a better future for her whole community.

VANGIE BANATE Asia Loan Officer of the Year “I love the challenges,” he says. “Commercial banks do not come here. They want air-conditioned offices, but we come here to reach our clients at 2

I M PA C T | M a y / J u n e 2 0 0 6

E

ven though she is younger than most of her clients, Vangie Banate leads her weekly meetings with a calm that generates confidence, and with good reason: Vangie’s Trust Banks have maintained a 100-percent repayment rate.

With more than 400 clients in the southern Philippines, Vangie is sought out for her advice regarding a wide variety of businesses. But often, the questions cover other life challenges as well.

“I love to touch them,” she says, “to give

business handles 30 to 60 pairs per day.

Suren dreams of providing his two children with an opportunity to attend university. “The first plan is education,” he says. “My business has allowed me to help my children. I must do what I can.”

Through his commitment to build a profitable business, Suren provides a good service for his community and a good job for an expanding number of employees and their families.

members, encouraging them to grow their businesses and save their money. Neighbors often seek her advice in starting businesses of their own. She has even helped competitors, advising

ALEXANDER CHUDAKOV Eastern Europe Loan Officer of the Year

I Vangie Banate

them advice — financially, emotionally — to give them support.”

Sometimes the challenges of poverty can lead one of her clients to deep discouragement. “I tell them, ‘You must not give up. You must go on, because life is full of challenges, but it’s full of wonderful things as well.’

“I also give them support by praying for them,” she adds.

Vangie’s consistent support not only helps her clients build better businesses — but also helps them better their lives.

n a nation where banks are often viewed with deep suspicion, an ordinary loan transaction can challenge a poor Russian entrepreneur far beyond just filling out the paperwork.

“During the first trip to the bank,” he says about his clients, “they are nervous because they are not used to the bank environment.” Therefore, Alexander patiently guides his clients through

or years, Suren Avaguyan’s struggles went far beyond the physical challenge of harsh Russian winters. Working in a tiny wooden shop with a single, small space heater, it was hard for Suren to provide for his family. But loans from Opportunity International allowed Suren to expand his shoe-repair business to three locations around Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

Changing seasons are the busiest time for shoe repair, and thanks to loans from Opportunity International, the busy times are busier — and more profitable. Today, Suren’s

them on how to purchase materials for less.

Income from her growing business has allowed Alba Cerrato to better provide for her two children while she serves as a leader in her community.

ALBA CÁLIX Latin America Loan Officer of the Year

A

SUREN AVAGUYAN Eastern Europe Client of the Year

F

Alba Cerrato

Alexander Chudakov

the complexities of Russia’s difficult financial system. Often, a client’s first introduction to the idea of microcredit comes over tea and conversation.

For Alexander, the reward of his patience lies in seeing his 200 clients begin their economic transformation. He says his favorite part of being a loan officer is helping people create a business from nothing.

lba Cálix must sometimes ride a local bus six hours to and from her weekly Trust Bank meetings in rural Honduras. She brings a unique qualification to her role: Before Alba was a loan officer with Opportunity International, she was a client with a small business of her own selling women’s clothes.

Alba’s experience as a client gives her a unique perspective. Her regional manager explains that Alba understands her clients because she has been “in their skin.”

Before receiving their loans, most of her 275 clients could not afford to send their children to

ALBA CERRATO Latin America Client of the Year

W

Suren Avaguyan

orking with four employees, Alba Cerrato makes leather shoes in a small shop in her home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. With loans from Opportunity International, Alba has nearly tripled her shoe sales to about 20 dozen pairs per week. Her husband, Raol, has joined the business, selling the shoes in surrounding villages and even exporting them to Nicaragua.

In addition to providing work for her four employees — three of whom support families — Alba has become a leader in her community. As treasurer of her Trust Bank, she helps other

Alba Cálix

school. Alba has seen tremendous transformation in each of her clients’ lives, including parents who benefit from the education they can now provide for their children: Their children are helping them learn to read.

Driven by her own transformation, Alba has gone from being a poor entrepreneur to serving and leading others. ● w w w. o p p o r t u n i t y. o r g

3

Telling stories through art gatherings. interchange between her “It’s important to tell daughter and the daughter of stories in whatever way you the family they were visiting. can,” Dawn explains, because “You cannot fully describe to people respond to different [your children] the kinds of media. The strokes or experiences of a child colors in a painting, for growing up in those example, can draw people in circumstances. But when they and give them a desire to read experience it themselves, the accompanying story. And their world is forever getting the story about transformed.”

Opportunity to more people For the women in Dawn’s leads to more loans and more family, however, it’s more changed lives. than simply an experience; The experience has it’s a tradition. In fact, Dawn Feller and family changed Dawn as well.

Dawn’s mother, Lillian While she has met some of her subjects in Parsons, served on the board of the Women’s person, she also paints from still photographs Opportunity Fund with Dawn for several years. and likes to keep those photographs around her And Dawn’s oldest daughter, Erin, recently in her studio. “I enjoy ‘spending time’ with the returned from working with an Opportunity people [whose portraits] I paint. Telling their partner in Honduras. stories strengthens me.”

Dawn’s service to Opportunity shapes not only Dawn’s paintings bring the lives of her family’s worldview but also how she uses her Opportunity clients closer to the lives of own gifts: In addition to serving with the Americans who really aren’t so different.

Women’s Opportunity Fund and on Opportunity’s “People are hardworking everywhere,” she says.

Board of Directors, Dawn also shares her artistic “We have the same desires for our families. talents. From the beginning of her relationship Opportunity opens the world to people so they with Opportunity, her artwork has helped tell the can use their natural gifts to help others.” stories of those Opportunity International serves.

Empowering people to create a better life for In the early years, her sketches of clients served themselves and use their gifts in service to as Christmas card covers. As Opportunity has others is not only Dawn Feller’s passion, it’s grown, those sketches have turned into full-color Opportunity International’s commitment. ● paintings that are used at large-scale Opportunity C O U RT E S Y D AW N F E L L E R

W

hen Dawn Parsons Feller returned from Jamaica in 1980 after serving for two years with the Peace Corps, she continued working in international development. Her Peace Corps experience had shown her a variety of aid programs, so when she first heard about Opportunity International’s Women’s Opportunity Fund, she was intrigued.

“Opportunity is grassroots and deliberate in how they help people,” she explains. “Loan recipients don’t feel patronized. I was attracted to that.

“After I had my own children,” she adds, “I had even more of an affinity for mothers around the world who were struggling to feed and keep their children safe.”

Now serving as chairperson of the Women’s Opportunity Fund, Dawn feels strongly about serving women as the very poorest of the poor.

And she wants her own daughters to catch the same vision by traveling on an Opportunitysponsored trip.

“Being the mother of four young women, I am aware of the significant challenges for mothers and women worldwide. Opportunity is an effective program for transforming women and their families, socially, spiritually and economically. I want my children to see that.”

During an Insight Trip to Peru, Dawn and her family visited Lucelinda Fernandez Bautista — an Opportunity client who makes jewelry in the small home she shares with her husband and six children. Dawn was touched as she watched an

Mother’s Day 2006 “An educated woman is better able to provide for her family economically, and to be an advocate for her own children’s education.”

– Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States

Mother’s Day is a special occasion for Opportunity International. It’s a day when all of us — staff, supporters and board members — reflect on the lives of mothers around the world who have been economically, socially and spiritually transformed through Opportunity’s innovative microfinance products and services.

Dawn Feller, an Opportunity board member and artist, has beautifully captured a mother who exemplifies this journey of transformation.

Jennifer Mwesigye, a Ugandan client, adorns the 2006 Mother’s Day card.

This Mother’s Day, please take the opportunity to send a card that not only honors the special women in your life, but also advances the transformational journeys of poor mothers worldwide.

To send a card to a mother you love, visit our Web site www.opportunity.org/mothersday06.

w w w. o p p o r t u n i t y. o r g

4

ASK THE EXPERT

WOMEN’S OPPORTUNITY FUND For more information about the Women’s Opportunity Fund, visit www.womensopportunityfund.org

Women of Impact

Q A

QUESTION: What is the most common estate-planning mistake that you discover when you meet with supporters of Opportunity International?

CHUCK: By far the most common mistake involves a popular (and usually effective) estate-planning tool called a Revocable Living Trust. A Revocable Living Trust is designed to hold a person’s major financial assets during life, so that upon death, the assets in the Trust avoid the legal process of “probate.” Probate is the courtsupervised process of settling the estate of a decedent, and that process can be both time-consuming and expensive. By placing assets into a Revocable Living Trust, those assets avoid probate, passing directly to the desired beneficiaries without the time and expense of probate.

However, in order to be effective, a Living Trust must be both signed and funded. In far too many cases, while the Trust document is signed, the Trust itself is never funded with the person’s assets.

Funding of the Trust occurs when the desired assets are legally transferred into the Trust. For example, the Trust is funded with real estate when the owner signs a Deed that transfers the legal ownership of the property to the Trust.

If the Trust is never funded, the person’s assets will incur the time and expense of the probate process as if the Trust never existed. Fortunately, if the situation is discovered before the person dies or becomes incapacitated, the Trust can be properly funded and the probate-avoidance benefits of the Trust can be achieved.

For more information, contact Chuck Day, director of Planned Giving, at (800) 793-9455, x4136, or, email Chuck at cday@opportunity.org.

ach year, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans Inc., recognizes outstanding Americans who have overcome humble beginnings and are committed to assisting those less fortunate. This year, one of the nine recipients is Doris Christopher, founder and chairman of The Pampered Chef® and member of the Opportunity International Board of Advisors.

“Doris Christopher provides a modern-day example that hard work, perseverance and integrity are the cornerstones upon which success in our great nation and the realization of the American dream are built,” said Dennis R. Washington, president and CEO of the Horatio Alger Association.

Doris founded The Pampered Chef in 1980 in the basement of her Chicago home after looking for a way to get back into the workplace when her children entered school. A small loan of $3,000 set her on her way. Within two years, the company had earned $100,000 in sales. By 2005, more than 70,000 “kitchen consultants” had helped the company achieve more than $700 million in sales.

A few years after founding The Pampered Chef, Doris Christopher and her husband, Jay, learned about an organization their church helped support — one that gives women and men in developing countries a start in business with a small loan and a lot of faith. That organization was Opportunity International, and its emphasis on empowering women — through the Women’s Opportunity Fund — caught Doris’ attention.

“I was drawn to the similarities and the synergy between the Women’s Opportunity Fund and our own business mission,” Doris said.

“Both organizations offer the opportunity to begin small businesses with the hope of brighter futures for families. Struck by the parallels, I had a heart-felt need to get involved.”

E

For Doris, “getting involved” meant brainstorming creative partnerships between her own entrepreneurs (“kitchen consultants”) and women in other countries. The Direct Selling Association even awarded The Pampered Chef with the Industry Innovation Award in 1998 for a creative sales approach that benefited both The Pampered Chef and thousands of women linked with the Women’s Opportunity Fund.

“As an entrepreneur and mother,” Doris says, “I can identify with the challenges facing the women served by the Women’s Opportunity Fund. Yet adding these challenges to the context of poverty creates an entirely new dimension.

The hope and the perseverance of Trust Bank clients have inspired me and touched my heart.”

Doris and Jay are also early primary supporters of Opportunity’s LEAD Campaign.

Because 86 percent of the microentrepreneurs served by Opportunity are women, the LEAD Campaign represents a commitment to further build and encourage more women leaders.

In 1997, Doris and Jay traveled to the Dominican Republic with the Women’s Opportunity Fund, to meet some of the women whom their initiative was helping. “I thought I was well prepared,” Doris remembers about her visit to some of the poorest of the world’s poor.

“I could have read every book ever written, seen every video ever made and still not have been prepared for the experience to be touched by the dignity of the women there, as they searched for solutions to their problems. To sit with them in their tin huts, at their small tables and listen to their stories — the women I met had such energy and motivation! It was a privilege to be there.”

One woman helping other women make a difference in many lives, in every corner of the world — the story both of The Pampered Chef and of the Women’s Opportunity Fund. ● C O U RT E S Y D O R I S C H R I S T O P H E R

Chuck Day, Opportunity International’s Director of Planned Giving, answers questions on estate planning and charitable giving.

INSIGHT TRIP 2006 CALENDAR Partners with the Poor Insight Trip to Nicaragua Governors Family Week, Honduras Governors Insight Trip to Ghana

May 21-25, 2006 June 18-24, 2006 September 8-16, 2006

For more information, contact Wendy Cox at 800-793-9455 x4180 or wcox@opportunity.org.

5

I M PA C T | M a y / J u n e 2 0 0 6

BOARD OF GOVERNORS For more information about the Board of Governors, visit www.opportunity.org/BOG

A mother’s dreams IMPACT is a bimonthly publication of Opportunity International, 2122 York Road, Suite 340, Oak Brook, IL 60523 800.793.9455 www.opportunity.org

very mother has dreams for her children, and if she can help bring those dreams to fruition, she will. Christopher Moore’s mother is no different.

Twelve-year-old Christopher and his mother, Nicole, traveled to Peru in February 2004 with Opportunity International on a parent/child Insight Trip. Their companions included three other mothers and two fathers with their children.

As supporters of Opportunity International, the parents understand how a small loan can

E

C O U RT E S Y N I C O L E M O O R E

EDITOR Laura Reilly

C O U RT E S Y K AT I E M C E L R OY

Christopher and Nicole Moore

These Minnesota teens traveled with their parents to Peru for the experience of a lifetime!

transform families and entire communities. They want their children to catch the dream of helping those less fortunate.

Nicole has been a committed supporter of Opportunity International since 1993, continuing her involvement after her husband’s death from cancer in 2002. “My husband, Michael, had gone on an Insight Trip to Guatemala with our daughter when she was 12. I wanted to continue the legacy with Christopher.

“I want Christopher to understand the biblical teaching of ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’ We are very fortunate, and this trip provided an opportunity for him to see how we can

reach out to those less fortunate.”

The group’s three days in Lima were followed by some sightseeing in the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. While in Lima, they visited Opportunity loan clients — learning about their work and meeting their children. The language barrier was no barrier at all. “That’s when our kids were happiest: interacting with the other children,” Nicole says.

“Christopher noted that although the clients we visited had so little, they had their family, their faith and their sense of community, and they were extremely grateful for what they had. He said to me, ‘They seem so happy.’”

Katie McElroy agrees. She traveled to Peru with two of her daughters: Sarah, 16, and Ali, 13.

Her hope was that this trip would ignite in them a desire to serve the poor as they learned what life is like for so many others in the world. “When they returned home,” she says, “both Ali and Sarah asked, ‘Can we do it again next year?’”

As mothers, both Nicole and Katie long for their children to learn about the world and learn to care for the world. “They missed a few days of school,” Nicole says about the trip, “but the education they reaped was ten-fold.” ●

Save the date . . . for an exciting conference!

Board of Governors Annual Conference, October 27–28, 2006 in Chicago, IL For more information contact Wendy Cox at 800-793-9455 x 4180 or wcox@opportunity.org.

DESIGN & PRODUCTION Journey Group, Inc. THE OPPORTUNITY MISSION is to provide opportunities for people in chronic poverty to transform their lives.

OUR STRATEGY is to create jobs, stimulate small businesses and strengthen communities among the poor.

OUR METHOD is to work through indigenous partner organizations that provide small business loans, training and counsel.

OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL’S COMMITMENT is motivated by Jesus Christ’s call to serve the poor.

STATEMENT OF INTENT REGARDING POVERTY AND WOMEN Opportunity International–U.S. strives to reach the world’s poorest people through its microenterprise development programs.

Recognizing that the large majority of the world’s poorest are women and that they contribute decisively to the well-being of their families, Opportunity makes it a priority to support programs that serve the particular needs of women.

OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL SERVES women and men of any faith and no faith.

OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL HAS PARTNERS in Albania, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Egypt, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Macedonia, Malawi, Mexico, Montenegro, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. © 2006 by Opportunity International

w w w. o p p o r t u n i t y. o r g

6