Editor’s Note: posted by Heather but written by Maria!

Hey! I’m Maria.  Although I’m originally from Cincinnati, once summer ends, I’ll be returning to finish my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Dallas - all the way down in Texas. What drew me to DurhamCares was its warm and wholehearted spirit. It is an organization that is prepared to make deliberate steps for positive change. The everyday fervor I find at the workplace is absolutely contagious.  As a philanthropic organization, it stands out. DurhamCares is an organization that seeks to enrich Durham with the tools it already has: well-established charities and an enthusiastic, colorful community.

I’m still unsure of what my future entails after this summer, but I hope my experience as an intern gives me insight into the individuals of this unique and robust community, a community that is fervent in its wanting to improve. From what I’ve seen, Durham is far from being apathetic, and I look forward to using my talents this summer to help DurhamCares engage this diverse community.  I hope to help Durham serve as a paradigm of involvement and pride that other communities around the world will later embrace and emulate.

Currently, I’m creating an informational DurhamCares video with Thomas.  I am also co-organizing community interviews with Jonathan, editing, and eventually compiling our videotaped work onto the web.

So we want you to meet the interns working at DurhamCares this summer.  It's a great team with diverse skills and interests and we're having a great time together.   Tune in every day for the next five days and meet an intern!

Left to Right: Lauren Wishon, Jessica Metcalf, Thomas Payne, Jonathan Clarke, Maria Murdock

Hear our latest news and meet our newest intern - Thomas Payne. We call him T-Payne and he just finished his first year at the Naval Academy.

I spent much of last Thursday and Friday at the DPAC attending the Advance 09 conference. The Advance 09 Conference brought together some of America's best Christian pastors (Driscoll, Chandler, Piper and our own JD Greear among others) to speak on the resurgence of the Church in America. It was absolutely amazing. More than 2,700 folks from all over the country came to Durham to hear what God was doing in the world and what he calls us all to do.

I met lots of folks from places as far away as Seattle and including West Virginia, Louisville, Little Rock, and Grand Rapids Michigan to name a few. One of the folks, that left the greatest impression though, was a missons pastor from Redeemer church in Winston Salem named Francis Smith.

I met him briefly yesterday when he stopped by the DurhamCares table. He talked about how he had grown up in Durham in Braggtown and then moved north to Bahama. He then went on to tell me the origin of the name of this area north of Durham (named by combining the last names of the 3 families who first settled there) and why it wasn't pronounced like the islands off the coast of Florida. When I asked him if he would participate in a new 30-second-video project that we are doing that asks people why they love Durham (he was born here and does love it, so he'd qualify) and what it means for them to love their neighbor, he politely declined. Well, he came back today telling me that he would like to participate after all. It seems that he had told the story last night to his wife who urged him to seize this opportunity during which he might share something with others. And so, he did do the interview. (it and many others like it will be brought online in our new video section which should hopefully make it's debut before the end of the month).

I had told him, of course, all about DurhamCares and how we are working to encourage people in Durham to become engaged in their city through volunteer matching, trips to Durham and Succcess Grants. He definitely got it, and was encouraged by our inspiration from the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I was very impressed with his wisdom, born from many years in the mission field abroad and right here in North Carolina. He had many things to say about engagement, and I'll only list a few here.

I hope that you find them as encouraging and challenging as I did, but I fear that I may not do them justice, and it sure was great to hear them from his mouth, and not my feeble typing:

1. Don't buy a new shovel. I know that sounds a bit strange, but it makes all the sense in the world if you think about it, and no, it has nothing to do with the recession and a desire to cut back on new purchases. Francis said that someone had once told him that it's a good idea to borrow a shovel (or other tool) even if you have one. Why? Well, because that gives you an opportunity to engage with your neighbor. Ask him or her how they are doing and what's going on in their life. Mostly conversations will be short and pleasant, but sometimes your neighbor might even bring up issues that you might help them sort out or encourage them on. Either way, you'll both be better for it. Such conversations might never happen if you have the most complete tool collection out there. By the way, I tried that tonight out of a genuine need for milk, and a strong desire not to go to the store. He's right, I very much enjoyed my brief visit with my neighbor and I think that he felt the same.
2. Is it safe? I know, this sounds like some sort of plug for the movie Marathon Man. No, this isn't about the famous interchange between Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman, it's about confronting your fears as you seek to help your neighbor in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Francis shared with me a story of a woman who he got to know at his church. He had encouraged her to volunteer at a mission in an unfamiliar part of town. She asked, "Is it safe?" His response: "No, but then again in this world now, nothing is completely." Several months later she saw him again in church and she came up to him to tell him that she was indeed volunteering and helping with kids in this impoverished area of town. Francis asked her, "Well, did you find out that it's safe?" Her answer: "No, but I love working with the kids." I found this story to be strikingly honest and consistent with my limited experience. God calls us to honor him in all sorts of ways and stretches us beyond our comfort level, as he did with this woman, but he blesses us (and those we seek to serve) when we do so.
3. Don't just drive through.  Over the course of his career he has been strongly influenced by John Perkins who told him that it's not just enough for us to drive into challenged neighborhoods each day and assist our brothers on the other side of town, but that it's far better to move in alongside them and to live amongst them. (And then to resist the urge to spend a lot in up-fitting the house to our old standards.) For then, true barriers will come down. I found this last part very challenging to internalize and candidly (as if I'd be anything but), I don't see moving our family any time soon. BUT, I found a lot of wisdom in what he said and it's going to encourage me to do more when I visit these neighborhoods. Lest I feel too pleased with myself about the lengths that I'm going, I'll be inspired on knowing that there is yet far more that I can do. I do wish, though, that I had the courage to do exactly what Perkins suggests. Maybe there will be a time for that in my life.

Francis, THANK YOU for coming back to Durham for the conference. Thank you for stopping by the DurhamCares booth today, and thank you for sharing this encouragement with me. Thank you for loving your neighbor!

As you may recall, I promised to write a series of blogs about entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, I am remarkably biased about entrepreneurship, but I do think that the creativity, innovation and hard work that it requires can be a big part of Durham's economic development and resurgence. As entrepreneurs develop plans to engage in the community through volunteerism programs for their companies and employees (see bandwidthcares.org for an example), I think that entrepreneurship will bring much more to Durham than just the creation of wealth and jobs (though those are good goals as well, of course....particularly when that new found wealth is reinvested back in the community).

I firmly believe that the seeds for entrepreneurship can be sown very early in life. LemonadeDay (please see the blog on this from last week) hits on this concept, and so do video games. Video Games? Yes, video games. The folks from the Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurship have created a series of compelling video games to engage youth in learning the basics of entrepreneurship. http://www.actonsims.com/

If your kids are like my kids, video games are a huge draw. Kimberley and I don't have video games at the house but do allow our boys (we have 3, ages 3,5,7) to play games on my iphone when we are travelling. This has worked great for us, as it takes away some of the tedium of long wait in the airport, even if we just limit it to 30 minutes. The draw, though, of video games is so great that it's enough to tell them that they can play them later in the trip to keep them well behaved and excited. I'm not sure if video games had the same control over me while growing up, but the games (pong, then space invaders and pacman) weren't nearly as good as the ones that are out now. Ok, so far I'm not telling you anything that you didn't already know. So here goes:
You'll see from the actonsims website that there are several different games to play.

There are single player games like Galactic Zappers that teach kids how to overcome operations bottlenecks, and multiplayer games like Price Point. One of Acton's games that has been reviewed by gamesforchange.org that seems to have gotten some traction:
From: http://www.gamesforchange.org/main/gameprof/731

RoboRush! is meant to teach students how to build a business from the ground up. Students will start a small robot-manufacturing business through grassroots methods: pursuing sales, running efficient operations, and learning to say ‘no' to less-profitable customer requests. As the student progresses they will have the opportunity to scale up the business by making sound decisions and taking risks. In growing the business the student has the opportunity to hire staff, open a storefront, and even open a factory. As they do, they will find that the game play becomes more challenging as they find that managing staff, monitoring demand, and balancing profitability are not as easy as they may have originally imagined.

Another game associated with helping youth get interested in entrepreneurship is from the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation is Johnny Money: www.NFIB.com/jmog. This looks to be worth checking out as well. Undoubtedly there are more online games as well, and I hope that folks add to this list in the comment section.

I still think that the best way to teach kids about entrepreneurship is through LemonadeDay.org, but as that program is designed to run once a year (though there's nothing holding kids back, of course, from doing it more frequently), these video games may present part of the solution for planting the seeds of entrepreneurship in Durham's kids from an early age...seeds that will hopefully sprout, grow and flourish to Durham's benefit for many years to come.

Check out our new Durham digs!

Pardon the interruption from the series on domestic entrepreneurship issues for a quick blog on international entrepreneurship.

I write this with a bit of caution, as the last thing that I want to do is to dampen anyone's interest in microfinance. Microfinance is now, and for my money, always will be, a remarkably effective way to alleviate worldwide poverty.

BUT, I think that it's important that donors/funders/investors understand the current climate for microfinance so that they can be very smart with their giving and as always, (but more difficult to do than you'd think) do no harm.

When we were on the DurhamCares trip to India we visited several different economic development programs. It was during one such visit, in Chennai, that I actually started to think that a microfinance bubble might be imminent, at least one that would impact many urban environments where microfinance institutions (MFI) have become quite popular. The Director of the program we visited lamented the loss of some of their best borrowing groups to competing MFIs. In some cases, he had trained and nurtured savings groups for more than 2 years, steadily increasing the amounts that these women borrowed from him as they proved through their business models and repayment history that they could service larger amounts. These women (this MFI, as most do, lent primarily to women) had received important training on subjects from extending credit to customers to the basics of marketing. Now, in one day, a new loan officer from a new organization would come in and offer the women double the amount that they had previously borrowed.

These women often jumped at the chance to double the amount of money that they could borrow as they eyed more and more things that they might do with an increased sum of money. In some cases this money was spent on their business, in some cases for weddings and in others the purchase of consumer goods. Studies have also shown that there is a disturbing increase in the number of poor who have multiple loans to different MFIs, in some cases taking the proceeds from one loan to pay off another. In other words, these women are subject to the same temptations and challenges that MANY OF US have experienced with easy credit, not any different from what so many American have witnessed and experienced with credit card debt, and yes, with easy-to-come-by mortgages. The question, of course, is what will be the long term impact of this "easy credit" as each dollar borrowed more than the one before has a lower incremental benefit, of course, and with it a lower chance of being able to produce the income needed to pay it back.

Now if it was just a US-based telecom guy throwing out some concern, I'd likely take all of this with a grain of salt, but these concerns have been shared by others that I've talked to in the MFI industry as well. Most also have particular concerns with cities like Chennai where MFI saturation has reached such a point that the vast majority of the poor are served, often times with multiple loans.

Ok, so what to do with this information/opinion? The most important thing is to NOT stop investing in MFIs (pardon the double negative here, it just makes the point better). The key is to invest a bit more smartly, and as with any investment (as all of our charitable giving/investing should be) research the organizations and ask the right questions.

Some questions you should ask include: are MFIs operating in environments underserved or is current demand met by existing supply? what percentage of the MFI's customers have multiple loans? What percentage are in urban areas? Does the charity permit direct funding to rural initiatives? What type of training programs does the MFI run and how frequently? Of course, it's also great to visit these institutions in the field. While this seems daunting, DurhamCares trips (http://www.durhamcares.org/index.php/trips) cost less than $1,500 and only involve 3 days out of the country and focus on some great MFIs.

Remember, 80% of the world's poor DO NOT YET have access to microfinance funds and desperately need it. That is 400 million entrepreneurs!

The rural poor generally and many selective pockets of the urban poor [consider HUGE urban centers like Brazzaville, Bangui, etc.] are vastly underserved by this amazing program that provides dignity rather than dependency, and a hand up rather than a hand out. However, serving the rural poor is often less attractive due to political and economic instability and are often not as profitable as serving the urban poor in more stable economies. The reason for this has much to do with the operating expenses of fielding a caseworker. For instance, a rural caseworker might visit a small fraction of borrowing groups during the day as in urban areas. This obviously drives up the operating costs of distributing and administrating the loans and conducting trainings.

Many MFIs targeting rural or less "attractive" urban pockets may not be profitable now or ever and as a result don't receive much money from the international "for profit" private equity funding sources, and therefore are very much in need of outside donations (to an operating fund) or investments (to a loan fund typically returning 3-5% net to the investor). In fact, while urban MFIs might make 10-20% to the bottom line (part of the reason that money is now chasing them), many rural MFIs might lose 20%. BUT, another way of looking at a loss of 20% is to think that such an operation is 80% sustainable. Compare 80% sustainability with the 0% sustainability that so much of our international giving and aid has gotten, and even poorly performing microfinance (if administered correctly in the field characterized by serviceable loan amounts and good training) looks like a Godsend.

So PLEASE consider microfinance as a part of your overseas funding! It's very much needed and can be amazingly effective for all the reasons listed above. But, go in armed with questions that you should ask, with eyes wide open, and with a prayerful heart.

..........................

Note:
Noticeably absent from this short piece is any information related to another component of microfinance: SCA (Savings and Credit Associations) promote savings among groups of poor people, facilitating interest rate savings (as groups of savings often meet bank minimums for initial deposit) and lending to each other out of their shared pool. These groups are not susceptible to the same bubble and are a very worthy recipient of your attention and investment. For the best that I've seen check out the Chalmers Center www.chalmers.org), as a great institution dedicated exclusively to the training of lay workers in the field in SCA. Also Hope International, (www.hopeinternational.org) is a MFI that strongly advocates SCAs in addition to the more traditional lending practices that they do. Since their approach addresses both financial AND spiritual poverty as a Christ led organization, they work more relationally with clients in mostly underserved countries like the Congo and, in my opinion, are better suited to weather any correction that takes MFIs to something less than 100% sustainability.