Commentary
SUCCESSFUL MICROCREDIT GROUP SHUTS ITS DOORS
By Seattle Business Magazine July 2, 2010
Unitus, an organization that has helped microcredit organizations flourish across the developing world, is shutting its doors. The organization, which helps provide financing and management consulting to microfinance institutions, said it will let go of its staff of 40 people, including 25 in Seattle, 15 in Bangalore and two in Nairobi.
Over its 10 years in existence, Unitus has directed $40 million in donations and $30 million in investment capital to stratetic microfinance partners who have, in turn, channeled $2 billion in loan capital to more than 12 million small borrowers with the goal of helping to alleviate poverty by financing small entrepreneurs.
We now feel that there is greater need for our capital and energy in other areaswhich we are currently exploringaligned with our overarching mission of alleviating poverty through opportunity,” said Joseph Grenny, chair of the board for Unitus.
The organization hired Brigit Helms last October saying in a press release at the time that “the field of microfinance faces some of its greatest challenges–and opportunities and that Helms was well suited to respond to those challenges.
Under Helms’s leadership, Unitus was drafting an ambitious plan to promote the development of an entire financial infrastructure in the developing world based on the use of cell phones to handle financial transactions including transmitting, saving and borrowing money.
The organiztion also planned to help certain microfinance institutions expand into larger financial institutions capable of providing small business loans.
It is unclear why Unitus’s board shifted direction and chose, instead, to shut down the institution.
Unitus is one or a large cluster of microfinance institutions based in Seattle. Still active in Seattle are Elevar Equity, a for-profit microfinance investment group spun out of Unitus, Global Partnerships, which backs microfinance organizations in Latin America, Vittana, which channels small loans to students in developing countries and The Village Net, which partners with women’s groups in African villages.