During the course of April 2012, colleges and high schools across the United States will celebrate “The Month of Microfinance”. This is a great opportunity to answer all those people who often ask us “well, how do I start this whole micro credit financing thing?”. If you want to promote Microfinance and Microcredit here are a few tips and guidelines that will help you start your own Microfinance club in your school, college and workplace or just for your family and friends.
Establish a mission, objectives and strategy – The first step is figuring exactly what you want before going out and trying to get it. Otherwise you might try to achieve too many objectives and end up with none. Start with the big questions – Do you want to raise awareness to the subject? Have a more active role perhaps? Maybe actually help small businesses near you get loans? Once you figure out the “What”, it will be much easier to figure out the “How”. It’s a good idea to write an organized business plan listing the goals (short & long term), the club’s structure, activities and resources needed (we’ll get to those soon).
Don’t do it alone - The more people are involved in the project, the more you can get done - that’s no rocket science. Use message boards online forums and social networks. If you’re a student ask professors in relevant courses (e.g. economy) to talk before class. Talk to as many people as you can - it costs you nothing and there is only something to gain. Getting the faculty on board is the key: they have influence within the administration, with the students and of course within the community.
Formulate the club’s activities - If establishing a mission is the “What”, now we are talking about the “How”. For example, if raising awareness is your objective than try and organize professional panels, ask your professors or teachers to dedicate a lesson to the subject or even go the extra mile and ask the administration to add a complete course (of course after showing there’s a demand for one). Organize social events and invest in media such as newspapers and social network sites. And of course link yourself to similar clubs, especially in your area. It will help reduce costs for events, increase the exposure of the activities and of course be a ground for sharing ideas & valuable experiences.
Resource assessment - Once you formulated your activities, it’s time to figure out how to turn them from ideas to reality. Basically it’s all about figuring out your logistic, financial needs and the ways to answer those needs (charging a membership fee, organized a donation event, etc’).
Delegate responsibilities - Remember all those people we found? Now it’s time to make them work. Delegate responsibilities according to the strengths and weaknesses of the members. It’s not a good idea to put the shy kid in charge of public relations and the poor speller on ad writing. With the right delegation life will be a lot easier.
Good luck y’all.
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Tags: business tips and tricks, micro credit, micro financing, united states
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