Met with Chenoa Farnsworth from Farnsworth Consulting, Hawaii Angels, and the Women's Fund.
She cited mentoring as the key component to making sure a micro-lending project could work. For reference she recommended Jump Start, "a nationally recognized non-profit transforming the economic impact of entrepreneurial ventures and the ecosystems supporting their growth." They key to having effective mentors is to 1) pay them a reasonable wage to ensure that they are 2) reasonably, if not highly, qualified. This makes me second guess my desire to partner with undergraduates from the Shidler School of Business. If we go that route then we should probably focus exclusively on graduate students.
Other resources we could pursue are:
— Hawaii Alliance of Non-Profit Organizations
— Economic Development Administration, Gail Fujita
— American Savings Bank, Kaulana Park
— Oahu Economic Development Board/Enterprise Honolulu, Pono Shim
Finally, one area we need extra help and expertise in is servicing of loans. To accomplish that we will probably need to get a loan officer from a local bank either to join our board or provide us with consultation on how best to achieve that goal.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment