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| What we do |
United Prosperity is a non-profit organization that helps you combat extreme global poverty powerfully by multiplying the impact of your money through loan guarantees. We are the world’s first person to person loan guaranteeing website.
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There are small entrepreneurs all over the world who cannot afford to start and grow their business alone. Expanding their business may be the only means to adequately feeding their family or sending their children to school. However, banks do not lend to them without collateral, and that’s where you come in!
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You can become a compassionate social guarantor with United Prosperity by providing an interest-free cash collateral or guarantee for an entrepreneur on our website. No minimum amount is required, and you are able to choose which entrepreneurs you would like to support.
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| We maximize the impact of your dollar: |
For every $1 you put toward a guarantee, you will allow nearly $2 or more in microloan to the entrepreneur from local banks either directly or through our partners. Better yet, you will be able to track your chosen entrepreneur’s progress, and when they repay their loan, you will be repaid in full! At that point you will have the opportunity to support another entrepreneur if you wish.
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Visit the “How it Works” page to see a detailed step-by-step description of our model.
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| Why do we need United Prosperity when microfinance institutions lend to poor entrepreneurs without asking for collateral?
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 Most emerging microfinance institutions (MFIs) don’t have enough funds to lend to poor entrepreneurs. Nobel Laureate Prof. Mohammad Yunus1 notes that the biggest problem we face in trying to expand the reach of microcredit is not the lack of capacity, but the lack of availability of money to help microcredit programs get through their initial years until they reach break-even level. Local banks cannot lend to MFIs because MFIs cannot provide collateral. However, if an organization guarantees the loan, local banks are happy to provide the money. United Prosperity empowers you to guarantee micro-loans loans to specific entrepreneurs. United Prosperity then consolidates the guarantees on several such micro-loans and issues a guarantee to the bank, which then lends to the microfinance institution. Thus your guarantee allows the microfinance institution to raise bank funds and lend to the specific entrepreneur whom you choose to support.
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| Are the individuals on the website the individuals that I would be supporting?
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The people you see on our website are real individuals, to whom loans will be made based on your guarantee. When you select an entrepreneur whose loan you will guarantee, you are making a real difference to the life of the individual, his or her family and the community. Throughout the life of the loan that the entrepreneur is able to access based on your guarantee, our partners will be posting updates on the entrepreneur’s progress. When the loan is completely repaid, and you get your money back, you can either withdraw the money or use it to guarantee other entrepreneurs.
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| How is United Prosperity different from other non-profit organizations? |
We hope to become a self sustaining social business. Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus states that a social business is ’designed to be both self-sustaining and to maximize social returns’2. We have only one objective: to combat global poverty. As a result, we do not provide any financial returns or interest to our social guarantors and hope to attract social guarantors who share our objective.
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Citations:
1. Mohammad Yunus and Karl Weber, 2007, The Microcredit Revolution in ‘Creating A World Without Poverty: Social business and the future of capitalism’, New York, PublicAffairs, page 70
2. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0215/p09s01-coop.html?page=1
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