Answering The Question, ‘How Do You Help People Too Poor For Microloans?’ - #1169

Upaya Social Ventures is a nonprofit impact investing firm that answers the question, “How do you help people too poor for microloans?” The answer is both easy and challenging: jobs. The presumption of microlending programs often seems to be that everyone can or should be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is a powerful economic driver, but most people lack the skills to thrive as entrepreneurs even in wealthy countries. It certainly can’t be fair to expect people in developing countries to be better at entrepreneurship with even fewer tools. Kate Cochran, 51, CEO of Upaya, says she is “a fierce believer that global poverty is not inevitable and entrepreneurial energy and individual resolve are some of the sharpest tools available to us in that fight.” The group of founders who launched Upaya recognized that by carefully selecting entrepreneurs to back Upaya could indirectly create jobs for those living in extreme poverty, allowing them to lift themselves out of it. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2B2gfFO.