Calvert Foundation: Investing in Communities(TM)

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Calvert Foundation First Issuer for eBay company

Calvert Foundation partnered early on with eBay company MicroPlace to make investment in microfinance more accessible than ever before.

Read what the media has been saying:Reuters, BBC, Yahoo!, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Read the press release.

What is microfinance?

It is providing financial services to the world's working poor, primarily in developing countries. This practice extends small loans (often less than $200) to hard working people too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans or other forms of credit. In contrast to charity, these loans enable the working poor to lift themselves out of poverty. Microfinance is nothing new for us, but partnering with MicroPlace builds on our history and track record of this kind of lending.

Who does microfinance help?

Microfinance helps families in developing countries who lack access to credit and live in poverty. Microfinance has been especially beneficial to women, empowering them to become successful in starting businesses, which in turn allows them to better support their families. Through investment in microfinance, Calvert Foundation has helped families around the world.


What can I do?
Here are some simple ways to help:

1. Spread the Word
Check out MicroPlace and use their "send an ecard" feature in the lower right-hand side of their homepage to invite five of your friends, family and co-workers to check out the new site.

2. Support Calvert Foundation
Through MicroPlace we are positioned to substantially increase Community Investment Note sales. However, for every dollar raised, we need core capital in order to make loans to our microfinance institution partners. Every $1 donated to us supports $20 of lending activity through MicroPlace – but also through investments made directly to us. A donation to our Giftshares program will bolster the core capital requirements needed to realize this opportunity.

 

 

What is Calvert Foundation’s role in this new venture?

Early on Tracey Pettingill Turner came to Calvert Foundation wanting to tap in to our 10 years experience investing in microfinance.  A partnership was struck with a simple vision; to expand investment in microfinance on a scale we never could have achieved on our own in such a short period of time. helped construct the system and more importantly crafted the process to provide the way to place the money prudently.  Calvert Foundation is listing 13 issues as launch and plans to have 25 names up on the Microplace site by year end. Still, we remain fully committed to providing the full range of community investment offerings that we have for more than a decade – including investment in projects that provide affordable housing, domestic jobs, essential community facilities and social enterprise.

 

Special Thanks to Our Key Supporters & Friends

As with any Herculean effort, we could never have done this alone – nor would we ever want to! We are incredibly grateful to the following philanthropic organizations for their support:

We are also working with subadvisors that helped us provide a more robust supply of investments to MicroPlace: MicroVest Capital Management, Triple Jump Fund Management, and Unitus, Inc.

We are extremely thankful for ongoing pro bono legal support from the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP, which provides us with invaluable legal guidance for our design and implementation of this initiative.