Fundusz Mikro
10. June 2004 - 03:30 PM
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Fundusz Mikro is a partnership-based finance institution for Polish "micro businesses", individuals with "reasonable ambitions" and small companies with fewer than five employees (carpenters, hairdressers, computer consultants, taxi drivers or shop keepers, etc.). Fundusz Mikro’s core microfinance product is a mixture of a loan and an equity investment. It requires the establishment of a partnership relationship between lender and borrower.
Fundusz Mikro goal is to provide finance in a manner which ensures "the quickest and the most visible impact" for local communities through
- job creation,
- expansion of local trading relationships, and
- development of local services.
A study published by the Aspen Institute reveals some very compelling learnings:
Though we are at the early stages of partnership finance, we are discovering that it enables us to get a much richer picture of the attitudes of entrepreneurs, their knowledge, and skills, than was ever possible through our standard loan system. That picture is helping us to see three ingredients as essential in the building of a new business culture in Poland:Could Fundusz Mikro and its partnership finance model serve as a template for other European countries in economic struggles (say, Germany)?The most interesting of these ingredients is the social attitude of entrepreneurs.
- an entrepreneur’s business knowledge—an ability to assess the effectiveness of an investment;
- a sense of enterprise—the skill to foresee changes and adapt to them, the ability to perceive new possibilities, and a determination to attain one’s goals; and
- a social attitude—the desire to establish, and the ability to build, good relationships with business partners.
