Impact 2008 Spring

quarterly newsletter

Spring 2008

Doctor Kwabena Darko of Ghana was honored with Opportunity International’s Lifetime Achievement Award in a surprise tribute on March 1. Sharing in the celebration was Dr. Darko’s daughter, Mercy, whose presence was not revealed to him until the last moment.

As principal shareholder of Darko Farms & Co. Ltd., Dr. Darko is one of Ghana’s most successful entrepreneurs. Since launching his business with a small loan in 1966, Dr. Darko now produces a large percentage of Ghana’s eggs and

One Hen: Kwabena Darko’s story spreads hope Mercy Darko & Dr. Kwabena Darko

chickens and has gained recognition for advancements in poultry science.

In 1994, he was instrumental in founding Opportunity International Savings and Loans Ghana and he is also a member of Opportunity’s Board of Directors.

For the millions of impoverished children around the world, there is a new source of hope and inspiration for the future. The remarkable true story of Dr. Kwabena Darko—an Opportunity International board member— and his successful rise from poverty in Africa has just been released as a children’s book called One Hen. One Hen chronicles the story of Kojo (Kwabena), a young, poverty-stricken boy from Ghana who used a small loan to buy one hen, and grew his profits into what is now the largest poultry farm in West Africa. It also tells the story of microfinance, and how—with determination and persistence—the poorest of the working poor can lift their families to a life of hope and dignity unknown to many in developing countries.

“He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done.” —Proverbs 19:17

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inside

CEO Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Kenya Emergency Fund . . . . . . 3 Smart Giving with Chuck Day . . . . . . 4 Gates Foundation grant . . . . . . . . . . 5 Board of Governors in action . . . . . 6

ceo corner with chris crane

As we look back on 2007, every member of the Opportunity International family can take joy in the progress God has given us. Our innovative organization is making microfinance a major factor in changing the scope of global poverty.

Here is a quick overview of 2007: Loans—1.1 million active loan clients and a loan portfolio exceeding $500 million Savings—305,000 client savings accounts worth over $238 million Insurance—675,000 microinsurance policies covering 3.3 million poor people in 10 African and Asian countries

Nike grant supports microinsurance for adolescent girls The Nike Foundation has provided a $1.5 million, three-year grant to Opportunity International’s Micro Insurance Agency to benefit some 500,000 adolescent girls in developing countries.

The program, which will develop innovative microinsurance products tailored to the specific needs of adolescent girls, is being launched in Uganda, with possible extensions to at least two other countries in Africa and/or Asia.

“The Nike Foundation is pleased to partner with the Micro Insurance Agency in our quest to empower adolescent girls in the developing world to reach their potential,” said Maria Eitel, president of the Nike Foundation, in announcing the grant. The agency’s proven success in the new field of microinsurance will enable it to develop products that help impoverished girls improve their own lives and have a positive impact on their families and their communities.”

The Nike Foundation, which had previously given $839,000 to fund an Opportunity International microfinance organization in the Jakarta metro area of Indonesia, was recently honored with our Partner in Philanthropy Award.

There are many to thank for this amazing growth and accomplishment. Our generous supporters continue to contribute their talent and treasure. Almost 9,000 dedicated employees around the globe put our resources to work with skill and dedication. And, most of all, we owe a debt of gratitude to our hardworking and inspiring clients, without whom our work would be meaningless.

Our progress has given us great excitement to tackle the challenges ahead. Our goal is to provide the tools for 100 million people to rise above poverty by 2015. While we are 7.8 percent ahead of our goal to date, we must be relentless in pursuit of our vision. With God’s grace and your help, we can succeed.

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© Rebecca Schutte

In Uganda, the Micro Insurance Agency is partnering with the NGO Straight Talk Foundation which reports that 18- and 19-year-old Ugandan girls are 18 times more likely to have HIV and eight times more likely to be married, but only onefourth as likely to be in school as their male counterparts. The agency will test products that include a voucher-based HMO model for common medical conditions and a reimbursement product for hospital stays.

To date, the agency has developed insurance products for more than 25 microfinance organizations and has policies covering more than 3.3 million people in 10 countries.

USAID & Opportunity: partners in empowering the poor Henrietta Fore, who is very supportive of Opportunity International, was recently confirmed by the United States Senate as Administrator for USAID. According to Administrator Fore, “…economic growth is the best way to attack and reduce poverty across a broad swath of any society.

[It] can lift people from every segment, every strata, every corner of a society.”

In remarks made to Opportunity and its many supporters, she stated, “…you should be very proud, and we’re very proud of you as our partner.”

For the past 15 years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has partnered with Opportunity International by providing grants totaling $77 million to support our efforts to bring microfinance to the working poor worldwide.

Recent grants from USAID totaling $1.3 million are enabling Opportunity to bring financial services to poor families in rural Malawi and Mozambique where such services have never existed. The grants support expanded satellite bank branches, mobile banking units, ATMs and point-of-sale devices, as well as “smart cards” that use biometric identification technology.

Funding from USAID has also served to improve the growth of thriving microfinance banks in 16 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The USAID funding has been instrumental in turning seven Opportunity microfinance institutions into formal financial structures capable of offering a full range of financial services and a secure place for client savings.

The Kenya Emergency Fund In December, violence erupted in normally peaceful Kenya following the disputed presidential election. The result has been catastrophic for Kenyans, especially in Western Kenya, the area hardest hit and where all five of our branch offices are located.

Thankfully, none of our 60 employees were injured, though several were forced to flee. Many client businesses were looted or burned and an estimated 400 of the 8,000 businesses were completely destroyed. Opportunity Kenya CEO Mano Kamaleson reported that many clients were forcefully evicted from their homes.

Opportunity quickly responded to this crisis by establishing the Kenya Emergency Fund, a $1 million fund to: • Create emergency loans to rebuild our clients’ businesses • Cover the costs of restructuring loan repayments • Provide extra security for our loan officers • Secure safe meeting places for employees and clients • Provide additional training to clients

© Allan Gichigi/IRIN

Even with renewed hope in the political situation our clients will continue to face many daunting challenges. With our supportive Trust Group model and our purposefully multi-ethnic Kenyan staff, Opportunity is well positioned to restore hope, rebuild businesses and rekindle relationships broken by the violence.

We are committed to stand by all of our clients and employees with financial and spiritual support and we ask that you join us in this endeavor. Please go to www.opportunity.org to learn more about the Kenya Emergency Fund.

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smart giving with chuck day

One Hen: Kwabena Darko’s story spreads hope (continued from the cover)

A brilliant deduction for 2008 For some, just the mention of April 15 can bring about a bit of dread.

Wouldn’t it be great to know that you can do something today that will organize all of your charitable deductions for 2008 and beyond?

Simply open an account in a “Donor Advised Fund,” which is rapidly becoming one of the most popular ways of making charitable gifts. Donor Advised Fund accounts are offered by various financial services companies, community foundations and public charities, including Opportunity International.

A Donor Advised Fund works like a “charitable checking account” in that you open an account, deposit cash, stocks or other assets, and then use the account to make gifts to U.S. public charities. You qualify for a charitable deduction at the time you deposit funds into your account and not at the time you advise the Fund to make a charitable gift from your account.

Thus, you can establish your charitable deductions for 2008 today and choose to make your charitable gifts later this year or in a future year.

Chuck Day is Opportunity’s Director of Gift Planning Services. You can email him at cday@opportunity.org or call him directly at (800) 793 -9455 ext. 4136.

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Authored by Katie Smith Milway, and illustrated by award-winning Canadian author and illustrator Eugenie Fernandes, One Hen is also the story of how the world undergoes change one person, one family and one community at a time.

At www.onehen.org, these themes can be further explored with interactive games and activities, as well as through stories and videos of Opportunity’s clients.

Today, as a Christian leader and prominent businessman, Dr. Darko is one of the most influential people in Africa. In addition to acting as CEO of his company— Darko Farms & Co. Ltd.—he serves as a board member of several banks in Africa as well as an advisor to the president of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor.

In honor of Dr. Darko’s accomplishments, Opportunity recently presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award—given on the day of the release of One Hen. In attendance at the award ceremony were the book’s author and the president of Sapient Interactive, the pro bono creators of the story’s interactive Web site.

Opportunity at White House roundtable In February, Opportunity International’s CEO Chris Crane delivered the keynote address at the White House Compassion in Action Roundtable on “Social Enterprise in International Development: Reinventing Public Private Partnerships,” hosted by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Chris emphasized Opportunity’s commitment to the poor and spoke about the impact that financial services (microfinance), technology and innovation can have on clients’ lives. Other speakers included Dale Dawson, chair of Opportunity’s President’s Council, who spoke about his heart for the country of Rwanda, and Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, who shared lessons from his experience with successful partnerships in the developing world.

Attendees included government officials, private sector leaders and members of the development and faith communities.

Gates Foundation grant will fund insurance products for working poor Manuel Santocildes of Barangay Cataan in the Philippines knows well the benefits of microinsurance. When his mother Saturnina suddenly died in 2005, her benefit payout of $1,800 saved his family from a return to insurmountable poverty. The small sum covered burial expenses and enabled her children to finance a business and buy a cow to harvest a rice field.

With the recent grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Opportunity International’s subsidiary Micro Insurance Agency can now provide new life, health and crop insurance policies to the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and help bring services to as many as 21 million poor people by 2012.

“Expanding access to basic banking and insurance services is a critical tool to give poor people the resources and opportunities to help lift themselves and their families out of poverty,” said Sylvia Mathews, president of the Global Development Program for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Opportunity International is one of the most capable and innovative organizations working on these issues worldwide and we are very pleased to be able to help them expand and scale up their operations across Africa.”

The Gates grant will also enable the agency to expand into health insurance. “Health insurance is the most critical need of the poor and the most limited today,” said Richard Leftley, president of the Micro Insurance Agency. “Few products exist and most are prohibitively expensive or are based on complicated models used in the developed world. Our plan is to develop affordable and easy-to-use

After her husband’s death, Rosalinda Barabona was grateful for the life insurance policy that allowed her to continue her dry goods business and support her family.

health insurance, and to enable 2.4 million people to gain access to healthcare services as we test, refine and roll out new products over the life of this grant.”

An estimated 2.5 billion poor people worldwide have no access to insurance, according to Richard. Only 0.3 percent of the poor in Africa have any insurance, and in 23 of the poorest 100 countries in the world there is no identified microinsurance activity. “In some African countries, there is much education to be done because there isn’t even a word for insurance in the local languages,” he said.

The Micro Insurance Agency has developed innovations and technology to create affordable insurance products for individuals and groups of the poor. The life insurance product is so popular that about 40,000 new clients are signing up per month in the Philippines and 12,000 per month in Ghana.

In drought-ridden Malawi, the agency has successfully tested crop insurance for farmers. The insurance is combined with a loan that enables farmers to obtain higher quality, drought-resistant seed and fertilizer. The two-year pilot has been so successful that the World Bank, which provided initial funding, has selected the Micro Insurance Agency to expand crop insurance throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Governors in action Peter & Monique Thorrington: living our mission Just about everything in Peter and Monique Thorrington’s lives prepared them for using their many talents to find ways to improve life for the poorest of the working poor. Peter and Monique grew up in South Africa, witnessing firsthand the effects of apartheid and insurmountable poverty. They were also smart, well educated and blessed with many opportunities. Peter co-founded the successful global airfreight company UTi Worldwide.

Today the Thorringtons live in California, having moved their business to the U.S. after the birth of their fourth child. Their focus now is squarely on raising poverty-stricken families from a life without hope—much of it through their work with Opportunity International, where Peter uses his business acumen to develop and strengthen Opportunity’s programs.

“The attraction to Opportunity International for me was its great business model where, with a limited amount of financial capital, one can really transform many, many lives,” said Peter.

Peter and Monique Thorrington with their children

A member of Opportunity’s Board of Directors, Peter was active in the startup of our involvement in Malawi. While there, he expected to attend a Trust Group meeting, which was cancelled because a client’s husband had just died of AIDS. Instead he spent hours with another client: Martha, recently widowed herself, who had just started her fourth business thanks to loans from Opportunity.

“Martha told me her vow to send her four children to college,” said Peter. “After I heard her story, the loan officer told me that two years prior, Martha would have never been able to even look me in the eye, but now, because of pride in her accomplishments, she stands tall. If you ask what moves me, it’s looking into the eyes of someone like Martha—you are changed forever.”

Both Peter and Monique travel worldwide, spreading the mission of Opportunity and inviting friends, churches, corporations and other potential supporters to become donors.

“As Christians, Monique and I are motivated by Christ’s call to serve the poor. What’s exciting about Opportunity is that everything we invest continues to work for those in need forever,” said Peter. “The spiritual and economic transformation that we witness in people’s lives makes everything we do extremely satisfying and worthwhile.”

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Board of Governors calendar Governors Family Week —Honduras June 22 – 28, 2008

Rwanda Insight Trip August 29 – September 7, 2008

Ghana Insight Trip

December 5 – 13, 2008

My inspiration in Ghana

By Debbie Quigg “Sinapi! Sinapi! ” Excited chanting streamed through the open windows as we entered to participate in our first Trust Group meeting. We were on an Insight Trip to Ghana to get a firsthand look at Opportunity International’s microfinance programs.

Inside, we were greeted as if long-lost relatives—with hugs, laughter, smiles, dancing and more chants of “Sinapi, Sinapi!” We soon learned that Sinapi, referring to the biblical mustard seed, is one of the names by which Opportunity International is known in Ghana.

We had traveled all the way from Aurora, Ohio to meet these women—to see and hear how their lives and the lives of their families have been changed by microfinance.

They could hardly wait to show us their savings books, their loan-repayment books and their attendance records. Pride of accomplishment radiated from their faces.

We sat in places of honor while client after client told us her story. We met Mary, a baker who was able to expand her business into a small shop, and Agnes who can now “stand on her own two feet.” We heard from Marta, who buys and sells palm oil. She uses her Opportunity loans to pay for her products, giving her the funds to set up a kiosk in town. Her children are in secondary school and have a brighter future. She looked at us and said, “Now I am free!”

That statement said it all. Without question, the women we met have experienced transformation. We witnessed it directly and felt their incredible spirit. Our trip to Ghana was not only insightful; it reaffirmed our reasons for supporting Opportunity International and helped us understand the power of microfinance to change lives.

Debbie Quigg and her husband, Dan, have been members of the Board of Governors since 2005. They live in Aurora, Ohio, and have participated in two Insight Trips—to Ghana and India.

Annual Conference October 3 – 4, 2008

webinars May 14

Operations 101, Part I

June 11

Operations 101, Part II To participate in any Board of Governors activities, please contact Wendy Cox, Board of Governors director, at (630) 414-2567 or wcox@opportunity.org.

impact is published quarterly by Opportunity International 2122 York Road, Ste. 150 Oak Brook, Illinois 60523 Janna Cosby, Editor getinfo@opportunity.org ©2008

Opportunity International

(800) 793-9455 www.opportunity.org

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the

opportunity international mission is to provide opportunities for people in chronic poverty to transform their lives.

Our strategy is to create jobs, stimulate small businesses and strengthen communities among the poor.

Our method is to work through indigenous partner organizations that provide small business loans, other financial services, training and counsel.

Our commitment is motivated by Jesus Christ’s call to serve the poor.

Our core values are respect, commitment to the poor, integrity and stewardship.

Opportunity International serves women and men of all faiths and no faith.

2122 York Road, Ste. 150, Oak Brook, Illinois 60523

Until recently, Rosa Argentina didn’t have a solid roof over her house. In her town of San Rafael del Sur, Nicaragua, unemployment is rampant, and economic opportunities are limited.

Says Nohemy Vivas, Branch Manager, Opportunity San Rafael del Sur, “Nicaragua is being hit hard. There is very little employment. People just can’t find jobs.”

Despite harsh economic conditions, Rosa was able to build an oven using her first loan from Opportunity. She was determined to expand her small baking business to make enough money to build a roof for her house, and to send her children to school. In 2006, she heard about Opportunity International’s bank in San Rafael del Sur, and her life was transformed.

Rosa Argentina sells sweet breads door to door in the outskirts of San Rafael del Sur, Nicaragua.