Please join us for an exciting interactive program guaranteed to increase your understanding and appreciation microfinance in a new way.
Since 2008, WIL has funded 33 banks in 19 countries. These banks have provided financial services to low-income women who had no other access to funds. The newly empowered women were able to change the trajectory of not only their own lives, but also the lives of their families and their communities.
Our guest speaker, Mr. Steve Mark, CFA, CAP, is Board Chair of the MicroLoan Foundation, USA. MicroLoan Foundation is an innovative women’s empowerment and poverty alleviation charity committed to providing the poorest women in sub-Saharan Africa with the tools and skills necessary to work their own way out of poverty. Mr. Mark will introduce us to the MicroLoan Foundation’s innovative social microfinance model and will describe a variety of different strategies utilized by other successful microfinance organizations. We will learn the different ways microfinance can work, the different populations microfinance can help, and the different microfinancing strategies being utilized today.
In addition to our keynote presentation, Judy Kornfeld, our Microfinance Committee Chair, will briefly review WIL’s past and bring us up to date on WIL’s present microfinance programs. Both the world and microfinance are changing, and it is essential that we understand the changes and the most effective ways to respond to them.