Giving Hope Not Handouts - Micro Finance for start-ups
We believe in creating lasting solutions to poverty. This is why the Edge Foundation focuses on self-sustaining business models that can become vital agents of change in poor communities. Poor people have the skills, ideas, and passion to make a positive change, but their lack of funds hinders them from making their goals a reality.
Traditional banking is often not an option, and those banks who are willing to assist, well they tend to offer interest rates that are unfortunately unaffordable. Too often, families fall victims to loan sharks which then simply drags them deeper into poverty.
The Edge Foundation plans to provides interest-free loans in the future.
- Before a loan is given, beneficiaries are vetted and trained on how to use their loans. We endeavour to avoid the misuse of microloans and prefer that they are only directed towards expenses like school fees, food, and medicine.
- We then offer extensive training before we issue the loans. 4-8 training sessions are given (which includes bookkeeping and money management etc.) and we then provide 2 support sessions a month once the loan has been issued. We have a special team who closely monitor bookkeeping accounts and offer advice if they are stuck. We also help our beneficiaries to open a bank account where they can safely keep their earnings.
- Loans are repayable in small instalments.
- Beneficiaries can only take out ONE loan at a time.
- If our beneficiaries are unable to repay their loans because of external problems that are out of their control (flooding, famine etc.) we will consider clearing their loans. However, we have created a sustainable structure to ensure that all loans are payable.
Loans start from as little as £———–. Because we do thorough vetting and assist our beneficiaries with training, we believe our loans will be repaid on time -which means we can then reinvest this money to help others.