Microfinance, Microfinance and more Microfinance

Written on 03/26 at 12:44 AM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Business environment brown micro credit Thesis

Microfinance has completely invaded my life of late.  My thesis, titled ‘Green Microfinance: A Blueprint for Advancing Environmental Sustainability and Social Equality in the United States,’ is about 80% complete, and obviously deals with the various ways in which microfinance can be used for advancing environmental aims.  In addition, the non-profit that I co-founded, The Capital Good Fund, is in the middle of a pilot phase, and I have been very busy speaking to and meeting with applicants.  Lastly, I have been working with my business partner, Mike, and the company we founded, The Capital Good Group, Inc. so launch an innovative financing mechanism that covers 100% of the up-front cost of doing residential energy-saving upgrades and is, in effect, a microfinance program as well.  I haven’t written here in a while, and I want to provide some updates on these projects, as they are all intimately related despite the fact that one is a masters thesis, the other is a non-profit, and the last is a for-profit.

The Capital Good Fund
We have made a lot of exciting progress recently.  First, we just launched our new web site, www.capitalgoodfund.org.  On the site, you can learn more about microfinance, see our community partners, check out the latest updates on our program, make a tax-deductible donation, download a loan application or find out how else to get involved with us.  We are really excited to have the site up, and we have already received inquiries from potential borrowers through the site!

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A New Logo For Two New Endeavors!

Written on 01/26 at 09:41 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Business environment brown micro credit News

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As soon as Mike and I incorporated our environmental services company--The Capital Good Group, Inc.--on January 1st, we wanted to get to work branding ourselves as a socially minded, mission driven company dedicated to serving people and the planet.  Our first step was to hire Douglas Bonneville, owner of BonFX, the company that designed and built this web site, to create a logo for both The Capital Good Group, as well as The Capital Good Fund.  The idea was to develop a logo that would convey the concept of a “triple bottom line” (social, environmental and profitability); that would be applicable to environmental consulting, microfinance and any other endeavors we undertake using the ‘Capital Good’ name, brand and concept. 

After several rounds with Doug, we finally settled on the above logo.  Mike and I really thrilled with the way in which it conveys the concept of three without being oppressive about it, and how the shapes in the logo can be viewed as trees, or a family, or just interesting geometric shapes.  Read on to see the logo for the Fund.

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Winning a Grant, and Other Exciting News

Written on 12/24 at 08:52 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

Filed under: Business News

Winning a $500 Grant
Two days ago, as I was sitting in my apartment and looking out the window at the snow piled on the branches and walkways of Providence, I received a call informing me that I had won a $500 grant from dosomething.org for The Capital Good Fund.  Every week, Do Something selects a social entrepreneur that is under the age of 24 to win a $500 grant.  I applied, along with the rest of the Capital Good Fund team, several months ago, and I had long ago forgotten about the grant.  Although the money itself isn’t much--it will provide about half of a citizenship loan--it also provides our project with great exposure, gives us access to more networking, and provides us with additional, and much needed, technical assistance.  Receiving the grant also gave me a boost of confidence as I enter a very busy of time during which I start a company, launch a non-profit and write my masters thesis.

Incorporating The Capital Good Group, Inc
In other exciting news, Mike and I finally incorporated our environmental consulting company last Friday.  The Capital Good Group, Inc., will officially be a corporation in the state of Rhode Island as of January 1, 2009.  The reason why we finally decided to incorporate is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that a lot of people are getting into the game, and we don’t want to be left behind.  Specifically, we found out that the people in Berkeley, California, who came up with the bond model--wherein the up-front cost of doing efficiency or renewable energy upgrades is covered by a low-interest loan from the City, and the loan is paid back in the form of a property tax add-on equal to or less than the savings from the installation--started their own company.  The company, Renewable Funding, LLC, helps municipalities implement the bond model.  Well, I saw an article saying that the model, if implemented nationwide, has the potential to be worth $240 billion, and at the moment there is only one company doing it.  Hence the urgency to get it on the game.

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A Financing Mechanism Powerful Enough to Catalyze the Green Economy

Written on 12/07 at 09:02 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

Filed under: Huffington Post Business environment Renewable Energy

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.

Despite the recent (and undoubtedly temporary) drop in energy prices, the fact remains that because of the economic downturn and an aging housing stock, many families will struggle to heat their homes this winter.  At the same time, the need to create jobs, stimulate the economy, create sound investment opportunities and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions has never been greater.  There is no silver bullet for solving all these challenges, but an innovative financing mechanism for renewable energy and energy efficiency could go a long way toward putting the country on the right track.  Here’s how it works.

Homeowners Need Efficiency Upgrades--But Can’t Afford Them
Imagine you are a low-income homeowner in Providence, Rhode Island. Chances are your home is 100 years old: the walls are barely insulated, the windows single-paned, and the boiler a relic of the 1950s.  In the winter your heating bills are such that you can hardly afford to run the heat, often leaving your family shivering.  And even though a $10,000 investment would dramatically lower those heating costs and pay for itself within 5 years, you can hardly pay for the mortgage--let alone $10,000 in efficiency upgrades.

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Too Big To Fail, Too Powerful to Regulate

Written on 12/06 at 01:49 PM by Andy Posner 2 comments

Filed under: Business environment

The Big Three Dama
I’ve been watching the Big Three bailout drama with increasing dismay.  First, the executives from GM, Ford and Chrysler flew in private jets to Washington for a hearing, and then proceeded to beg for $25 billion--without offering a plan as to how the money would help them get out of their present mess.  Congress told them to come back with a plan, and suggested that next time they find a more plebeian mode of transportation. So back the executives came this week, humbly carpooling in the poorly made cars their companies produce, with more detailed plans for restructuring.  The CEOs magnanimously offered to work for $1 a year if they received the bailout money (nevermind that the bulk of their salary comes from stock options and bonuses, not salary).  They presented a plan for laying off workers, closing plants, focusing on core brands, and lowering health care and other costs.  Congress wasn’t exactly impressed, and polls show Americans are not in favor of yet another bailout for yet another mismanaged corporation.

But here’s the problem: the Big Three are just too big to fail.  They directly employ roughly 100,000 people in the United States, but their suppliers across the country employ hundreds of thousands more, and the ripple effect would send our already reeling economy into a tailspin.  It now looks like the auto companies will get their money, albeit only half of what they were originally seeking.  The same “too big to fail” logic was used to justify the bailout of AIG and several other financial institutions.  And, like it or not, in a “centralized” economy, the logic is quite sound.  What concerns me is that “too big to fail” usually means “too powerful to regulate.”

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Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States

Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!

My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…

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A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?

Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development.  To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…

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Tonight, the Oneness of Things

It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come.  I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…

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