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John Hatch - Colombia and Peru
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John Hatch, Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia (1962-1964), served as an urban community development volunteer and later went to Peru where he managed an agricultural cooperative. In 1984, he founded FINCA, one of the world's leading microcredit institutions based on the village-banking model.
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John Hatch was in the Peace Corps from 1962 to1964 in Colombia, where he was an urban community development volunteer. In 1965 he returned to Peru where he supervised 65 volunteers in an agricultural cooperative.
In 1984, he built FINCA on the village-banking model, very much like a savings and loan group run by the villagers. FINCA loans money to small groups, which in turn loan it to the people in the village. Groups meet weekly in the home of one of the members, which creates a place to save and develop the personal power that comes from financial independence. FINCA’s research shows that the average business generates $3 a day in per capita income.
FINCA focuses its loans on women because “they are the pillars of the village and the best way to guarantee that the money earned goes to support the family. The men often spend money in the cantina... With women, you can be sure that 98 cents of every dollar is going to benefit the children in food, education and health care.”
John Hatch created an intern program in which 50 interns used Palm PDAs, into which FINCA had programmed a 15 minute long questionnaire, to interview borrowers. They came back with useful data and also with fire in the belly because they had seen what microfinance could do. They wanted to continue their career in microfinance.
Hatch's inspiration to create FINCA came from a very simple thought: “people should be in charge of their own banking system.” This was a basic lesson from the Peace Corps –people often know how to organize solutions to their problems but don’t always get a chance to do it. When you organize development from the bottom up, where people are in charge of managing themselves, it creates loyalty an strength and ownership. The Peace Corps was the inspiration for FINCA.
FINCA is a non profit, but is self-sufficient; it raises about 108% of its operating costs and every country program is also self-sufficient after 3 to 5 years. The country programs send a royalty to FINCA international – making FINCA the most self-sustain microfinance organization on the planet.
John Hatch is a social entrepreneur. "The business must be generating not only profits, but also impact that benefits poor people, like the number of children in school and how much the economy is growing."
His advice for other social entrepreneurs: “Never give up on your vision! Refuse to let pessimism stop you –ignore it. Act on your vision and it will manifest itself in reality. Never get discouraged.”
John Hatch now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he actively campaigns for an end to global poverty by the year 2025.
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
Interesting Interview, short comment from a Social Entreprenuer in Colombia
Very interesting interview!
My name is Scott Beale and I now live in Bogota, Colombia where I am starting an international nonprofit (Atlas Corps) that sends volunteers from Colombia and India to volunteer in the U.S. Some people call it a reverse Peace Corps. I'm proud to say that Senator Harris Wofford has joined our Senior Advisory Board (one of the founders of the Peace Corps) and we have our first Fellows from Colombia and India volunteering in DC. To learn more about Atlas Corps, please visit: http://www.atlascorps.org/intro.html
Thanks! Scott Beale