Big Dent””A Personal Touch to Lessening Poverty

Christian Missionary Fellowship, a 62-year-old mission agency in Indianapolis, Indiana, has worked in Nairobi, Kenya, for many years. Executive Director Doug Priest and his staff believe there are many Christians who are interested in providing a microfinance loan within a faith-based framework to aspiring entrepreneurs in an impoverished community. CMF now has the tools for small gifts to make a “big dent” in poverty.

BigDent.org went live in August after more than a year of preparation in Indianapolis and Nairobi. Donors can now go to the user-friendly website and browse the photos and real-life stories of budding entrepreneurs, and provide a loan of any size with a credit card and just a few clicks.

Each donation through BigDent.org goes to CMF”s finance division for processing. Funds are then wired on a regular basis to a bank in Nairobi, where members of the BigDent Business Development Services (BDS) staff withdraw and distribute the money.

Contributions provide the initial loans for new graduates of the business-training program. Entrepreneurs must make regular payments on the loan until it is paid in full. As the loans are repaid, those funds are redirected to new entrepreneurs or proven owners who are expanding their businesses. A donor”s gift truly is one that keeps on giving.

Skills training is also an important piece of the microfinance loan system. The BDS staff provides ongoing sewing and beading classes for women who want to start these types of businesses. Each graduate of the sewing classes receives her own sewing machine. The staff hopes to expand into other types of skills training in the future.

Beginnings

The idea for BigDent.org flowed out of CMF”s Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program in Nairobi. Several years ago, CMF began looking for a partner who was already doing CHE in the area, and found Mary Kamau of the Missions of Hope International (MOHI) schools. Kamau, a Kenyan Christian, focuses on the one-square mile Mathare slum””a community of nearly 1 million people””where she works with people to identify their needs and resources. One of the top three problems the people there always listed was “no jobs.”

CMF and MOHI began a partnership that first led to the successful child sponsorship program. They also worked together to make small loans to new business owners. They brought a group of prospective entrepreneurs together, offered training in business and biblical principles, and taught them how to write business plans. One of the first such groups started a successful bread-making business.

The program grew steadily and spread out into 10 other areas within the Mathare slums. MOHI hired Kenyans to serve as loan officers to oversee the weekly accountability groups. But with growth came an increased demand for capital for the loans. In addition, many churches that were sponsoring children in MOHI schools developed partnerships with whole communities and were looking for a way for their church members to connect directly with the people who lived in them. CMF and MOHI looked at the success of the child sponsorship program and saw other microfinance organizations raising funds with online giving, so they decided to pursue the idea of developing a dedicated website to directly link donors and entrepreneurs.

Real People, Real Stories

Developing the comprehensive website was a complicated process. It involved CMF staffers, professional website developers, an Indianapolis volunteer information technology expert, and a volunteer businessman who trekked to Nairobi to lay the initial groundwork for the project, plus countless people in Nairobi. But the extended time frame gave Kenyans the time they needed to get the necessary structure in place.

The four loan officers and their boss, Esther Musyimi, head of BDS, had to take photos of all the entrepreneurs and write their stories for the website before it could launch. This project was time-consuming, but was necessary to its success. It”s also an ongoing one, as new entrepreneurs frequently are added to the website. But donors can be assured that each real name matches the photo, which matches his or her real story.

Holistic Approach

Although donors give money to start businesses, organizers emphasize BigDent is not just a stand-alone jobs program, but part of a holistic approach to poverty.

“Changed lives are the goal,” says Keith Ham, a longtime CMF missionary in Nairobi who has been a part of both the child sponsorship and microfinance programs. He always emphasizes the circular connection between microfinance and growing Christians and churches in the African slums. So far, seven new churches have been started in Nairobi as a result of the microfinance program.

“Because of the immediate needs met in concrete ways, people are open to change and want it,” Ham says. “It becomes natural to meet spiritual needs as well. Communities come together not only to meet their apparent and physical concerns, but also the spiritual and social ones. As this is done, churches and faith communities are formed.”

In addition, many of the entrepreneurs have children in the MOHI schools, and many are also in HIV-AIDS support groups. A good number attend Christian churches in Nairobi for spiritual support. And communities where entrepreneurship is going strong are generally healthier because the people work harder to keep them cleaned up.

The new tool of microfinance is one important part of a whole system that helps people become who God wants them to be. BigDent.org aims to give individual Christians and churches a simple way to help make that happen.

Janet Smith works in the Urban Poor/Marketplace Ministries division at CMF and is a member of Hazel Dell Christian Church, Carmel, Indiana.