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This quarter my Microfinance & Social Entrepreneurship class if focusing more on the entrepreneurship side (as opposed to the financial statement side) of microfinance organizations.  We’ve had speakers from organizations like the 10:10 Project and the Rocky Mountain Microfinance Institute (RMMFI) describe to us how they got their start and where they hope to go in the future.  Their plans for the future are the areas in which our class has decided to help.  As our final project we are to take a nebulous idea an MFI has for improvement, and turn it into a feasible plan.

The idea I’ve chosen to look at was proposed by the 10:10 Project.  They are a Denver-based MFI that does microlending and microgrants in Kenya.   Considering many of their borrowers are engaged in the agricultural sector, 10:10 would like to start a program of leasing heavy machinery to their borrowers.  Their skeletal plan is to obtain a tractor through donation from a company operating in Africa, then leasing that tractor out to a borrower who would then have the ability to sublet it to other community members.  “Skeletal” being the operative word here.

Though we were just assigned this project last week, I’ve been very excited about getting to work on it.  My background is in logistics, corporate partnerships and corporate social responsibility; the last of which is the path I think a company might follow to help 10:10.  Thus, my first task is to find and contact agricultural machinery companies that are active in the U.S. and Africa to see if this is something they might hypothetically pursue as an act of CSR, or something they could use as a marketing or promotional tool.  I will also need to explain to 10:10 the definitions of CSR and ascertain how willing they would be to let a corporation contribute to decision-making like, “who gets first use of the tractor?”

Outside of these administrative questions I’ll need to see where the tractor will come from, where it will be delivered (head office? branch?), who will provide maintenance should it break down, whether it is a tax-deductible donation, etc.  I think this is a great final project as it not only uses my skills learned in school but also those I’ve picked up before becoming a student.

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