Our Blog

Give and You Shall Receive: My Week in the Philippines

Tuesday, August 14, 2012 - 11:52

Estelle Martinson is a Bankers without Borders® (BwB) volunteer who recently returned from a project in the Philippines. A Six Sigma Black Belt, Estelle began her career working as a business analyst in information technology, and is currently a credit risk manager at Standard Bank, where she has worked for 10 years. She also has experience in the fields of disability, computer literacy, adult education and community development. As I sat sipping some lemongrass tea, one of the many gifts I brought back home with me from my trip to the Philippines, I reflected on the series of events that led... Read More

Overcoming the Barriers to Fighting Poverty

Friday, July 27, 2012 - 07:00

Ananya Mukkavilli is a Bankers without Borders® (BwB) volunteer who served as an institutional relations intern for Grameen Foundation's External Affairs team in 2012. She is a rising junior at Haverford College, majoring in political science, with a minor in economics. Ananya will spend the next academic year studying international relations at The London School of Economics and Political Science. When I first learned about microfinance, I was a freshman in high school in Bangkok, Thailand. Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, had just won the coveted Nobel Peace Prize, and by... Read More

Connecting the Dots – From Seraphina to Prime Minister Odinga

Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 07:00

Shannon Maynard is Director of Bankers without Borders®(BwB), Grameen Foundation’s skilled-volunteer initiative. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. This is the final post in a four-part series; you can read her first post here, her second post here, and her third post here.  BwB Director Shannon... Read More

Using Customer Data to Fine-tune Product Design and Marketing Strategy

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 - 07:00

Emily Hosoya is a Bankers without Borders® volunteer and Communications Intern with Grameen Foundation's Microsavings Initiative. We have included an excerpt from her post on our Progress out of Poverty blog, with a link to the full post below. Since starting our work with CARD Bank in the Philippines, we’ve realized the best savings products are designed by the customers themselves. Although we’d love to sit down with each of CARD’s 500,000+ savings customers to discuss their needs, there is never enough time or resources to do so. Instead, with the help of our senior data analyst, Jacobo... Read More

Poverty Waits for No One

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - 06:00

David Washer is a Bankers without Borders® volunteer who recently returned from a project in Ethiopia. Upon graduating from Yale University, Washer began his career in portfolio management at McKinsey & Company, where he currently works as a financial analyst. During his time at Yale, he was actively involved in human rights advocacy and research, and now looks forward to using his knowledge of finance and international development in the service of colleagues overseas. I've always had a healthy skepticism about short-term volunteer projects abroad. But as a Texas expatriate living in a... Read More

Risk Management: It’s a Mindset, Not a Budget Line Item!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 17:34

Michelle Katics, CEO of BankersLabTM, supports the MFI sector by providing pro-bono risk-management technical assistance to microfinance institutions (MFIs). BankersLab, through its corporate social responsibility program, supports Bankers without Borders®, Bankers with Vision, MFIOpenSource and Kiva. We have excerpted a portion of her blog post, followed by a link to the full post. I recently returned from a Bankers without Borders (BwB) volunteer engagement in West Bengal, India, with Society for Model Gram Bikash Kendra (GBK), a small non-profit microfinance company. As many BwB skilled... Read More

Things Move More Slowly in Africa

Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - 16:43

Shannon Maynard is Director of Bankers without Borders® (BwB), Grameen Foundation’s skilled-volunteer initiative. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. This post is the third in a four-part series; you can read her first post here, and her second post here. “Things move more slowly in Africa” – this... Read More

A Productive Week in Asia

Thursday, June 21, 2012 - 12:00

Shannon Maynard is Director of Bankers without Borders®, Grameen Foundation’s skilled-volunteer initiative. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. This post is the second in a four-part series; you can read her first post here. While in Hong Kong, I start my days with the “international breakfast... Read More

Cloudy, Clear and a Chance of Thunderstorms

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 13:23

Chris Smith and Gillian Evans are a husband-and-wife team volunteering in Uganda with Grameen Foundation through our Bankers without Borders® volunteer initiative. As Strategy Manager, Chris is responsible for business planning and Grameen Foundation’s relationship with MTN Uganda.  Gillian is an Education Specialist, responsible for developing and applying training best practices in the field and helping build the training center of excellence in Uganda.  Chris and Gillian live in Kampala with their two children and will complete their one-year volunteer term on July 31.  You can read about... Read More

Reporting from Hong Kong

Thursday, June 14, 2012 - 17:12

Shannon Maynard is Director of Bankers without Borders®, Grameen Foundation’s skilled-volunteer initiative. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. This post is the first in a four-part series. The summer after I joined Grameen Foundation to run Bankers without Borders (BwB), I had the pleasure to... Read More