Imagine starting up a successful small business with a bright idea and less than two hundred dollars.

It might be a difficult goal in this province, but hundreds of entrepreneurs have built their own sustainable and even profitable businesses from exactly those resources – with a little help from Alberta’s small business community.

About 450 of those Alberta businesspeople gathered in Calgary this past weekend to find out just how their investments are paying dividends, by lifting families out of the cycle of poverty and economic dependence in the developing world.

“It’s business helping business - helping people to get ahead, rise above poverty and help themselves,” says Kimberley Parker of Opportunity International Canada, a non-profit group that provides an investment lifeline to help entrepreneurs in Central America grow their own small businesses.

Opportunity International photos
Loans from Opportunity International help entrepreneurs such as Alcira Herrera Beita, below left, to thrive in the marketplace.

Formed in 1999, the group is one of seven independent offshoots of Opportunity International, a faith-based organization that spurs “micro-enterprise developments” (MEDs) – essentially providing the poorest of the poor with small loans to jump-start small businesses and create jobs.

Since it started in 1971, Opportunity International has loaned more than $60 million to hundreds of thousands of budding entrepreneurs in 32 countries.

The group’s commitment is motivated by the message of Jesus Christ to serve the poor without regard to faith, race or gender. But not through outright relief – which organizers believe creates dependency and robs people of initiative and dignity.



“ Very few people have the capital they need to start their own business straight off, and entrepreneurs in Alberta understand this concept,” adds Parker. “But not a lot of people have heard of MEDs as a form of development or charitable activity at the grassroots.

“And business people love it when they hear that it’s not a handout, it’s not people relying on them and creating a dependency.”

Alcira Herrera Beita is an example of how such bottom-up capitalism by Canadian business donors is helping launch promising new enterprises in disadvantaged communities in countries including Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.

The 29-year-old mother from Pavas, Costa Rica, received a $100 US “micro-loan” several years ago to help her sell vegetables in the local market. She built up her business and went on to encourage other local women – many former prostitutes and drug abusers with dismal career prospects – to get involved in the program.

Today she works as an Opportunity International loan officer with 330 clients in the region of San Jose.

“This is my passion – to help other people,” Beita told Business Edge, with the help of a translator.

Beita and Opportunity International staff came to Alberta last week to thank the network of local businesses and Rotary Clubs that support the group, and to hold a fund- raiser at The Roundup Centre in Calgary.

Loans from Opportunity International Canada to recipients in Central America average around $200-$300. Interest rates comparable to regular bank rates are charged, to help prepare the borrower for the realities of the larger financial world.

Almost 90 per cent of the recipients are women working in businesses such as vegetable stands, used clothing sales and tortilla bakeries.

The most common method of loan is through a locally run “trust bank,” where groups of up to 30 borrowers co-guarantee each other’s loans to be paid back over a four-month period.

A savings component is part of each loan repayment. Larger individual loans ranging up to $2,200 and payable in eight months are available for people who have graduated from the group lending programs, or don’t need the peer support of the trust banks. About 98 per cent of all Opportunity International loans are repaid, the vast majority on time.

While the Canadian arm of the Opportunity International network focuses on Central America, the group is also starting a new project in Ghana this year, addressing AIDS education and access to credit.

Calgary businesswoman Nancy Maxwell says many small businesses have opened their hearts and wallets to the idea of helping “colleagues” in less-advantaged countries through investment. Last year, 494 Canadians stepped forward with an average donation of about $2,000, and in Calgary alone, about $214,000 was raised.

“It’s easier to get the attention of smaller entrepreneurs with something like this,” says Maxwell, a regional customer service manager for Maxxam Analytics. Inc. and a local director for Opportunity International Canada (www.opportunitycanada.ca).

“To us it’s a tiny amount of money – we think $100 or $150 is nothing.”

“But what is small to us is very large to them in terms of the empowerment it gives to them in their society.”