Portfolios of the Poor tells a story you won’t hear from a typical microfinance charity: Sankar was a landless, illiterate rickshaw driver, whose wife had Grameen membership. They had borrowed from Grameen Bank a few times – in fact one loan had helped him buy his rickshaw. Suddenly his wife told him they would have…
The GiveWell Blog
All Microfinance charities Posts
Evaluating microfinance charities
When we think about microfinance, we don’t ask “which person” or “which story” to fund; we think about which organization to fund. As explained at our discussion of microfinance myths, we don’t think the traditional story donors are told is accurate. We do think microfinance could be helping people in other ways – or hurting…
Microfinance where access already exists
A key argument for supporting microfinance is that “Millions of families are … without access” to financial services. Families may often lack access to credit, but they don’t always – and microfinance institutions may not always be clear on which situation they’re dealing with. A 1999 paper by Brett Coleman (PDF) aims to examine the…
Village Phone: Another great story under the microscope
Ever since I heard about the Grameen Foundation’s Village Phone program, I’ve been optimistic. The program involves helping people in remote villages run pay-for-use cellphone services: they get their cellphone, and a loan to buy it, via Grameen, then charge other villagers to use it. It’s an approach to fighting poverty that’s (a) relatively new;…
6 myths about microfinance charity that donors can do without
Is microfinance a good bet for a donor? We feel the answer is complicated, and that the many extreme exaggerations of microfinance’s impact get in the way of making an informed decision. This post summarizes the differences between the stories you’ve probably heard and the reality according to available evidence. Myth #1: the way microfinance…
What’s different about Kiva
Why has Kiva been singled out for so much criticism lately (see GiveWell Board member Tim Ogden’s summary)? Part of the answer is that Kiva has arguably been misleading donors – but that can’t be the full answer. David Roodman’s original post could never have come about without the fact, as Mr. Roodman puts it,…