Our Blog

A Big Shout Out to BwB Volunteers on Pro Bono Week

Wednesday, October 26, 2016 - 07:52

In honor of Pro Bono Week, Bankers without Borders would like to take the opportunity to send a big shout out to all of our 22,000 supporters from 173 countries who volunteered with more than 210 social enterprises around the world. We are recognizing some of our most inspiring volunteers and are sharing their stories and accomplishments in our 2016 Diamond Volunteer Book. While our volunteers may come from a variety of backgrounds and countries, they are all unified in their commitment to Bankers without Borders and Grameen Foundation's mission of ending abject poverty. We hope you'll be as... Read More

Using the Gender Lens on Digital Financial Services

Tuesday, October 25, 2016 - 10:57

(Photo Credit: Francis Minien) This past summer, Bankers without Borders®, Grameen Foundation’s volunteer initiative, engaged a team of seven employees from Capco, to research the needs, opportunities, and barriers that may inhibit poor women from using digital financial services and understand how organizations - microfinance institutions, banks, MNOs, or other digital financial providers - could deliver services tailored specifically for women. Gracie Hollis, one of the volunteer leads on the project, jumped at the opportunity to volunteer. Gracie first learned about Grameen Foundation... Read More

Celebrating Our volunteers on Pro Bono Week

Monday, October 24, 2016 - 10:24

It's Pro Bono Week! BwB is sending a big shout out to all of our 22,000 supporters from 173 countries who served more than 210 social enterprises around the world contributing over $22.6 million dollars in in-kind services. We will be featuring 15 of our Pro Bono Champions and volunteer stories this week. I hope you will join us in reading some heart warming stories and feel that warm fuzzy feeling that keeps every BwB staff member energized about our work. A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who help make the BwB magic happen! We're starting off the week by featuring Rahim Shamsy, a BwB volunteer ... Read More

How Bankers without Borders Is Catapulting the Growth of Science Education

Friday, April 29, 2016 - 16:51

By Dr. Thomas Tagoe, Co-Founder, GhScientific If you ever want to measure the extent of your capacity to create and innovate, love and appreciate, live and enjoy the full spectrum of life with all its extremes, can I suggest you take a trip to Ghana. A country rich in natural resources and benefitting from a recent explosion in the application of technological solutions despite being plagued with power outages. A country which declared soon after independence that science and technology was the answer to economic growth but was ranked 79th in a recent international study on the quality of... Read More

How My Bankers without Borders Experience is Helping Launch My Career

Friday, April 29, 2016 - 16:04

By Mary Joseph - BwB Business Process Analyst, at Musoni Microfinance, Kenya As a fresh college graduate looking to break into the international development sector, I can tell you that my job prospects were less than ideal. Despite having graduated from a top university with extensive work and leadership experience, I was having trouble finding a job post-graduation due to one setback: I had almost zero experience working in a developing country. Most entry-level positions at international development organizations require 1-2 years of experience living in a developing country (along with 3... Read More

Happy International Women's Day!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - 10:53

In honor of International Women's Day, we'd like to extend deepest thanks to all of our volunteers and partners who work to empower women around the world. We'd like to share with you the message below from our CEO, Steve Hollingworth. photo courtesy Farzana Photography On behalf of all here at Grameen Foundation, I would like to celebrate the work we do, day-in and day-out, to connect some of the poorest women on earth to their potential.   Please know that your work not only brings support for access to finance, information and services, but it also extends solidarity and hope to women in... Read More

Fellow Neal Barsch: Using Research to Make Real Impact on Poverty

Thursday, March 3, 2016 - 11:47

by Neal Barsch, 2016 Grameen Foundation Fellow. It’s a bit crazy to think that there are parts of the world where you can pick up a cell phone and be digitally connected to anywhere on the planet, yet there are no readily accessible financial services. In the rural Philippines, this is just the case. It’s exciting that here at Grameen Foundation we are working to develop rural financial infrastructure in the Philippines through innovative methods and mobile technology.  As a Grameen Foundation Fellow, I work on a project to develop small local convenience stores in the rural Philippines (... Read More

Fellow Lariza Galindo: 5 Months In, and Continually Feeling Blessed

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 - 09:57

by Lariza Galindo, 2016 Grameen Foundation Fellow. An amazing mixture of green and blue. That’s one of the things I perfectly remember from my first field trip to Kamuli (Eastern Region of Uganda) with the amazing Mobile Financial Services team. Sitting on the back of a truck, looking through the window, admiring this gorgeous landscape, laughing with my team colleagues, I felt so blessed and lucky that I hardly registered the temperature of 30ºC or the 4-hour road trip that I had in front of me to visit one of the Village Savings Loan Associations (VSLA). The dances and chants did not wait... Read More

Project Pamoja: Risk and Audit Reporting for Musoni

Monday, February 29, 2016 - 13:16

Project Pamoja is a partnership between Capco and Bankers without Borders. Through the partnership, Capco is building a data analysis tool to easily analyze Risk and Audit Reporting for Musoni bank in Kenya, along with providing training documentation for staff and providing a long term recommendation for a technology solution. The following blogs are team members’ reflections throughout various project life cycles. Phase 1 by Gracie Hollis We cite disruption at Capco as the objective of many of our projects; browsing the Capco website or reading about projects in CapinTouch reinforces the... Read More

Grameen Foundation Fellow Andrew Herweg: “Do you want to be challenged?”

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 - 10:20

by 2015–2016 Fellow Andrew Herweg Andrew and the TaroWorks Team Dropping everything and moving halfway across the world isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but for me, it was the perfect opportunity. My name is Andrew Herweg and I’m the TaroWorks Marketing Fellow based between Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. I had spent the previous two years grinding away in New York City at my corporate public relations (PR) job. I was lucky to move up within my PR firm quite quickly and was very successful at my job but I felt there was a void in my work life. I felt I wasn’t really having that much of... Read More