News & Media

May Newsletter Now Available!

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

The May newsletter is now available!  Get caught up on CGF’s developments over the past month, including recently delivered loans! Click CGF May Newsletter to view the newsletter in PDF format.

Community Partner Speaks About the Need for CGF’s Services in Providence

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Tomás Alberto Ávila, Director of the Small Business Development Center at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island recently spoke about his interactions with the Capital Good Fund and the need for microlending that CGF proposes to fill.  Below is a full, written testimonial from Tomás.

The Capital Good Fund: A Project with Transformational Potential
 
Tomás Alberto Ávila
May 15, 2009

I remember meeting with Andy Posner to talk about The Capital Good Fund idea as a microlender dedicated to serving the community of Providence, Rhode Island with a mission to tackle poverty through entrepreneurship, innovative financing and other unique loan products and services, as Brown University Student, I listened carefully and I must admit somewhat skeptic about what I was hearing and what I expected as an outcome.

During our meeting and several other meetings, I told Andy that I saw a difference with the project he was proposing in that its intent was to help the immigrant and less privilege communities of Rhode Island and not just another project to fulfill a thesis research requirement that leaves nothing but empty promises to the residents that volunteer their private situations and their community’s ills hopefuls that it would help improve their neighborhood and their personal situation, only to be forgotten after the particular student’s thesis has been completed, his or her grade attained and move on to the next semester and their next job while the residents situation remains the same and the community as well.

My comments to Andy were based on my experience with many Undergraduates and Graduate students from Brown University and other local colleges and universities through my years of involvement in empowering the less privilege community through, social political, business and economic development empowerment of such community and remaining involved in the community and watch the vicious cycle evolve over and over as students tackle their academic research project requirements with the less fortunate community community as their laboratory.

Such consistent use of the community as a self fulfilling laboratory and in many cases the creation of a “progressive” agenda by creating activist movement and organizations that are lead by the students themselves creating a leadership dependancy on their inexperience but resourceful economic superiority that provides them with access to the state power base through their Ivy League contacts, has created resentment among less privilege leaders and local elected officials as well as the political base of such communities towards the student community and the academic institutions that sponsor such projects and unfair socialy misguided intellectual asset that benefits the student body while leaving the community behind once concluded.

The Capital Good Fund Andy described to me, was a different approach that planned to provide loans to local entrepreneurs seeking capital for income-generating activities and to immigrants interested in applying for legal permanent residency or citizenship. Based on my previous experience, I found Andy’s proposal innovative and appropriately guided to help the less privilege communities and envisioned to improve their communities by improving their personal socioeconomic standards and deserving of my support and advocacy among members of my circle of influence and local elected officials.

To my pleasant surprise, The Capital Good Fund began operation in February 2009, ninety days prior to Andy submitting his thesis for his final grading, the thesis was shared with the cooperating community, an initial infrastructure is in place and must importantly an invitation to the community to be inform about the progress achieve and seek further input from the residents and a commitment to capitalizing the fund and continue it’s operation by increasing the loans to the entrepreneurial immigrant community.

The Capital Good Fund willingness to learn from the successes and failures of other organizations and students experience with the less privilege community rather than imposing a preconceive solution is a breath of fresh air.  It’s fostering interaction, intent to take an open, transparent approach to everything it does, sharing what works and what doesn’t work, and collaborating with others to better serve our borrowers departs from the previous “we know best” approach.  While it’s goal not to develop proprietary lending models or loan products, but rather to make available to anyone and everyone information about it’s programs in order that more people in more places can benefit from innovations in microfinance has the potential of developing the needed structure to improve the access to capital in the less privilege immigrant communities.

There is a a great need for The Capital Good Fund’s services across the United States in general, and in Providence in particular.  50 million Americans have no credit score and millions more suffer from poor credit, effectively shutting them out of the mainstream financial system.  As a result, America’s working poor rely on fringe and predatory financial services such as payday loans, loan sharks and check cashers, which taken together are now a $100 billion industry[1]  .  In Providence, a poverty rate of 25% (concentrated among women, children and minorities) and an unemployment rate of 9.3% are forcing families to seek additional streams of revenue through home-based businesses and other related ventures[2]  .  The Capital Good Fund’s services will enable low-income Providence residents to 1) start and expand their businesses through affordable loans, 2) access services such as business and financial literacy training, 3) build credit history through successful loan repayments and 4) open bank accounts. There are currently several hundred MFIs operating in the United States, the majority of which have failed to grow to meet the tremendous demand indicated by the size of the fringe and predatory financial markets[3] 

In conclusion, The Capital Good Fund represents a departure from previous research thesis projects I have experienced with the Brown University students and in my humble opinion is a Project with Transformational Potential for the student community to institutionalize a socioeconomic changing institution in the less privilege communities in Rhode Island.

[1]

CGF Press Release

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

CGF recently offered its very first open financial workshop for members of the Providence Community.  The press release can be found below.  Be sure to stay tuned for additional information about community workshops!

CGF Press Release

April Newsletter Now Available!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Read about the Capital Good Fund’s activities over the last month, including the disbursement of our very first microloan!  Click the link below to access the newsletter via pdf format:

April Newsletter

Local Coffee Shop Announces Support for Capital Good Fund

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Blue State Café, a local coffee shop in Providence, RI near Brown University’s campus recently named the Capital Good Fund as one of the local causes that it supports.  Every quarter, Blue State donates approximately 5% of its gross sales to a select number of local initiatives.

In other words, the more people that vote for the Capital Good Fund, the more money CGF will have to lend out to low income individuals in Providence!

This is a very exciting time for CGF, as this relationship with Blue State comes amidst our pilot phase and promises to help our organization build both financial and organizational capacity.  We will be posting updates on our partnership with Blue State as the quarter progresses!  Thank you all for supporting us, and if you live in the city of Providence, make sure to visit the Blue State Café located in the Brown University Bookstore at 244 Thayer St, Providence, RI 02912 to vote for CGF!

Pilot Phase Update

Thursday, March 26, 2009

CGF is currently in the process of reviewing applications for citizenship loans.  Our loan officers have been working tirelessly to meet with potential clients to help them fill out their applications and to provide additional information on CGF’s services.  We have also initiated the business loan phase of our pilot.  We have distributed our business loan applications to our community partners, where interested individuals with business ideas will have an opportunity to apply for $500-$3,000 to start or expand their enterprises.  Already, a number of small businesses in Providence have contacted us for more information on the borrowing process.  Our team is very excited to get both the citizenship and business loans out to our clients in the coming weeks!

Read Our First Monthly Newsletter!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Now that we are on the cusp of beginning our microloan pilot phase, we feel it is important to keep our donors, supporters and community partners abreast of the latest developments in our programs.  We intend to do that through this news page, our blog, and also through a monthly newsletter.  Today we are thrilled to announce the release of our first newsletter, which can be downloaded below (PDF).  Please forward the Newsletter to anyone you know that might be interested in microfinance, and look for our next newsletter next month—by then we will have made our first round of loans!

Newsletter_March.pdf

The Capital Good Fund Website has Launched!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Welcome to capitalgoodfund.org! We would love for you to explore our new website by clicking through the tabs at the top of the page. Information about our mission, staff, community partners, future plans, and history can be found under the “About us” tab. If you are interested in getting a loan, please go to the “Get a loan” tab and download the loan application and contact our loan officers if you have any questions. If you would like to partner or volunteer with the Capital Good Fund, please click on the “Get Involved” tab. Lastly, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us by clicking the “Contact Us” tab or emailing us at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thanks for stopping by our site, and please pass the word along to your friends and networks.  We are excited to launch our site, and we are even more excited to soon make our first cycle of loans. We welcome all comments and suggestions for the site, as it is still a work in progress.