Poverty Prevention Proselytizing

For Christmas, my family likes to avoid the typical conspicuous consumption that overtakes so many people that time of year. Instead, we either re-gift, make something, or donate to good causes in each other's name. I chose to make donations this year and thought I'd take the time to write about the organization I donated to, a Seattle-area non-profit called Unitus. I heard about them through Guy Kawasaki's post titled, "The Gift of Giving." Unitus is involved in the microfinance industry, but not in the way that most microfinance institutions (MFIs) are. Realizing that there were already many overlapping MFIs and wanting to maximize their own impact, the Unitus founders opted to help fund existing MFIs and help them grow into self-sustaining organizations, not reliant solely on donor funding as so many MFIs are. They estimate that their MFI partners were spending 80 percent of their time fundraising (!), and as a result of partnering with Unitus, they claim their MFI partners are growing (in terms of clients served) about eight times faster than the microfinance industry as a whole.

There's a lot more information about them on their site. If you're interested in getting involved in microfinance, you should check them out.