Micro Work

It seems even more often than our products and services, I am asked about Beacon Worldwide- our global microlending initiative, partnering with financial institutions to lend small amounts of capital to aspiring entrepreneurs in impoverished nations. I find that it stirs a range of emotions among our clients and customers.

When we first decided to launch Beacon Worldwide, we knew that the risks of lending to other countries in fiduciary terms were many, but we also knew that our customers would want to know why we would sacrifice a portion of their sale towards an unknown and possibly foolish cause. We were also aware of the many views and opinions towards microlen

ding to poorer nations. Ultimately however, the decision to move forward with this initiative was a faith in the people who want to make their lives and their families’ lives better through business. Just as we put faith in our customers to grow their businesses with Beacon’s products and services, we wanted to lend a monetary hand to those businesses that would never have the possibility to benefit from what we are able to do domestically. As more and more individuals and businesses recognize the needs of workers, business owners and aspiring business owners in third world countries, some unique and creative ideas have blossomed beyond simple lending. We’ve included the copy of an article that highlights this trend from Forbes Magazine below.

Making the globe a better place for the exchange of capital, goods and services is one of the pillars of Beacon Worldwide. If you have not had the opportunity to check us out online, we invite you to do so when you have a moment. In the meantime, we’re happy to announce that our first Beacon Worldwide newsletter will go out to our customers in August. We have decided to go with a quarterly format and we will touch upon new directions in microlending, a summary of our lending portfolio, personal profiles and how your orders affect the individuals to whom we lend.

The following article was seen in the “Philanthropy” section of Forbes Magazine, 2011 Special Edition Investment Guide. The title is “Wealth Creation” and was written by Kerry A. Dolan.

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Leila Chirayath Janah is only 28, but it didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that massive foreign aid isn't the solu­tion to poverty. She wrestled with the issue while working at the World Bank and, before that, at Harvard majoring in African development. What many of the poor people she m

et really wanted was a job that pays decently.

So three years ago she started a San Francisco-based nonprofit called Samasource, which serves a work link between tech companies in the U.S. and poor people overseas. So far she has found work for 1,200 people, often women, doing simple computer-­based tasks for such companies as LinkedIn, Google and Intuit. Most workers earn $15 a day or less, but that can go a long

way in her target coun­tries- India, Haiti, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda. "All of a sud­den you create a whole new channel for wealth creation:' she says.

Janah grew up in various suburbs of Los Angeles in a family she describes as not well-off and attended public high school. Her parents were immigrants from India; her father is a structural engineer. At Harvard she ~ worked three jobs to make ends meet.

The inspiration for Samasource came in 2006 while working at a con­sulting firm now part of Booz & Co. Helping a large Indian outsourcer go public, Janah hit on the notion that poor, educated people even in rural areas of developing countries could do

data-entry work, just as people living in large Indian cities do. In early 2008 she won $35,000 in a business-plan competition with her idea (she calls it microwork) and moved to Silicon val­ley to start the nonprofit.

Samasource takes work orders from a U.S. tech company, breaks them down into simple tasks and sends the work off to one or more of its 16 part­ner organizations in, say, Nairobi or Lahore. To date Samasource has paid out $1 million in wages. It keeps an undisclosed slice to pay its 16 employ­ees in San Francisco. It has also raised $2.5 million from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Cisco Foundation and individuals.

In the bare-bones offices of Adept Techno, a Samasource partner in downtown Nairobi, Eric Makokha, 26, earns between $140 and $230 a month performing tasks like transcribing oral tests for a U.S. teaching institute (Adept isn't allowed to name the school). Makokha has a degree in aero­nautical engineering but can't find a job in aviation. "Before I came here I was living with my relatives .... I moved out and [am] now fully inde­pendent:' he says in an e-mail.

Does Janah feel she's taking jobs away from Americans by using low ­cost foreigners? "Most of the work we do would otherwise go to large, for-­profit outsourcing firms in big cities in India and China:' she says. "These companies do not recruit marginalized

. women and youth, and do not guaran­tee living wages to their workers:'

Janah has seen how finding work for poor people gives them a sense of dignity and self. "It's a new path we are forging:' she says.