Goals

2010 Goals

Loans: Extend loans to a minimum of 200 new borrowers and 360 follow up borrowers, for a total of 560 loans in 2010. By the end of 2010, WMI intends to have established a $200,000 revolving credit facility. By the end of 2010 WMI expects to have issued a cumulative total of over 1,000 loans.

Service Area: Expand loan program operations to Bududa, Uganda and Siaya, Kenya. Research the launch of additional loan programs in Laekepia, Kenya and Tororo or Jinja, Uganda.

Transition Platform: Transition 100 experienced borrowers to bank loans through the transition program with PostBank Uganda. These borrowers will be preparing to graduate to totally independent banking in 2011. Develop a manual with protocols for the transition to independent banking.

Human Capacity Building: Fund three positions for additional local coordinators, reporting to the WMI Manager, whose duties would include visiting borrowers on a daily basis to discuss their progress, interviewing potential borrowers, attending weekly support group meetings and providing weekly reports. Expand the children's lending library in the WMI building. Expand the after-school English tutoring programs and vacation tutoring programs. Establish computer training options.

WMI Building: Construction sanitation facilities adjacent to the building WMI finished in the village last year. Electrify the building. Establish an Internet Café in the building.

Children's Books: Expand the number of books in the children's library established in the WMI building last year. Supplement the materials available in the local primary school with donated math and reading text books.

Internship: Launch a summer internship program for high school students in the U.S. to travel to Uganda and volunteer with the WMI loan program.

Two Year Goals

Loans: Continue to extend the WMI Loan Program from the villages in the Buyobo area, to villages throughout the Sironko District. Growing the program in a web configuration, with Bulambuli village as the center, will allow for mutual support among the borrowers, each of whom will have a social and geographic connection to other borrowers in the program. It will allow for the transfer of knowledge from experienced borrowers to newcomers and conserve resources by concentrating services in a localized area.

Human Capacity Building: Establish a very modest retirement plan for WMI's Local Director, Olive Wolimbwa, whose salary is guaranteed for a 5-year period through a contribution from the Cordes Foundatation. Fund stipends for additional local coordinator positions, so that all borrowers in all villages have easy access to a WMI representative whom they know and trust. Fund small stipends for WMI representatives in Kampala, who can help coordinate WMI activities, so that the WMI employees working in the villages do not have to travel all the way to Kampala to carry out necessary business activities.

Building Maintenance/Expansion: Set up a fund to provide capital for future building expansion and regular maintenance. Expand the budding library project so that villagers have access to books and materials that can inspire, encourage and guide their growing possibilities for a better life.

Electrification: Electrify the proposed WMI building. Begin a Low-cost Electrification Loan Program in conjunction with support from the Ugandan government and private industry. Implement the use of solar panel systems to by-pass the overburdened national electric grid and encourage environmentally friendly alternatives.

Men's Meetings: Establish a regular program of Support Group Meetings for male relatives of borrowers. The objective is to involve them in the loan process in a collaborative manner.

New Communities: Evaluate other rural communities in Uganda where WMI can establish a strong connection to a village-level women's association to initiate a second hub for a credit program.

Long Term Goals

WMI's long-term goal is to transition borrowers into mainstream banking services, but with an innovative and unique twist. WMI plans to harness the borrowers' combined success in the WMI loan program to command competitive terms, interest rates and convenient access to services.

The disenfranchisement of women in rural areas from access to credit is a major impediment to sustained economic improvement for households in developing countries. It is extremely difficult for poor women to access services from institutional banks in the cities and towns throughout Uganda and other developing countries. Typically, they are excluded from access to financial services due to systemic reasons, such as: complicated paperwork, lack of collateral, demands for a male guaranty, unavailability of documents (such as citizenship documentation), unavailability or expense of transportation, and illiteracy.

WMI's long term goal is to remove these barriers through the women's own track record of hard work, business success and a 100% loan repayment rate in the WMI Loan Program. By giving the borrowers a chance to prove their bankability, WMI will be able to interest banks in penetrating the rural markets to obtain the customers that WMI has initiated, trained and educated. Because the WMI Loan Program participants will have developed successful businesses with WMI's support, financial institutions will be willing to develop a tailored transition program to accommodate WMI graduates in their customer base. It is a winning scenario for all stake-holders: WMI borrowers will be able to access convenient, diverse financial services, on attractive terms, to meet their growing business needs, the financial institution will obtain educated and successful new customers, and WMI will fulfill its mission of changing the face of poverty one loan at a time.