The Marketplace Magazine January/February 2011

January February 2011

Where Christian faith gets down to business

Microfinance:

Despite criticism, the vigor endures

She drains the swamp that breeds terrorists Losing his job turned the world upside down A second chance led to Second Cup 1

The Marketplace January February 2011

Roadside stand

All the news that’s fit, they print November was good for us, media-wise, especially when it came to the New York Times.

The prestigious journal carried major articles on two longtime MEDA partners. “Can Microlending Save Haiti?” by Daniel Costello featured the work of MEDA’s Haiti partner Fonkoze and its director Anne Hastings, who was a speaker at the Calgary convention earlier in the month. Then, Nicholas Kristof featured the work of our Pakistan partner, the Kashf Foundation, which we have reprinted in full on pages eight and nine of this magazine. On a different note, the Times also carried a front page article on Manitoba’s successful immigration program. It quoted longtime MEDA member Arthur DeFehr, whose Palliser Furniture is renowned for its work with refugees and immigrants, and is sometimes described as a “mini-United Nations.”

We’re pleased to welcome Mike Miller to the MEDA family as Regional Director, Resource Development. He will represent MEDA in the U.S. Mike Miller midwest region from his home office in Kansas. Miller comes to MEDA with an extensive background in sales, marketing and financial advising. Since 1991, he has worked for Mennonite Cover photo (Tajikistan)

by Carl Hiebert

Mutual Aid in Goshen, Indiana.

He began his career at MMA as Regional Sales Manager/ Regional Vice‑President and stayed in this role for over nine years. From 2000 to 2010 he has been Regional Representative/Vice President with the Mennonite Foundation/MMA Trust Company.

well be that public scrutiny may soon increase, says The Economist.

Let’s hear it for journalists: Where do ethics begin? Maybe with good reporting. According to the late American ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr, the first question of ethics is not “What is right?” or even “What is good?” but rather “What is going on?” Theologian Scott Bader-Saye comments, “Before we can apply a law or seek a goal, we must first interpret what is happening around us. Thus, reading the signs of the times is itself a moral act.” (Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear)

Faith, hope, charities: Recent U.S. surveys show that nonprofit organizations tend to enjoy significant public trust.

In an American Express survey, 70 percent of respondents said they trusted charities more than business or government to “address some of the most pressing issues of our time.”

Another survey, this time of wealthy people, showed that 94 percent trusted charities, while business was trusted by only 64 percent and government a measly 32 percent.

Other surveys beyond the U.S. have confirmed similar opinions. In reporting the findings, The Economist cautioned that “What is less clear is how far the do-gooders’ status is deserved and how far their efficiency can be measured.”

Notably, the performance of charities is less stringently monitored than that of business and government. For example, many charities in the past have been judged by the amount of overhead they spend on raising funds. “This proved a poor guide,” the magazine says, “as low overheads may mean not thrift but ill-paid (and incompetent) staff.” In any case, tools like the internet are making it easier to disseminate performance data and it could

The Marketplace January February 2011

Faking it. Half of what most people do each day is “fake work,” according to Gaylan Nielson, co-author of the book Fake Work: Why People are Working Harder Than Ever but Accomplishing Less, and How to Fix the Problem. “Fake work is work that wastes everyone’s time because it isn’t neces-

2

sary to get the company any closer to achieving its goals,” he writes. He claims that 90 percent of employees feel unsatisfied with their output; two-thirds complain of duplication of effort because of poor coordination; and half have no idea how their work supports the company’s goals.

Among the chief culprits: unclear objectives, meaningless meetings; pointless paperwork; and e-mail overload. (Globe & Mail) What’s in a name? We thought the name MEDA was pretty much our exclusive property. Apparently not. It’s also the abbreviation of a psychedelic drug whose full name is 3‑methoxy‑4,5‑ethylenedioxyamphetamine. According to Wikipedia, only scant data exists about the pharmacological properties. Most troubling to us was the assertion that “MEDA produces few to no effects.” Wouldn’t want that to get around. — WK

In this issue

6

The vigor endures A few media outlets have sensationalized difficulties in some Indian loan programs. MEDA staff debunk the inaccuracies and show why microfinance is still a powerful tool to beat poverty.

8

A New York Times reporter visited a longtime MEDA partner and discovered that jobs and economic development are a superior way to combat extremism. By Nicholas D. Kristof

Unleashing entrepreneurship in Calgary. Page 12

10

Roadside stand Soul enterprise Reviews Soundbites News

12

20 16

Volume 41, Issue 1 January February 2011 The Marketplace (ISSN 0199-7130) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates at 532 North Oliver Road, Newton, KS 67114. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2011 by MEDA. Editor: Wally Kroeker Design: Ray Dirks

Fired!

He knew it was going to be a bad day when his boss said, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” It turned out to be the worst of times, and the best of times. By D. Merrill Ewert

Departments 2 4 18 20 22

Fighting terrorism — with microloans

Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 32C E Roseville Road, Lancaster, PA 17601-3681.

Second chance; Second Cup A former panhandler wowed MEDA’s annual convention with his personal story of how he overcame addiction, unearthed hidden potential and “unleashed entrepreneurship.”

MEDA’s “state of the union” While the global economy continued to wobble in 2010, MEDA enjoyed robust performance, helping 9.4 million families in 45 countries to live healthier, happier lives. By Allan Sauder

To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org For editorial matters contact the editor at wkroeker@meda.org or call (204) 956-6436 Subscriptions: $25/year; $45/two years.

Postmaster: Send address changes to The Marketplace 32C E Roseville Road Lancaster, PA 17601-3681

Published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), whose dual thrust is to encourage a Christian witness in business and to operate business-oriented programs of assistance to the poor. For more information about MEDA call 1-800-665-7026.

Web site www.meda.org

3

The Marketplace January February 2011

Feel guilt about success?

Should businesspeople feel guilty if they are successful?

Not at all, says one businessman I know, adding that there’s nothing wrong with making a decent profit. But some businesspeople I have spoken to say they get the impression from their churches that they should feel bad if they make money — that there’s something wrong with making a healthy profit.

Now, we’re not talking about salaries in the tens of millions of dollars here, like the CEOs of some huge companies. But we are talking about making more money than average. However, while some businesspeople have a better than average income, they also have much larger than average debts and obligations — the amount of money some of them owe would take your breath away. Says one businessman: “When people look at me, they see the factory, my 200 employees, my vacation to the south each winter. They think I must be incredibly rich. And I am — on paper. But the truth is that I’ve never been in such debt in my whole life.”

He adds that to buy his business, he had to sign over everything he owned to the bank to secure the loan — house, car, pension. “If my business went under, I’d lose everything,” he says. “And I could lose it all tomorrow — we’re always just a few bad decisions or the loss of a couple of key customers away from being in big trouble.”

When it comes to success in business for Christians, the rest of us seem to have ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, we admire them, but on the other we seem to resent them for it. At the very least, we seem to expect them to assuage their guilt at becoming successful by driving older cars, living in modest houses and never talking about their vacations. All that, plus making large contributions to worthy causes.

Sometimes it seems the highest tribute we can give businesspeople would be the one seen in the headline of a Christian magazine: “He gave away a fortune to follow Christ.” What about all those who keep their fortunes, but also follow Christ?

Contrast this to how we feel about artists, musicians or authors. When they reach the pinnacles of their careers, with successful shows, concerts or books, we celebrate their success.

Articles are written about them in church periodicals, and they are often also asked to share at churches and conferences. We want to know: How do they integrate their faith and art? How do they use their gifts for God? This rarely happens to successful businesspeople. Why the difference? I think one reason is the amount of money involved.

The fact is that businesspeople usually make more money than most artists, musicians and authors — fields where lack of money is often viewed as the hair shirt that validates the end product. But lots of successful businesspeople were also once living on the edge, putting in 16 hours a day, seven days a week, when they were starting out. They can also talk a lot about sacrifice. They can talk about the things they gave up and the prices they paid to produce their “art” — in this case, their businesses. They can also talk about how they integrate their faith and life and use their gifts for God. Should businesspeople feel guilty for being successful? No more than the successful artist, musician or author. Everyone has to answer to God about how we used the resources we received in the course of our life’s work. Some people just have more money to be accountable for.

— John Longhurst

The Marketplace January February 2011

4

Making it work “Making a business work is incredibly satisfying and exciting. Even when a business fails, a resilient entrepreneur gets up and goes at it again having learned from their first experience.

Business is an incredible process where creativity, tenacity, risk and hard work can bring financial fruit and a broad impact.

“God instructs us in Genesis 1 to be fruitful and multiply, to work the land, to create and increase. I believe business falls under this mandate — and what an amazing process to be involved in!” — Mark Plummer, a coffee trader who works with Thai growers to get their high quality but unknown coffee onto the world market

So

All

Ma

yE at

Paying the SAME Here’s an unusual way to run a business — let the customer decide if, and how much, to pay.

Members of the Colorado MEDA Chapter enjoyed a unique dining experience when they met at the SAME Café in Denver. The eatery (whose acronym means So All May Eat) aims to “build a healthy community by providing a basic need of food in a respectful and dignified manner to anyone who walks through the door.” It is unique in its lack of a set menu as well as set prices.

“Daily selections are made using fresh, organic ingredients, and funded by the donations of patrons,” says the restaurant’s website. “Instead of a cash register, a donation box is available for one to pay what they felt their meal was worth, or to leave a little more and help out someone less fortunate. If a diner does not have sufficient money to leave, they are encouraged to exchange an hour of service. Our philosophy is that everyone, regardless of economic status, deserves the chance to eat healthy food while being treated with dignity.”

For more information, go to www.soallmayeat.org

One man’s philosophy In a seminar at MEDA’s Calgary convention (see report, pages 12-15) Myrl Nofziger offered a quick summary of the business philosophy that has guided him through 43 years in the real estate industry: • Work long, hard hours, but work smart.

• Be in control of your schedule.

• Maintain healthy cash reserves; do not over-borrow.

• Always make payments on time or ahead of schedule.

• Maintain good relations with those you do business with.

• Full disclosure in all activities; do not railroad people in any fashion.

• If there is a discrepancy, always err on the side of the employee or client.

Overheard:

5

Bubbly devotion Far be it from us to present strong drink as an enterprise of the soul, but we were intrigued by a report in Christian Century on the origins of high-end bubbly. It seems that the French beverage known as champagne was created by a teetotaling Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Perignon. Through a combination of severe pruning and sparingly fertilizing his vines, he developed a grape that yielded less juice but produced a highly concentrated wine with distinctive properties. “Although he didn’t imbibe himself,” the magazine says, “he was fanatical about producing the best wine, seeing his work as an expression of his devotion to God.”

“There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

The Marketplace January February 2011

Microcredit: The vigor endures While some press reports have played up failures in India, the heart of the industry remains strong

D

and that those who killed themselves had much greater problems. The mother of one victim, for example, acknowledged that her son was in deep hawk to loan sharks, not the microlender to whom he owed a pittance.

More reasoned accounts acknowledged that rapid growth had over-heated the industry as lenders let their guard down. There were clear cases of overindebtedness as borrowers had taken out loans for consumer goods (rather than to build their tiny businesses, as the industry intends). Some clients had gone from one agency to the next, larding their debt with one loan after another. Without formal credit bureaus, they managed to get away with it — for a while.

Other reports laid some blame on sexism. “Anything that empowers women or gives them some control over the financial tools is likely to be resented by some parts of a conservative rural population,” said one industry advisor.

Some observers blamed the backlash against the microlending industry on government bureaucrats whose own programs have not matched the private sector’s ability to help the poor.

In yet another scenario, the success of microfinance itself may have sparked problems. Some envious loan sharks reportedly disguised themselves as MFIs and gave the whole industry a Microloan client Diego Treminio and one of bad name when they resorted to his daughters stand before the patio he built strong-arm collection tactics. MFIs with increased income from his farm. At right, know better than that, realizing Veronica Herrera, CEO of MiCredito, MEDA’s microfinance program in Nicaragua. that developing a close relation-

iego Treminio leans back in his rocking chair and gestures to the expansive patio that looks out onto the Nicaraguan hills. Whenever he makes money he invests in one of three things — his house, his farm or his children’s education.

On all three scores he has done well. Besides the patio, he has added several rooms to his house. He has tripled the size of his farm to 65 acres. Several children have graduated from university.

This, he says, is because of help from MEDA — both its sesame project that operated for several years, and its microfinance program, MiCredito, of which Treminio is a client.

He can’t say enough good about MiCredito and the way affordable credit can transform a small farm. He knows there are other microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Nicaragua, but he wants nothing to do with them. “They abuse the producer,” he says bluntly, “and they charge higher interest.”

On the other side of

the world, microfinance is not garnering quite so much praise.

Media reports in late fall painted a grim picture of certain MFIs in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

One of the more extreme reports claimed that a number of microfinance clients had committed suicide after being hounded by lenders for loan repayments.

Later reports noted that the blame was seriously misplaced,

The Marketplace January February 2011

6

high because they earn far more when they put the loans to work to grow their tiny businesses.

Microcredit needs to be profitable enough to be sustainable, explains Julie Redfern, MEDA’s vice-president of financial services. “MEDA does not support organizations that charge usurious rates,” she says. “We endorse rates (about 36 percent) that are competitive within the local market context and are fair to clients.

No self-respecting I would compare in our industry MFI wants clients to rates to local, unsecured credit card rates, borrow more than rather than American payday loans they need, or can or sub‑prime mortgages.” comfortably repay In India, a government program offered loans that purported to charge less interest, but many clients complained that this didn’t include the necessary bribes, which ended up pushing the actual cost much higher.

ship with clients serves everyone best in the long run.

In any event, as the problems mounted the local microfinance industry spun into crisis. Many borrowers simply stopped making their payments, in effect going on strike. Funding for new loans dried up.

Microfinance leaders in other parts of the world

chafed at the reckless reporting and the innuendo it created. Feeling the sting of guilt by association, they hastened to reassure their own constituencies that in most cases, microfinance remains a highly effective tool to lift people out of poverty. MEDA folk were among those who felt unjustly slandered.

MEDA didn’t invent microfinance, but it has been in the game for a long time, even longer than the vaunted Grameen Bank. Like every MFI, MEDA has gone through its own learning curve. When mistakes were made, it learned from them and fashioned a sound approach to financial services that would be mimicked by others. As someone has said, “What MEDA does today, the rest of the development industry does tomorrow.”

As far back as the 1980s, MEDA was repeating the mantra that microfinance was not to be seen as a panacea, given the multidimensional nature of poverty. Affordable credit will not in itself lift people out of poverty.

But it is a highly effective tool when done in tandem with market access and training.

While MEDA is not directly involved in any of the problem areas in India, staff have responded to some of the chief areas of concern.

Overindebtedness A bedrock principle of MEDA’s micro-lending has been to discourage clients from borrowing more than they need, or can comfortably repay. No one wants clients to get in over their heads. Borrowing too much, or double-dipping with other MFIs, will not help anyone. Nonetheless, people are prone to this, especially in consumer finance situations, whether in Canada or India. Also, the lack of a credit bureau (see below) makes overindebtedness a real possibility. Thankfully, more and more countries are establishing these.

Interest rates An MFI’s interest rate is a direct reflection of local administration costs, which can vary depending on location.

In many areas rates can be 36 percent, not much above what North Americans pay on their credit cards. Village money lenders (loan sharks) charge up to three times more. The seemingly high microfinance interest reflects the fact that it is expensive to deliver and collect loans weekly in rural areas. Clients, however, don’t think it is

Consumer lending MEDA does not promote consumer lending, but rather productive lending. Its due diligence raises a red flag if more than 20 percent of an MFI’s portfolio is consumer rather than micro‑enterprise lending. As governance in the large Indian MFIs weakened it became clear that much of the recent lending had become group consumer lending masquerading as microfinance.

“If the Indian MFIs had followed our impact investment values, they may not be in the trouble they are today,” says Gerhard Pries, president of MEDA’s investment company, Sarona Asset Management, Inc. “When MFIs become churners of loans, rather than seekers of positive social impact, they can be as rapacious as any other industry. Fortunately, not many MFIs are rapacious; 99 percent of them are excellent servers of the public good.”

Protecting the client MiCredito, MEDA’s microfinance agency in Nicaragua, maintains six principles to protect clients: 1. Guard against clients borrowing more than they need or can afford; 2. Disclose interest rates so clients know how much they are charged; 3. Utilize proper collection practices; 4. Ensure ethical behavior by staff; 5. Employ an open method to handle complaints or concerns; 6. Maintain privacy of client information.

Regulation MEDA favors establishment of regulatory agencies, like credit bureaus. This brings a regulatory framework to the 7

The Marketplace January February 2011

industry and helps entrench microfinance in the formal economy. “Where there is no credit bureau there is increased risk for overindebtedness and the potential for clients to be less than transparent with their debt load,” says Redfern.

practices and unconscionable loan recovery practices have and will always be bad business,” he says. “As a result MicroVest has been cautious about the Indian market for the last five years.”

The end result may still be good for the poor of India.

“Out of this cycle of destruction we expect to see stronger institutions, better credit information bureaus, and increased regulation, either through the MF associations or through the government,” he adds.

According to Crawford, economic historians continue to show that markets, “with all their messiness,” have done more to reduce poverty in the last 50 years than at any other time in history. “My personal takeaway is that competitive microfinance markets continue to provide the most effective mechanism to lift the most people out of poverty,” he says. ◆

“The values that were absent in parts of the Indian market were good governance, strong middle management, and attention to core business,” says Gil Crawford, CEO of MicroVest, a MEDA-related company that channels private investments into the microfinance industry. In its ongoing analysis of the global microfinance scene, MicroVest staff detected early warning signs that MFIs in India were straying from core principles and failing to oversee underwriting and collections procedures.

“Too much consumer lending, overaggressive lending

Here’s a woman fighting terrorism.

With microloans.

A New York Times writer sings the praise of the Kashf Foundation, a longtime MEDA partner in Pakistan

by Nicholas D. Kristof may kill terrorists, but Roshaneh creates jobs and educational opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people — draining the swamps that breed terrorists.

“Charity is limited, but capitalism isn’t,” Roshaneh said. “If you want to change the world, you need market‑based solutions.” That’s the point of microfinance — typically, lending very poor people small amounts of money so that they can buy a rickshaw or raw materials and start a tiny business.

LAHORE, Pakistan — An old friend of mine here fights terrorists, but not the way you’re thinking. She could barely defeat a truculent child in hand‑to‑hand combat, and if she ever picked up an AK‑47 — well, you’d pray it was unloaded.

Roshaneh Zafar is an American‑educated banker who fights extremism with microfinance. She has dedicated her life to empowering some of Pakistan’s most “If you want to impoverished women and giving them the change the world, tools to run businesses of their own. The United States should learn from you need marketwarriors like her.

Bullets and drones based solutions.”

The Marketplace January February 2011

Roshaneh grew up in elite circles here in Lahore and studied business at the Wharton School and economics at Yale. After a stint at the World Bank, she returned to Pakistan in 1996 to start her microfinance organization.

She called it the Kashf Foundation.

Everybody thought Roshaneh was nuts. And at first 8

cots on which they slept, crammed three or four to a cot, in a rented apartment.

“One night all my children were hungry,” she remembered. “I sent my daughter to ask for food from a neighbor. And the neighbor said, ‘you’ve become a beggar,’ and refused.”

Then Ms. Parveen “Microfinance has got a $70 loan from changed my life.” Kashf and started a jewelry and cosmetics business, buying in bulk and selling to local shops. Ms. Parveen couldn’t read the labels, but she memorized which bottle was which. As her business thrived, she began to struggle to learn reading and arithmetic — and proved herself an ace student. I fired math problems at her, and she dazzled me with her quick responses.

Ms. Parveen began to start new businesses, even building a laundry that she put her husband in charge of to keep him busy. He no longer beats her, she says, and when I interviewed him separately he seemed a little awed by her.

Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times/Redux

nothing went right. The poor refused to borrow. Or if they borrowed, they didn’t repay their loans.

But Roshaneh persisted, and today Kashf has 152 branches around the country. It has dispersed more than $200 million to more than 300,000 families. Now Roshaneh is moving into microsavings, to help the poor build assets, as well as programs to train the poor to run businesses more efficiently. She is even thinking of expanding into schools for the poor.

Microfinance is sometimes oversold as a silver bullet — which it’s not. Careful follow‑up studies suggest that gains from microloans are often quite modest.

Eventually, Ms. Parveen started a restaurant and catering business that now has eight employees, including some of her daughters. She bought a home and has put some of her children through high school — and a son, the brightest student, through college. She has just paid $5,800 for a permit for him to move to London to take a health sector job.

Ms. Parveen tried to look modest as she told me this, but she failed. She was beaming and shaking her head in wonder as she watched her son speak English with me, dazzled at the thought that she was dispatching her university‑educated son to Europe. “Microfinance has changed my life,” she said simply.

That’s an unusual success story. But the larger message is universal: helping people start businesses, create jobs and support education is a potent way to undermine extremism.

We Americans overinvest in firepower to defeat extremism and underinvest in development, and so we could learn something useful from Roshaneh. The toolkit to fight terrorism includes not only missiles but also microfinance and economic opportunity.

The antonym of “militant” is often “job.” ◆

Parveen Baji, left, in front of the restaurant she started with a loan from the microfinance organization started

by Roshaneh Zafar, right. Jobs and economic development can be a more effective way to fight extremism than firepower.

Some borrowers squander money or start businesses that fail. Some micro‑lenders tarnish the field because they’re incompetent, and others because they rake in profits with sky‑high loan rates. Microfinance has also generally been less successful in Africa than in South Asia.

Yet done right, microfinance can make a significant difference. An outside evaluation found that after four years, Kashf borrowers are more likely than many others to enjoy improved economic conditions — and that’s what I’ve seen over the years as I’ve visited Kashf borrowers.

On this trip, I met a woman named Parveen

Baji, who says she never attended a day of school and until recently was completely illiterate. She had 14 children, but five died.

Ms. Parveen’s husband, who also never attended school, regularly beat her and spent the family savings on narcotics, she says. The family’s only possessions were four

From The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2010. © 2010 The New York Times.

All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited.

9

The Marketplace January February 2011

Fired Losing my job turned the world upside down and taught me profound lessons

by D. Merrill Ewert

Y

Lesson 2: Seize the moment. “You’re the luckiest

ou know it’s not going to end well when your boss starts a conversation with, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

My wife and I had two young kids, a mortgage we couldn’t afford and an idyllic life in the house of our dreams. I had recently left a well‑paying job that took me away from home at a rate that had become destructive to our family life and accepted an administrative position at a well‑known college.

And then it ended. The program I managed was cut back and my job eliminated. I was angry, terrified and embarrassed, thinking others would assume I was fired for incompetence. This was the worst moment of my life.

And though I didn’t know it at the time, it was also one of the best moments because I was about to learn some profound lessons.

man around,” said a pastor who listened to my story over dinner shortly after I lost my job. “How many people in their 40s get to start over and decide once again what they want to be and do?”

Frankly, I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky but was intrigued by his next question: “If you could choose absolutely anything, what would you really like to do next?”

Without thinking, I blurted out that I wanted to teach, mentor graduate students and do research at a major university.

I quickly reminded him, however, that we were in a deep recession and universities were laying off professors and promoting early retirements — not hiring new faculty.

On top of that, I had committed “professional “Surround suicide” a decade earlier when I left a faculty posiyourself with tion at a research univerto work for a mission people who build sity organization. I asked the pastor, “What university you up and avoid would hire me now?”

“That wasn’t my those who would question,” he snapped, “I want to hear your dream.” He was neither take you down very patient nor interested in hearing about the with them” barriers to my dream. As we left the restaurant, this pastor promised to pray that I’d find a university teaching position where I could teach, work with graduate students and do research — but only if I prayed too. That was when I stopped worrying about simply finding a job and began thinking about how God might open new doors.

Lesson 1: Let it go. Angry and frustrated, I called a

well‑connected mentor and friend at another university and unloaded. I hoped she would offer me a job. Instead, she told me to get over it and hung up. Moving on is easier said than done.

Nights were the worst. I’d sleep for several hours and then toss and turn until morning. Sometimes I’d sit in the dark living room thinking about how unfair everything was. I’d pray and cry. When Saint John of the Cross wrote of “the dark night of the soul,” he wasn’t exaggerating.

I was at the end of my rope. Desperate, I prayed at 2:30 one morning: “Lord, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get past my anger at the college for what has happened.

I can’t wish away my fear. This burden is too heavy for me to carry. I can’t seem to let it go; you will have to take it away.”

I relaxed and a sense of peace like I’d never experienced before literally swept over me. The next thing I knew, it was 8 a.m. I had not slept that late in years. From that point on, I could sleep again. Though it didn’t change my circumstances, I learned I had to let go of everything — anger, fear, frustration — before I could experience God’s healing touch. The former was a conscious, rational choice; the latter was the powerful work of God.

The Marketplace January February 2011

Lesson 3: Explore broadly. I read Richard Nelson

Bolles’ book, What Color is Your Parachute? It forced me to reflect on my professional experience, evaluate my gifts and articulate personal goals. I took a test designed to

10

ascertain a person’s gifts and interests. What did it suggest to someone who enjoyed travel, relished intercultural experiences and spoke other languages? Become a flight attendant! After I stopped laughing, I realized this exercise did identify some themes that reflected my gifts and interests. This new self‑understanding framed my ongoing search for a position in new and deeper ways.

I’m glad he kept walking because I didn’t want him to see the tears rolling down my face. I thought I knew this man, but I didn’t know his heart. God uses the most unlikely people to walk alongside us during our hour of need.

Lesson 6: Don’t settle. I was desperate for a job

when two friends each offered me a job. I lacked the requisite skills and passion for one of the positions and the other wasn’t a good fit, yet it was very hard to say “no.” In the midst of this, I remembered the words of that pastor: “Follow your heart. Don’t settle. Don’t jump at the first thing that comes your way!” I knew I wanted to teach at a research university, but it was hard to walk away from job offers.

Before the year was over, I was teaching at an Ivy League school, doing research and mentoring graduate students. I earned tenure and ultimately a senior leadership position. I clearly saw God’s hand in this.

Several months later one of my new colleagues asked if I understood why I got the job. They had received nearly a hundred other applications, so I was interested in hearing why my name had risen to the top. My colleague explained that what tipped the balance for the search committee was what they had learned about me through my friend — the one who had told me to “get over it” and hung up on me.

Lesson 4: Walk with those who build you up.

When I shared the pain of losing my job with the interim pastor of my church, he explained that he had been removed from his position as a denominational execu“Follow your tive several years earlier.

He both understood how I heart. Don’t felt and reminded me that God who had brought jump at the first the me to this point had not abandoned me now. My thing that comes Heavenly Father, he suggested, would lead me your way” into something new and exciting if I opened myself up to him. As we parted, I felt ready to look for another job. My pastor stayed in touch, prayed for me and lifted my spirits.

Around the same time, I had lunch with an old friend who had lost his job several years earlier. He was still angry, bitter at his former employer, vindictive and unemployed. As I listened to him, I could feel the life being sucked right out of me. I learned later that potential employers considered my friend toxic; they didn’t want to contaminate their own workplaces with his anger and cynicism.

These dear friends taught me a very important lesson in two very different ways: Surround yourself with people who build you up and avoid those who would take you down with them. I learned to hang out with people who would encourage me and run from those who invited me to wallow with them in their own misery.

Lesson 7: Serve in your own area of need. Several

years later, while visiting our former church, a man I didn’t know introduced himself to me. “I want to thank you for your letter,” he said. “It was an enormous encouragement to me.” I stared at him blankly; I had no idea who he was or what he was talking about.

He explained. After he lost his job the previous year, his brother sent him a copy of the letter I had written to this man (who had walked with me when I lost my job) when he had lost his job two years earlier. My friend was so encouraged by what I said in the letter that he saved it and sent copies to other people, including his brother.

Over the next few years the two brothers sent copies of that letter to a number of other people who had also lost jobs. Some of them, in turn, copied and circulated it further. God had used my own pain to encourage others walking the path I had traveled.

As a university administrator, I’ve been forced to lay off people, so I understand the pain they experience.

Though I don’t know exactly how they feel, I know how it feels. And although every situation is unique, I know that God wants to carry our pain and will bless us with new joy. ◆

Lesson 5: Expect surprises. A faculty member met

me in the stairwell one morning as I was finishing up my job. Our philosophical differences about the nature of higher education ran deep. We had often argued, leading me to conclude he had little use for my work or me.

He was something of a curmudgeon, so I definitely didn’t want to talk with him that morning. Unfortunately, the stairwell was narrow so I couldn’t ignore him.

He stopped me, grabbed my arm, reached into his billfold, pulled out a tattered scrap of paper with a faded list of names and said, “That’s my prayer list.” Then he asked, “Do you see whose name is on top?” It was mine.

“I pray for you every day,” he said. Without another word, he stuffed the paper into his wallet and continued down the stairs.

D. Merrill Ewert is president of Fresno (Calif.) Pacific University. Prior to this appointment, he was a professor and the director of Cooperative Extension at Cornell University. In his earlier years Ewert was a development worker in Africa. His article is reprinted with permission from the Christian Leader, the magazine of the U.S. Mennonite Brethren Church.

11

The Marketplace January February 2011

Steve Sugrim photo

Second chance led to Second Cup Former down-and-outer wows MEDA audience with story of recovery and unleashed entrepreneurship

F

or Frank O’Dea, a second chance led to founding Second Cup, Canada’s first specialty coffee chain.

Speaking to the annual convention of Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) in Calgary, Nov. 4-7, he said he had hit rock bottom on the streets of Toronto — a homeless panhandler begging for nickels and dimes to buy cheap wine or a night at a 50cent flophouse. Then he got a second chance at sobriety.

His audience of 400 was transfixed by his story of unearthing hidden potential and “unleashing entrepreneurship,” the convention theme.

O’Dea painted gritty images of having been a man without purpose, gulping bottles of plonk in grimy alleyways, to eventually finding himself on a red carpet in the Governor General’s mansion to receive the Order of Canada, the country’s most prestigious civilian honor.

“How is that journey possible?” he asked.

With the patient help of compassionate people, O’Dea was able to kick his addictions and discover the marketable skills that lay beneath. He found a job in sales, worked his way into ever-higher levels of responsibility, and eventually parlayed his mounting successes into the co-founding of Second Cup, which would grow into hunFrank O’Dea, co-founder of the Second Cup coffee chain, signs copies of his book, When All You Have Is Hope. dreds of coffee boutiques across Canada.

He eventually sold his share in the lucrative company and “went out and bought all the toys,” but even that did not satisfy, O’Dea confessed. His pilgrimage took him to a Jesuit retreat center where a Keynoter Frank O’Dea told the MEDA convention that his personal cleric confronted him about his smoldering daily checklist included four areas by which he could measure his spiritual anger and kindled a new vision of progress on making the world a better place: service that led him to establish organiza• Growing relationships with friends and family. tions like Street Kids International and the • Career: “Did I leave my workplace a little better than I found it?”

Canadian Landmines Foundation.

• Spirituality: “What’s my role in regard to God?” “With a little hope, vision and action • Personal health: “Did I make some wise healthy choices today?” you can change the world,” he said.

He said he took stock every night to gauge progress in these four areas. Even small daily changes could make a difference, O’Dea said — Another keynoter, a global au“Like compound interest, it adds up.” ◆ thority on faith and business, laid out

Compound progress

The Marketplace January February 2011

12

“Pound for pound, you do more in the marketplace than any other denomination I know. You are a special breed.” on a large scale. Many of them claimed to be religious people but had failed to align their mission with something greater than profit and had dulled their spirits by making one compromise after another.

A durable ethical witness in the marketplace meant more than simply developing statements of corporate social responsibility (CSR). “A lot of CSR, while well-intentioned, is window dressing, hypocrisy and just marketing,” he said.

Miller asserted that “the corporate world can be a moral community,” and a good starting point was for firms to have a clear idea of their purpose and to see themselves as “producing goods and services for humanity to make this world a better place.”

While western business had suffered greatly from greed and misbehavior, Miller said he was heartened by evidence that the younger generation of businesspeople “doesn’t want to play the game the way it has been played.”

He encouraged businessfolk to “stay ethically fresh” and build “faith-friendly” companies, which he insisted was different than being a “faith-based” company. Being faith-friendly, he said, was to go beyond mere tolerance of other belief systems and recognize that “the spirit is part of the people we hire.”

a framework for how the practice of Christian faith can unleash new dimensions of ethics and entrepreneurship in daily life.

“Can Christians still engage in the marketplace, with all the problems going on?” asked David Miller, a former international investment banker who now directs Princeton University’s Faith & Work Initiative. For him, a better question was “How can we as Christians not engage in the marketplace? Marketplace work, when done best, is holy work.”

Miller said his own brand of faith was Presbyterian, yet he regarded the MEDA audience as “my people.”

He said when he was researching his latest book, God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement, he kept encountering examples of Mennonites who knew how to operationalize robust marketplace Christianity.

“Pound for pound, you do more in the marketplace than any other denomination I know,” he said. “You are a special breed.”

He said many of the perpetrators of recent financial “The corporate world can be a moral comscandals were not irreligious munity,” said keynote speaker David Miller, people who woke up one day director of Princeton University’s Faith & Work Initiative. and decided to commit fraud 13

One evening of the convention was devoted to showing how MEDA seeks to unleash entrepreneurship among the world’s needy, particularly in Haiti and Ukraine.

Haiti, where MEDA built the foundation of its microenterprise work, was one of the most challenging fields, especially given the devastation of last year’s earthquake and a more recent onset of cholera. While MEDA no longer had direct programming in Haiti, it continues to maintain a presThe Marketplace January February 2011

Steve Sugrim photo

Much of the evening focused on MEDA’s efforts to restore horticultural vigor to historic Mennonite regions of Ukraine. A dinner of traditional foods from Ukraine was followed by an illustrated report from Winnipeg businessman Fred Wall describing his search for family roots and visits to the ancestral homes of his father and mother.

Steve Wright, project field manager, reported how MEDA’s project is helping 5,000 small farmers — some tilling land once occupied by Mennonites — to achieve better production and access to higher value markets. Video clips further illustrated the project’s operation and its approach to women’s empowerment. The evening also featured a short address by Daniel Caron, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine and a strong supporter of the project.

Three days of attention to “unleashing entrepreneurship” concluded with a challenge to turn inward and find spiritual freedom to unleash even greater service in the world.

Pennsylvania pastor Jane Hoober Peifer noted in her Sunday message that entrepreneurs, at their best, mirrored “the creative, risk-taking, problem-solving, empowering and enabling characteristics of God.” But, she added, there was still more room to grow in spiritual stature, suggesting that the circumstances of business — like meagre profits and striving to satisfy regulators — could “tether” and “tie down” the energy, ingenuity and creativity of entrepreneurs.

Even the church could sometimes seem like a tether, she said. A long drawn‑out process of church discernment, for example, “can singlehandedly suck the air out of an entrepreneur like nothing else. As an entrepreneur, I would guess that it is a challenge to know how to stay engaged in a long church process.... My observation is that most entrepreneurs are much more willing to get moving, and take a little risk, than most folks in a congregation.”

But, she went on, “there are always going to be things that crimp our style, that clip our wings, that seemingly keep us from being who God created us to be – that seemingly keep us from doing what God might be calling us to do.”

Hoober Peifer said Paul’s message in Galatians 5 held some clues to how entrepreneurs could be “at their best” so that more of the world could benefit from their gifts.

Natalia Zhigaltsova, MEDA project administrator in Melitopol, Ukraine, provided musical flavor on a traditional Ukrainian bandura.

ence there through its partner organization, Fonkoze, the beleaguered country’s leading microfinance provider.

Anne Hastings, Fonkoze’s co-chief executive, described the organization’s long association with MEDA and its efforts to provide financial services, literacy and restoration services to thousands of earthquake victims.

“MEDA has been part of our lifeblood from the very beginning,” said Hastings, who has become an international aid celebrity and was a high‑profile attendee at last fall’s Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York.

“Post-earthquake, our relationship has gotten even closer as MEDA is helping us reach down to the ultra-poor.”

The Marketplace January February 2011

14

That passage pointed to a spiritual freedom by which entrepreneurs could “let go” of binding ropes.

“Don’t let yourself be tethered or held down by the things of this world, or by the power of your self-serving ego,” she said, “but tether yourself instead to love – to the Spirit of Christ, the presence and love of God. Tether yourself to that place within you where Christ meets you and has set you free, which will then empower you to serve one another, to become servants to one

another.

“I hear Paul saying: You are free in Christ, but don’t be reckless with your freedom,” Hoober Peifer said.

“Don’t just ... take off willy nilly into the sky — flying high just because you can. Tether yourself instead to the wind — to the Spirit of God — and be guided by that Spirit.”

A challenge to business: find the

The convention also featured 30 seminars on

faith, work and development, as well as tours of local attractions, businesses, and a manufacturer of western boots and hats.

During the business session of the annual meeting, MEDA bid farewell to four board members who have served their maximum terms: Lee Friesen, Winnipeg, R. Clair Sauder, Lancaster, Pa., Dave Guenther, Winnipeg, and Mel Stjernholm, Denver. It also welcomed four new directors: Peter Dueck, Arborg, Man.; Tim Penner, Harper, Kan.; Pat Vendrely, Chicago; and Nelson Longenecker, Elizabethtown, Pa. Next year’s MEDA convention will be held Nov. 3-6 in Lancaster, Pa. ◆

spiritual freedom to unleash even greater service in the world

What better way to engage with MEDA than to pass on the vision to a younger generation. That’s what Aaron Klassen (left) did this year. The longtime MEDA supporter and real estate developer from Waterloo, Ont., encouraged his grandson, Nathan, to attend the Calgary convention.

Nathan Klassen (right) works for a farming operation in southern Ontario after recently graduating in agriculture from the University of Guelph. He says he plans to attend again as his career develops.

15

The Marketplace January February 2011

MEDA’s “state of the union”

Photo by Steve Sugrim

Even in beleaguered Haiti, beset by a devastating earthquake and cholera epidemic, clients like this seller of flour and pasta are resuming their livelihoods through assistance brokered by MEDA.

Following is an abridged version of Allan Sauder’s presidential report to MEDA’s annual general meeting:

T

he past year has been very successful, despite ongoing uncertainty in the global economy. Most gratifying, we were able to help over 9.4 million families to live healthier, happier lives through 101 partners in 45 countries.

Donated funds unleashed matching funds by a 10-times ratio. Your $3 million contributions translated into nearly $33 million of programs. Every dollar you donated was able to do the work of 11.

On the investment side the multiplying effect was even more dramatic. MEDA’s investment equity of $6 million in the Sarona Risk Capital Fund was multiplied 36 times by investment from supporters and institutional partners, creating total assets under management of $219 million — assets that are working to create new solutions The Marketplace January February 2011

16

to poverty.

We firmly believe that unleashing entrepreneurship is the best way to alleviate poverty. We also believe we are called to live our faith in our own work settings. Our work is not done until it is proven to be sustainable, replicable, scalable and measureable.

For the past six years, MEDA has enjoyed unprecedented growth and innovation, reaching more of the world’s poor than ever before. Much of what we have done and learned is now part of mainstream development programming around the world.

As we set out to plan our next three years, we asked “Where are the new opportunities to serve the poor, to use our unique faith‑business‑development approach to create innovations that others can use?” We came up with eight strategic areas where MEDA has an opportunity to grow as a global leader.

Agriculture: With over 50% of households in the developing world still dependent on small‑holder farming, and the need to double global food production in the next 50 years, MEDA will build on its experience to deliver market‑driven solutions that enable millions of small farmers to compete profitably in local and global markets.

Health: The economies of many countries continue to be disrupted by endemic diseases that can be substantially reduced through improved availability of drugs and health services. MEDA has proven that effective private sector innovations can contribute significantly to this goal. Our insecticide treated mosquito net program in Tanzania now has more than 15 million nets in use and is saving over 90,000 lives every year — mostly children and pregnant women. We plan to diversify and grow beyond insecticide treated nets and add three new countries.

Women’s economic development: Women‑headed households are among the world’s poorest, and we intend to increase programming in this area so that millions of women will become respected and valued participants in market systems. MEDA’s global leadership in this area was recently underscored by a U.S. government evaluation of our first project in Pakistan — helping homebound women sell better and more profitable hand-embroidered

fabrics to the markets in larger cities. The study found that over three years rural embroiderers and sales agents received almost $3 million in increased income, for a total project cost of only $600,000 — nearly a five-toone benefit cost ratio. Of eight projects in Pakistan that underwent this evaluation, ours was the only one to show a positive benefit/cost ratio.

Rural financial services: Access to rural financial services is vital to improved small‑holder agriculture and for creating rural off‑farm incomes, especially for women and youth. MEDA’s experience in providing financial services for micro, small and medium businesses in rural value chains is highly valued by partners eager to expand their services to rural clients and to develop financial services that meet their needs. One of those, IMON in Tajikistan, now has a vibrant rural, agriculture based portfolio of clients — in a country where it was said that farmers will not repay. In the first two years, 10,000 loans had a default rate of zero.

Youth and financial services: MEDA will build on its notable successes in developing financial services and entrepreneurial opportunities for a burgeoning and restless youth population in Egypt and Morocco, and will help

other financial service providers to recognize and respond to the potential of this market. We believe that building on the hopes and dreams of youth and giving them concrete opportunities for a better life will go a long way toward creating a more peaceful world.

Deposit mobilization: Savings is critical to the economic sustainability of households, small businesses, and communities — especially for the poor who lack other social safety nets. MEDA will use its well-regarded expertise in this area to help microfinance partners develop deposit mobilization programs and transform into regulated banks. We have just signed contracts with the International Finance Corporation in Washington to provide this expertise to microfinance banks in Yemen and Syria.

Small and Medium businesses: The next area of focus falls within what is called impact investing, led by Sarona Asset Management. Possibly the only positive effect of recent gyrations in the global financial markets is a new interest among investors in using their money to make a difference. Leading the way is a new fund which directly responds to our strategic interest in Small and Medium (SME) businesses. This sector is the missing or underdeveloped driver in many developing economies.

MEDA has proved to the global investment community that the microfinance sector is an investible asset class. We now seek to do the same in the SME sector, where returns to the poor and potentially to investors will hile the global economy had suffered “schizophrenia,” be even more significant.

MEDA’s financial picture in 2010 was “strong and growLast year we announced the creation of ing,” treasurer Tom Bishop told members at the Annual the Sarona Frontier Markets Fund, a fund General Meeting. of funds that will invest with private equity “In spite of continued high unemployment, mounting budget fund managers around the world who have deficits and fragile securities markets worldwide, MEDA’s growth and proven they are capable of taking a risk with funding contracts and donations increased substantially this past fissmall and medium enterprises and getting cal year,” he said. reasonable returns, and who share MEDA’s Revenues had increased 31 percent, contributions 22 percent, values of investing to benefit the poor. and grants and contracts 34 percent — “great financial results for The fund has already completed its first six these schizophrenic economic times.” investments in private equity funds, includBishop said “schizophrenic” was used deliberately because it ing funds focused on SMEs in Mexico and suggested “paranoia, anxiety, fear, irrationality, disillusion, disorganAfrica; a renewable energy fund that invests ization and dysfunction.” Amid sluggish job formation and housing in India and Philippines; and a fund that starts and souring domestic equity investments, the middle class had invests in agribusiness SMEs in India. become choked with debt, foreclosures and job displacement while A growing association: MEDA plans the rich got richer at a faster pace, he said. to build on our association of supporters Although few were spared the impact, “I am sure none of us by engaging more younger people, other have experienced this more than the poorest of the economically Christian denominations and business/ active, whom we define as our MEDA clients,” said Bishop. Over the professional people in North America and past year MEDA had provided “a helping hand to millions of families Europe.

At this point we are reaching only thereby unleashing their own entrepreneurship to build themselves five percent of Anabaptist households, our and their families a better future.” primary base of potential supporters.

He reassured supporters that MEDA’s global operations were We have set bold growth targets. We carefully monitored. “This year 93 percent of the operations were are looking for private contributions to reach subject to independent external audit, and six of the remaining seven $3.7 million, up 11 percent from this year, all percent of the operations were subject to our internal audit review,” of which will be significantly multiplied, alBishop said. ◆ lowing us to reach over 19 million families. ◆

Strength amid schizophrenia

W

17

The Marketplace January February 2011

Reviews

Worthwhile, indeed It Was All Worthwhile: The Life and Times of Roy and Clara Snyder (Pennsylvania German Folklore Society of Ontario, 2010, 115 pp.)

R

oy Snyder couldn’t make it to MEDA’s convention in Calgary this past November — only the third one he has missed. It wasn’t because, at the age of 95, he was ailing or too frail to travel.

No, he just needed to stay back in Ontario to be present at the launch of this book.

This is a folksy memoir, told in Snyder’s own style, along with a chapter telling the story of his wife Clara, who passed away in 2006.

Two sections were of special interest to this reader.

One is Snyder’s recounting of his long and distinguished career as a cattle breeder.

The other is his involvement with MEDA, which he joined in 1963, a decade after its founding.

Snyder had few equals in the cattle breeding industry, though his personal modesty camouflages the full extent of his achievements. You almost have to read between the lines to discover that he was acclaimed as “the father of artificial insemination,” an honour perhaps lost on the average reader but nonetheless vital to anyone who produces (or consumes) dairy products.

He pioneered the use of frozen semen and embryo transplants in cattle, even before it was financially viable. Under his innovative leadership, the Waterloo Cattle Breeders Association was the first organization in the world to use 100% frozen semen, setting an example for the rest of the breeding industry.

According to family lore, Snyder displayed an early

aptitude for his chosen career.

While he was still a pre-teen, a milk tester came to the family farm to certify the cows and was amazed that the lad could recite every cow’s lineage with precision.

Snyder still revels in the world of genetics, and rattles off names of the legendary Montvic and Rag Apple pedigrees, which apparently are the bovine equivalent of horse racing’s Sec-

He was a global leader in an industry that many of us barely know exists

building up Canada’s semen-exporting trade.

He rubbed shoulders with dignitaries and prime ministers, including Canada’s John Diefenbaker and Pierre Elliot Trudeau. (Diefenbaker and his wife Olive showed up at the annual “Bull Night” of the Waterloo Cattle Breeders Association and ended up at the Snyders’ home to catch up on some rest.)

Snyder weaves in his involvements with church-related institutions, including his home congregation (Erb St. Mennonite), Conrad Grebel University College, and MEDA. Those familiar with MEDA’s history will recognize the name Sarona, the organization’s maiden undertaking in Paraguay and recently immortalized by the renaming of MEDA’s investment division, now known as Sarona Asset Management, Inc. That first project aimed to bolster the vigor of the cattle being raised by the Paraguayan

retariat. Even an uninformed reader can be impressed by Snyder’s specialized expertise and commitment to a business that many of us barely know exists. Throughout his career he travelled to 80 countries

Roy Snyder has been attending MEDA conventions for as long as anyone can remember, missing only three. Here he is at the 2006 convention in Tampa, Florida.

The Marketplace January February 2011

18

Mennonites.

Sustained efforts (to which Snyder contributed by sending a shipment of Holstein semen) were so successful that the Mennonite colonies virtually dominate the country’s dairy industry today.

Snyder describes a number of the MEDA projects he visited in the early years. One was a massive rice plantation that started with great fanfare but ultimately failed and lost a lot of money.

“This was before I was on the board,” Snyder notes wryly.

He touches on one of MEDA’s earliest credit programs with indigenous Paraguayans, led by Erie Sauder. “The Indian population really knew very little about financial credit arrangements, and the Indians’ comprehension of how a credit program grew was established,” Snyder writes.

“This was a great thrill for Erie.

Many Chaco Indians became Christians and adopted the Mennonite way of life including farming.”

As was the practice in those days, MEDA trustees were assigned to personally oversee certain ventures. Snyder was put in charge of programs in Philippines and Bolivia, the latter country remaining a MEDA location for decades and producing many highly successful ventures.

He offers insights into MEDA’s difficulties in getting a

program launched in Tanzania in the 1960s, when much MEDA work was overseen by missionaries from other agencies. In time there would be 55 projects in Africa. Some produced dismal results, likely not aided by a prevailing suspicion among some missionaries and local Christians that incomegenerating efforts might lead to worldliness. Since many of them failed, that heightened worldliness never materialized.

With those drawbacks in mind it must have been hugely satisfying to Roy and Clara Snyder to visit Tanzania in the 1980s and see the great success of MEDA’s oxeniza-

tion project, led by son-in-law Allan Sauder (now MEDA’s president).

Roy Snyder was recently asked in Sunday school whether his penchant for the inner workings of the breeding industry was a God-given talent. He replied, “Well, at the time I probably wouldn’t have said that; I was just interested in it. Now as I look back on it, it probably was.”

Whether mere “interest” or God-given talent, there are many life stories like this that deserve to be circulated to a wider audience. Roy Snyder is to be thanked for telling his.

— Wally Kroeker

Executive Director, Nazareth Village MENNONITE MISSION NETWORK is inviting applications for Executive Director of Nazareth Village, Nazareth, Israel.

Nazareth Village (http://www.nazarethvillage.com/) is an international ministry partner with Mennonite Mission Network, and is requesting applications immediately for a key leadership position.

The Executive Director will provide primary leadership for Nazareth Village, a re‑creation of a first‑century Jewish village, located in Jesus’ hometown. This Christian ministry requires an ED with a history of successful business management and financial oversight. An upcoming new project, the Discovery Center (a multi‑functional education and research center), will demand visionary leadership in the development, construction and operations phases.

Qualified applicants will be committed Christians active in a congregation, have experience in combining faith and business, and possess an employment or educational background that includes organizational structure, operations, capital projects oversight, personnel management, and finance expertise. The successful candidate should have international life experience and sensitivity to Middle East cultural and religious dynamics.

Nazareth Village will welcome inquiries from applicants who have interest in a 12‑ to 15- month position as a transitional Executive Director, whose primary role is to help move the Village from an independent organization to functioning under the umbrella of Nazareth Trust, a not‑for‑profit organization with similar goals.

For either the interim or long-term positions, actual employment will be through Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA. For further information, contact Ruth L. Guengerich, international personnel counselor, at RuthG@MMNworld.net, or call 866‑866‑2872, ext. 23062.

19

The Marketplace January February 2011

Soundbites

If the shoe fits When Brian Scharfstein interviewed for a job in real estate his prospective boss asked to see his daytimer. He didn’t have one, so the boss waited while Scharfstein ran out to buy one. When he returned, the boss told him to open it up and mark down when he planned to take vacation.

“I hadn’t even started work yet!” Scharfstein remembers thinking. Then the boss said, “I want you to block off time when you’re going to put away your pager and take a break, because if you don’t have something to work towards, you can’t work for me.”

From that day on, Scharfstein paid attention to worklife balance.

Today, as owner of Canadian Footwear, a leading shoe enterprise, he pays attention to the inner balance of his 100 employees.

Mark of ethics

Each year he takes time with each employee, off site, to talk about personal balance.

“We don’t talk about their performance or their business day — it’s a personal conversation about life balance. How are things at home? When you get up in the morning, do you look forward to coming to work? Where do you want to be in five or 10 years?”

He believes it’s important for owners to meet with employees on an individual basis to understand if the quality of their life is matching the quality of their work.

“Because we’re very focused on lifestyle and balance,” he says, “it is just as essential that our people believe we are the right fit for them as they are for us. When they go home at the end of the day, they need to feel good about where they’ve been.” (Winnipeg Free Press)

If you are not doing something substantial for the poor, you are not leading an ethical life.

— Peter Stenger, Princeton ethicist

Social enterprise The power of social enterprise is gaining ground in Canada, writes Simon Avery in the Globe & Mail Report on Business.

“MBA schools are minting a new class of graduates who want to use their business acumen to address social issues,” he writes. “A new type of investor is looking for both a return on capital and impact on society’s progress. And both large corporations and traditional charities are re-thinking their strategies around the idea.”

Avery describes social en-

terprises as “organizations that make money and deliver social or environmental benefits.

They may be not-for-profits engaging in for-profit activity to supplement the donations they receive, or profit-making companies pursuing not-forprofit community or environmental work.”

Bag lady For 15 years she bagged groceries in the same store. But she was more than an ordinary bagger. As the groceries slid down the counter to her she made a point to pray for each customer, and often inquired about their well-being. She saw her six feet of counter space as her personal mission field. Shoppers came to appreciate the extra attention she gave them, and sometimes her aisle became clogged because customers made a point of choosing her checkout line. When she died, shortly after retiring, her funeral was jammed with people, many of whom told stories of how she had touched their lives. This woman had made a commitment to bring her faith to work. She said, “I’m going to claim the six feet that God has given me in my life. I’m going to reclaim those six feet for Jesus Christ and I’m going to incarnate his ministry right here.” — Businessman Don Flow, quoted in Why Business Matters to God by Jeff Van Duzer

Time off On one of my trips I bought a travel alarm clock for a few nights in the bush. I didn’t shop around much, thinking clock technology had advanced quite far in the last several centuries. I was wrong, The Marketplace January February 2011

20

it turned out. The clock ticked so loudly in the pure silence of the tent that it kept people from falling asleep. In disgust, I threw it out. I wondered afterward, why would anyone bother to make a clock like that? If it had been my company, I think a burst of common sense might have prompted me to try the product myself before putting it on the market. It would not have been a huge personal imposition, as part of my own R & D, not to mention due diligence, to put it by my own bedside one night and see how (or if) it worked. I think I would ask the same question of everything I produced — “Would I buy this product?” It occurred to me that the basic issue was more than simple product development or customer service. In fact, it tapped into some of the great strategies of human interaction — cultural relationships and peacemaking, for starters. It always pays to walk in the other person’s shoes, to understand the other’s point of view. That’s good theology, I think, and good business. — Bartholomew Gideon

Pressing on In spite of everything, I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing. — Vincent Van Gogh

The adman speaks Never write an advertisement you wouldn’t want your own family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife.

Don’t tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out — either by the government, which will

prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising.

If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business advertising it. — Advertising executive David Ogilvy

human beings were created and the moment you were able to have this thing in your life. If you ask what knowledge those who brought this object into your life had to have, what those who developed that knowledge had to learn from previous people who developed their knowledge, you will quickly be overwhelmed by the amount of cooperation through thousands of years that made all the things that populate your daily life possible. Try this exercise with a different object or aspect of your life every day and you’ll soon see how much each of us is a beneficiary of the goodness and cooperation of past generations. — Michael Lerner in Spirit Matters

Lay what?

In spite of all protestations to the contrary, we doggedly continue to think of lay ministry as laypeople filling the traditional roles of clergy in the church rather than as laypeople fulfilling their own callings in the world. — Garret Keizer in Christian Century

5 p.m. dad

Blah, blah, blah Words, words, words. Looking over the history of corporate social responsibility, I can see it has consisted of 95 percent rhetoric and 5 percent action.

Companies are adept at drawing up high-sounding mission statements. Changing the way they do business? That’s something else. — Corporate social responsibility expert Milt Moskowitz

Shook-up church The church is at its best when the building is empty and the “salt” is out of the shaker penetrating and seasoning the workplaces of society. — Richard Halverson

Sabbath time has been a social principle from the days of Moses. It is ironic then that something won with much difficulty in ancient Egypt is today given away so easily. Work is becoming an intoxicant.... A professional can easily put in nearly 54 hours a week on the job. An owner of a small business is at work for almost 60 hours a week. The five o’clock dad is an endangered species.

Of fathers with children under age six, almost 40 percent are on the job more than 50 hours a week. — William Droel in Full-Time Christians

Debt to the past Here is one spiritual exercise that each of us needs to try every day. Take anything in your life — a musical instrument, a computer, a car, a piece of fruit that sits in your home but was grown far away, a television, a cell phone, a book. Now try to imagine all the steps that needed to happen between the moment that 21

The Marketplace January February 2011

News

Debit cards spell relief for Pakistan flood victims More than 1.6 million flood victims in Pakistan will soon flash plastic debit cards as a way to get back on their feet following last summer’s monsoon deluge which took many lives and left millions homeless.

They’ll also get their first contact with the formal banking system, thanks to a unique collaboration of the government of Pakistan, United Bank Limited (UBL) of Pakistan, and Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) that is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The jump-start project aims to meet immediate needs while at the same time revolutionizing Pakistan’s banking landscape by making it more

inclusive of the poor.

Using funds provided by the government of Pakistan, UBL will issue VISA debit cards, pre-loaded with $235, to 1.6 million “non-banked” families displaced by flooding.

Additional instalments, up to a total of $950 per household, will assure users multiple opportunities to use (and become accustomed to using) the cards over the coming months.

“The hope is this will be a ground‑breaking experience in bank services, as well as bring-

ing Pakistan’s branchless banking services to a whole new level, particularly in the rural economy,” says Kim Pityn, MEDA’s chief operations officer.

The government of Pakistan is covering the actual cash on the debit cards.

The project management and logistics is being executed by MEDA because of its previous experience in Pakistan and its history of working with private-sector partners, with $1.6 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has a strong commitment to promoting financial services and savings for the poor. “We are known as a trusted NGO, and our business approach is valued,” says Pityn.

MEDA will manage and report regularly on the use of project funds; provide progress reports on the status of electronic cash disbursements;

IRA Rollover passes for 2010 and 2011 On December 17, 2010, the United States President signed into law The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. This bill restores the IRA Charitable Rollover for 2010 and permits its use in all of 2011. The act is retroactive to January 1, 2010, so donors who previously made 2010 IRA rollovers will qualify.

The principal rules for direct transfers from an IRA to a qualified public charity are that the IRA owner must be 70½ or older and that the transfer is for no more than $100,000 each year. A 2010 transfer qualifies for the required minimum distribution. It must be to a public charity either outright or for a specific purpose, but may not be to a donor advised fund or supporting organization. The transfer is made directly from a custodian or trustee to the charitable organization.

A very important potential 2010 benefit exists. Because Congress recognized that it is very late in the year, individuals who choose to make a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) rollover from their IRA trustee to a charity may make their 2010 charitable gift during 2010 or in January of 2011.

You may contact MEDA’s Resource Development Team for questions or instructions when making a request to your IRA account custodian.

Call 1-800-665-7026

The Marketplace January February 2011

publicly disseminate findings through case studies; and provide long‑term monitoring and prepare a final report on the number of recipients who remain as active account holders.

“These are 1.6 million people who haven’t had deposit accounts before,” says Pityn.

“Our goal is to ensure that at least half of them continue to use some kind of deposit process after the project ends.”

For MEDA, the project provides an opportunity to use current technology to expand financial services to a needy segment of the population.

“Flood relief is only part of the motivation,” Pityn says.

“The larger issue is getting these people into the financial sector. This is a significant opportunity for MEDA to be part of a very large project in mobile technology, and to leverage this opportunity to explore and document branchless banking activities on a massive scale.”

The project began in November and runs until spring of 2012. ◆

Boost your bottom line by ... paying higher wages One way to make the bottom line look rosier is to slash costs, right? Business owner Joan Blades has a different idea: Pay employees more.

“That’s not as crazy as it sounds,” she says. “A growing body of evidence is revealing that companies that pay fair wages, and offer flexibility and training to even entry-level and lower-skilled employees, do better than those that don’t.”

22

She cites examples of companies that, even in tough economic times, manage to flourish as a result of investing in a higher payroll.

An Alabama brick manufacturer found that productivity and quality rose, and turnover and accidents dropped when it paid higher wages and introduced profit-sharing. A Boston baked goods firm saw Continued on page 23

Chinese officials wonder: Is faith good for business?

As China tightens its grip on economic prominence, a curious conversation is going on that may surprise western Christian and business leaders.

At the heart of it lies the question — what is the relationship of Christian faith to workplace productivity? The discussion rekindles memories of old debates about the Protestant work ethic and economic dominance.

“Christian faith may sound like an unlikely component in China’s future economic success,” says Mats Tunehag, a respected leader in the Business as Mission movement. “But the notion that newfound faith can inspire a workforce to increased levels of productivity is being taken seriously not only

by Christian businessmen, but

by China’s Communist — and officially atheist — leaders.”

Tunehag notes that a British media article on Christian faith and Chinese productivity claimed that workers who become Christians assume more responsibility than other workers and develop a better work ethic. They also tend to

Tunehag says one recent convert told him he had known nothing about religion before he started work at the factory, but said his newfound faith was now a source of daily inspiration. “If everybody became a Christian, it would have a very big impact, and would really help the development of our factory,” he reportedly said.

Tunehag adds that the wider role of Christian entrepreneurs in the economic success of the Wenzhou private enterprise zone has not gone unnoticed by the Chinese government. “Far from being regarded as a religious oddity, the impact of Christian‑run businesses is now being stud-

be eager to tell co‑workers about their newfound faith, thus creating a ripple effect of workplace performance.

“Those of us who have studied and observed Christian business ethics and transformation of societies — in history and around the world — are not surprised to find a correlation,” says Tunehag.

The general manager of a plant manufacturing industrial valves reportedly told BBC interviewers that when staff convert to Christianity their attitude toward their work is transformed. “If you’re a Christian you’re more honest, with a better heart,” he said. Christian workers took a greater sense of responsibility and “when they do things wrong, they feel guilty,” he added.

ied by Chinese government officials,” he says.

The director of the Chinese Institute of World Religions in Beijing had noted a correlation of the work of 19th century missionaries and the present growth of Christians and Christian entrepreneurs in the city of Wenzhou, which according to some estimates is 20 percent Christian. The director said, “It’s very important to find the secret of social development, the so‑called potential forces for a nation.

When it comes to Western countries, the majority Chinese understanding is that this potential force is Protestant Christianity.” (Business as Mission Network)

Higher wages continued from page 22 its fortunes rise when it offered more training and stock options. “Specifically, management credits these practices with improving sales, boosting productivity and helping them attract talent,” Blades writes.

She also cites Costco for paying thousands of dollars more per employee than its major competitor. “Costco is so convinced that its policy is sound that it has kept paying better wages than rivals, even as Wall Street has pressured the company to conform to in-

dustry standards,” says Blades.

Many companies, however, cannot resist “the apparent bargain” of saving money at the bottom end of the pay scale. “They tell themselves that standing at a cash register, working in an assembly line, or answering phones is so simple that anyone can do it — that workers doing these jobs can easily be replaced. And this short-sighted approach costs them. Simple math does not capture the human dynamics.”(USA Today) 23

The Marketplace January February 2011

Another business solution to poverty Making hats in Central Asia, watercolor by Ray Dirks

The Marketplace January February 2011

24