First Experiences With Bangladesh and Grameen

Written on 01/08 at 03:16 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: philosophy Business environment brown micro credit

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This photo shows one of the Grameen center meetings

First Impressions of Bangladesh and Grameen Bank

When Jill and I landed in Dhaka on Sunday the city was shrouded in an intense fog that, we later learned, is quite common this time of year.  The scene when we walked outside the airport was pretty much what one would expect of a third world capital city: people everywhere; rickshaws competing for space with taxis and buses and all manner of other vehicles, human, animal and fossil-fuel powered; bustling markets; polluted air, etc.

We were taken to the Grand Prince Hotel and then immediately met up with our interpreter, Matin, who accompanied us to Grameen Bank’s head office.  Our first adventure took place when Muhaimeen hailed a bicycle rickshaw that, in just three chaotic minutes, brought us to the office.  Amazingly, Grameen, a Bank that exists for and is owned by the poor, has a 21 story head office, one of the tallest buildings in the area.  One can’t help but feel that Grameen is a kind of conglomerate for good: leveraging all the ingenuity, efficiency, scale and power of corporations while being driven entirely by the motive to eradicate the world of poverty, of pollution, of injustice.  The numbers are staggering: Grameen has 8 million borrowers, 97% of whom are women and all of whom are poor.  They have 20,000 employees, a staggeringly high repayment rate, 4 million bank accounts for non Grameen borrowers (all borrowers must open an account so that they can deposit their required weekly savings there), and have turned a profit all but three years of operation.  Lastly, they are 95% owned by the borrowers themselves--each borrower gets a share in the company--and 5% owned by the Bangladesh government.  In short, Grameen’s Nobel Peace Prize was well deserved.

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First Blog Post From Bangladesh--Actually, From the Bahrain Airport

Written on 01/03 at 03:09 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Business environment brown micro credit News

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This photo is from our first flight from Boston to London on 1-01-10

Jill and I are currently in the airport in Bahrain waiting for the third, and final, leg of our 28 hour trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh.  We left Boston on the first of January at 7:20 PM and arrived in London at 6:50 AM on the second.  As you can see from the photo above, we really lucked out in terms of our seating on the first flight: we got the seats that are usually reserved for flight attendants when they take naps on long flight; as a result, we had seats that could recline all the way down (even though we were in coach) and we had as much leg room as we could possibly want!  The flight went smoothly and, as I have been reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich--an absolutely fascinating history of Hitler’s Germany--the time passed rather quickly.  Our second flight took us from London to Bahrain, where we are currently in the midst of a seven hour layover before one final flight to Dhaka.

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Reducing “The High Cost of Being Poor”

Written on 08/15 at 06:11 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: brown micro credit

I originally wrote this article for The Capital Good Fund’s blog

Here’s a simple dilemma that plagues many American families: how does someone that lives from paycheck to paycheck and is without a credit score—and therefore without a credit card—afford to cover unexpected expenses between paychecks, such as fixing a flat tire, a doctor’s visit, or even regular expenses such as groceries and phone bills?  For higher-income families, this simply is not a problem.  For one thing, consider how often you use a credit card to make purchases; doing so enables you to delay paying for the item until you have received your paycheck and can afford it.  And of course, being higher-income by definition means that one can most likely already afford most expenses that occur between paychecks.  But in the case of lower and moderate-income families, a lack of access to credit combined with a lack of savings forces them to so-called payday lenders to make ends meet during the week.

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

Written on 05/06 at 03:15 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: environment featured brown micro credit Thesis

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 loans and other financial services to people not considered credit worthy by traditional financial institutions--can be used to advance environmental sustainability as well as social equality and empowerment in the United States.  The thesis starts out by explaining the philosophical approach that I applied to problem, namely, that to create a green economy in the US we need to ensure that all segments of society are engaged on environmental issues through entrepreneurship, jobs, investment opportunities and a sense that environmental problems are relevant to people’s lives.  The rest of the thesis explores how microfinance can accomplish those goals through 1) supporting ‘green collar entrepreneurs’--low and moderate-income individuals who want to start or expand green micro and small businesses, 2) by providing environmental education to all borrowers so that they are empowered to become civic leaders advocating for policy changes, organizing community events, and starting businesses that improve environmental quality, and 3) by providing loans for residential energy-efficiency and renewable energy upgrades to homeowners that wouldn’t ordinarily be able to partake in these types of programs due to problems with credit history or other barriers.

A key component of my thesis was working to develop an organization, The Capital Good Fund, that can implement these aforementioned ideas.  In particular, we are working to develop “green credit builder loans,” which are loans of $100-$300 that finance the installation and purchase of low-flow showerheads, energy-efficient light bulbs and programmable thermostats.  The borrower receives education on how to use the product and realize additional savings; she also sees reduced energy bills AND she gets to build her credit history as well.  In addition, we are working to develop a larger loan product ($3,000-$10,000) that will cover 100% of the up-front cost of doing residential energy-efficiency projects.  What’s unique about the loan is that it is structured such that the payments are equal to or less than the savings, meaning that at a minimum the loan is revenue neutral to the borrower.  Lastly, we are working with our business borrowers to green their businesses and we are developing an environmental literacy curriculum that can be taught to our borrowers. 

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The Commencement Speech That Never Was

Written on 04/30 at 01:42 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: philosophy brown News

Several weeks ago I was nominated--and then auditioned--to speak at the commencement ceremony for graduating graduate students from Brown.  Though I was not selected to be the speaker (I have some conspiracy theories on that front, I assure you!) I would like to share the text of the speech that I wrote, because I believe it captures the essence of how I feel about leaving the confines of the university and entering the ‘real world.’

New Opportunities in A Global Century of Innovation

At first glance it would seem that now is an inopportune time to leave the grounds of the university and venture out into the world.  After all, between rising unemployment, a financial system in disarray, and a whole host of other local, regional and global problems ranging from urban blight to climate change, it would seem that the prospects for putting our newly minted skills to work as teachers, researchers, entrepreneurs and employees of firms large and small are, to put it bluntly, dim.  Yet we are also entering a world rife with unprecedented opportunities for those willing and able to take advantage of them.  An explosion of innovation in information technology has made it easier for more people to collaborate to tackle poverty, to create new products and services, and to share thoughts, ideas and experiences.  The cost of renewable energy is falling.  Social entrepreneurs are creating self-sufficient businesses that solve social and environmental problems.  The list is seemingly endless, and I believe that regardless of our particular field of study, as graduates of one of the finest universities in the nation, we are in a unique position to seek out these opportunities and apply our intellectual and financial capital toward them.

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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…

continue reading »

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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