Often in the developing world there are no systems in place for housing, employment, health or extended education, so people’s livelihoods depend on their own creativity, motivation and entrepreneurship. But for local micro entrepreneurs, this in itself is a huge challenge as they have no savings and accessing traditional loans is virtually impossible. Because they lack the capital required to sta
rt or grow a business, they are forced to survive hand to mouth. These are honest, hardworking people motivated by the same things as most of us: they want to make something of their lives, feed their families and send their children to school. Our Lender community
Deki is unique; we were the first charity in the UK to raise loan capital through lenders and donors on our crowd-funding website www.deki.org.uk. Our website displays pictures and profiles of entrepreneurs in the developing world who want to borrow money to set up a business. Individual lenders in the UK (and overseas) have the opportunity to lend from £10 to a chosen entrepreneur. With an average loan size of £200 a number of people will lend to each entrepreneur. The lenders are paid back over a year and as lenders are repaid they can re-lend the money to another entrepreneur, so their initial investment can help a number of people to raise themselves out of poverty. Impact on Family Life
Through an increased income our entrepreneurs have the ability to support their extended family; on average Deki loans have a positive impact on the livelihoods of 5 or more people. This translates to an increased ability to:
• Access clean water
• Put more nutritious food on the table
• Send their children to school
• Save for the future
Deki’s loans impact on Personal Finance and the Local Economy
• Training entrepreneurs in business gives them confidence to employ local people in the community
• Local employment opportunities are created
• Increased profits are spent in the local community, boosting the local economy
Return on investment
By lending to people who have no access to traditional forms of finance we’re giving them a means of working their way out of poverty long term. By the end of year six we aim to provide loans and ongoing business training to 16,600 entrepreneurs, for every entrepreneur we lend to we will be helping 5 people within the community therefore impacting 83,000 within the community. Working with Partners
Deki works closely with partner organisations that administer the Deki loans and provide training to their clients. Our partners are unable to access traditional forms of funding, but work closely with a community in need. We help our partners to increase their capacity to provide a better service to their clients by providing them with on-going training and long-term business planning support. Our partners work to identify and create new business opportunities, increasing profitability for Deki entrepreneurs
We provide our partners with interest and fee free loans. Our partners pass on a small interest rate to their clients. This means they can pay for their own running costs and ensure sustainability. We carefully monitor the interest rates our partners charge to make sure they are fair and affordable. Our Ethical Principles
Deki provides access to ethical microloans and training. To this vain Deki and our partners have signed up for the Smart Campaign client protection principles. This is to ensure we deliver transparent financial services to all our clients. Principles include:
- Prevention of over-indebtedness
- Fair and respectful treatment of clients
- Transparency
- Privacy of client data
- Responsible pricing
- Mechanisms for complaint resolution
