Yes that’s a question mark. Maybe I should be more confident. Here’s what I’m thinking. We are asking foundations to underwrite a $25K pilot so we need to demonstrate that we can responsibly deploy money in Lawrence Heights (LH) and learn from it. We want to run a small $5K — and I hate this word — “micro-lending” pilot. It’s more like we’ll making small loans to people who have small businesses ‘with customers already’. Yes that’s important. Now we have a strong young person doing our LH outreach. He’s confidently setting up meetings with LH people he knows that may be candidates for the fund. Fingers crossed. We’re not funding ideas, we’re funding economic activity, i.e., these people need to have customers. Which is important. I like the term “locally rooted businesses”. I’m also cautious that we not merely replicate standard financial practices that automatically kick these projects to the curb because of concerns over “risk”.
Picture a loan, let’s say $2,500. We’ll charge a 3% admin fee. That’s it. no interest, the admin fee comes to $75. The term of this loan is 10 months, which equals $257.50 monthly. If the right business is chosen, they should be no problem paying. We’ll also give them a 1 month grace period. too. Well that’s the theory anyway. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you what happens in the next month or so.
