At this time I feel that the first phase of Global Capacity might be to help finance the start-up businesses of Rwandese people, namely villagers living in moderate to extreme poverty. I have been particularly interested in the field of microfinance and the concept of lending money to the poor so they can begin businesses of their own and start to transform their lives and their communities. Kiva is a very exciting and detailed microfinance site. It allows you to choose a certain entrepreneur in a developing country and invest in their business. After the money has been raised for that business, a local bank (which closely monitors the entrepreneur) gives them the loan. Then the entrepreneur pays the loan back, and in time the investor gets their money back. I became an investor for a woman in Cameroon named Neh Bertha.
I don't know if Global Capacity would work in the same way that Kiva does, but it's a model I would like to consider. We may just help to donate start-up costs for businesses, and not expect for them to pay us back. I would also like to help teach the potential Rwandese entrepreneurs principles of business and self-sustainability.
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Hi, I found your page through a friend on facebook. I spent last summer working at Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and learned a lot from Muhammed Yunus about really unique business models, specifically for microfinance. He calls it "social business." Grameen, for example, is a regular bank, completely self-sustaining, and is also owned by the poor borrowers. Anyway, I could talk about microfinance and social business forever, and I realize you're just in the idea stage, but please do email me (hadleyrose.1@gmail.com) if you have basic questions because I'd love to contribute to a project like this.
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