Schwab’s microfinance program expects to raise $10 million in 5 years

Microfinance Monitor, May 23, 2010: Schwab Charitable has announced it has signed donors to raise $10,000,000 in guarantees from their gift funds in the last one year.
According to its latest Microfinance Guarantee Quarterly Report, Schwab Charitable said since micro-loans are promptly repaid by individual borrowers and “recycled” back to other borrowers, Schwab Charitable expects the $10,000,000 total commitment to result in more than 300,000 micro-loans over the next five years.
“In just the first year alone, we are helping tens of thousands of struggling entrepreneurs begin to work their way out of poverty,” said Kim Wright-Violich, President of Schwab Charitable, while discussing the program at Microfinance USA 2010 conference in San Francisco.

The Schwab Charitable Double Give Program, the first of its kind among donor-advised fund organizations, allows donors to recommend that up to ten percent of their Charitable Gift Account balance be used to help guarantee microfinance loans in the developing world while donated assets continue to be invested for potential growth and future granting. The guarantees are managed by Grameen Foundation.

As of March 31, Grameen Foundation had closed guarantee transactions based on Schwab Charitable-backed commitments to benefit an estimated 116,468 borrowers in Egypt, Indonesia, and the Philippines. “We know that microfinance can have a transformative effect in many regions of the world,” said Alex Counts, President of Grameen Foundation. “A $200 loan can literally change someone’s life, providing entrepreneurs with the small amounts of capital they need to build businesses, pulling their families up by the bootstraps, and breaking the cycle of poverty.”