Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Microfinance ... Whatever happened to Unitus?

Dear Colleagues

What a shock ... Unitus was a visible part of the micro-finance community, and the idea that it would suddenly shut down and fire its 45 employees raises all sorts of questions. There will be a lot of stories based on this event over the next couple of years, and this has already started. This story is from the Seattle Times ... the URL is" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2012378011_unitus_board_chair_discusses_r.html
Unitus board chair discusses reasons behind closure
Posted by Kristi Heim
Seattle nonprofit Unitus' operating cost of between $600,000 and $700,000 a month was a factor in the board's decision to shutter operations, said Joseph Grenny, Unitus board chairman.

The abrupt announcement two weeks ago stunned employees and supporters, and has prompted some donors to question the decision.

Grenny said the decision was made by a unanimous vote of the five- member board of directors in Utah days before the announcement, but the discussion about changing direction had gone on for more than a year.

Next month the board will announce more specifically what its plans for the new direction will be, Grenny said.

When it was clear that Unitus would be pursuing a different strategy, the board asked, "Do we need an organization that has this kind of expense rate to pursue those options?" Grenny said. "To continue on for months and slowly drip that out would be fiscally irresponsible."

Unitus supports 22 microfinance institutions and plans to "quickly wind down any ongoing engagements in a prudent manner that prioritizes the best interests of their clients," Grenny said.

As for foundations and individuals that have funded its work, such as the Omidyar Foundation, "the board takes its stewardship very seriously to ensure those funds are deployed for their original purpose -- philanthropic purposes that help the poor gain economic self-reliance," Grenny said. On its latest financial report, Unitus had about $11 million in net assets.

"We will have conversations with Omidyar and every one of our significant supporters about what funds are remaining and what those will use to accomplish," he said.

Today is the last day of work for most of Unitus' 45 employees; about a dozen will remain through end of August and a few through the end of the year.

SKS Microfinance, one of the earliest lenders to the poor that Unitus backed, plans its initial public offering in India in the next weeks.

Unitus Equity Fund, the for-profit arm of the Seattle organization, has a stake in SKS, which could end up benefiting Unitus.

Grenny called the SKS IPO "a validation of what we set out to do," in accelerating the amount of capital devoted to microfinance.

"The willingness to stop when something is accomplished isn't done much in the nonprofit field... organizations that don't contribute much continue on," he said. "Painful as it is, we're trying to do the right thing by the donors' intentions."
Many of my own views are contained in the following response from a US consultant working in South Africa. The text follows. This is the URL:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2012398307_unitus_the_seattle-based_non-p.html
Microfinance mission accomplished? Hardly, expert says
Posted by Kristi Heim
The recent decision by its board to close Seattle nonprofit Unitus and shift its resources to "other strategic areas" prompted Adam Sorensen, a consultant working for the International Finance Corporation, to write a response questioning the actions. Here's his personal perspective:
Adam Sorensen, a Seattle native, is a microfinance consultant currently working in South Africa.

Unitus, the Seattle-based, non-profit microfinance organization announced 'Mission Accomplished' on the eve of July 4th by closing its offices in Seattle, Bangalore and Nairobi and dismissing its 45 staff members. Like the infamous declaration by George W. Bush in 2003, the decision by the Unitus board of directors is hardly justified. Despite the definitive claims of success, the closure of Unitus has only raised confusion about the organization and questions about the state of the microfinance industry.

The Chairman of Unitus, Joseph Grenny, who is also a Unitus co-founder, shocked the microfinance industry by declaring that Unitus' "central premise... has been validated - capital markets have embraced microfinance to the extent that there are tens of billions of dollars in microfinance capital now available." Although the recently-appointed, now-departing CEO of Unitus has not publicly commented on the closure, the longtime COO, Ed Bland, added that Unitus had become "unnecessary" in the microfinance industry, equating the growth of for-profit microfinance providers with the availability of commercial capital.

The declaration of victory refers to Unitus' goal to reduce poverty by rapidly accelerating the provision of microfinance to the poor using commercial capital. Until the declaration, the goal appeared far off. The Unitus web site accurately stated that "even after 30 years of industry effort, there remains a huge gulf between the supply and demand for microfinance services. Millions of families are still without access, and at current growth rates, the gap will not be closed for decades." Unitus tackled this challenge by raising capital and then channeling it to microfinance providers in developing countries, while providing consulting assistance to improve their growth and productivity.

By all accounts, Unitus executed its strategy well in India, with far less traction in other parts of the world. Since 2001, when it began hiring professional staff out of a converted bungalow in the shadow of the Microsoft campus, Unitus raised $40 million in donor funding to support 12 microfinance providers in India, three elsewhere in Asia, four in Latin America and three in Africa.

To fund the growth of microfinance providers, Unitus also created and spun-off two for-profit investment management and advisory firms, which mobilized a total of $30 million from investors, many of whom sought various blends of financial and social returns. In India, Unitus has partnered with well-managed providers that have achieved very rapid growth and demonstrated the viability of for-profit microfinance, including SKS Microfinance, which is due to issue an IPO for $250 million to $300 million in coming weeks. Elsewhere, Unitus has had less success introducing new sources of capital and driving growth, with significantly lower impact on the growth of providers outside of India.

While its contributions should be lauded, the Unitus' board's claims that a wave of commercial capital washed over the industry is unsubstantiated and dubious. Outside of India, Unitus' limited activities mirror the limited penetration of commercial capital in the microfinance industry. Globally, the microfinance industry remains financed primarily from subsidized sources, with truly commercial capital (i.e. non-subsidized) limited to a few large, profitable microfinance providers, many of which previously received donor funding.

According to the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, donors and investors each provided roughly 50% of total funding to the industry in 2009. Of investors' share, half was invested by the German government and four development banks - all public institutions - and another large, but unspecified slice was sourced from social investors. Regionally, subsidized funding is even more important in less-developed regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, where donors provide 75 percent of total funding in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As a non-profit advocating for commercial capital, Unitus unsurprisingly branded itself as a different kind of non-profit in the microfinance industry and the philanthropic world. It promised better results by bringing commercial discipline and business practices cultivated by the leading companies that it often recruited from. In keeping with its brand, Mr. Grenny has spun the closure of Unitus as a carefully planned, cutting-edge decision that was 18 months in the making and will bring better results for donors and greater impact on the poor.

For a non-profit organization preparing to close its doors, Unitus has recently taken a number of "innovative" actions including:
  • October 2009: Hiring a new CEO with a long resume in microfinance
  • April 2010: Announcing a $15 million partnership with the US government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation and Citigroup
  • May 2010: Advertising staff positions for fundraising and regional offices
  • May 2010: Announcing two new partners (Grama Vidiyal, India and AMK, Cambodia) for its social performance management initiative
  • June 2010: Holding a fundraiser with the local microfinance community in Seattle
At an industry level, the trouble with the Unitus board's declaration and the unwinding of the organization is that there are serious issues facing microfinance providers, donors and investors. These issues challenge Unitus' view of the microfinance industry and its impact on the poor.

First, the 2007-08 commodity inflation bubble, followed shortly by the financial crisis and widespread economic distress, has pierced the oft-repeated assumption that microfinance is unaffected by the macroeconomic environment. Second, the rapid growth of microfinance providers, especially commercial players, in countries like Bosnia and Morocco has shown how uncontrolled microcredit extension can destabilize the industry at a national level. Finally, these difficult circumstances are compounded by an existential threat from a string of randomized-control trials have called into question the impact of microfinance as a strategy for poverty-reduction. Cumulatively, these developments demand the participation of Unitus as a proponent of commercial capital to spur the rapid growth of microfinance to reduce poverty - not a victory lap.

Although I have never donated to, invested in or worked for Unitus or its affiliates, I do have an interest in the microfinance industry. Since leaving the U.S. in 2005, I have worked in various roles to promote microfinance, from volunteer to manager to investor. While these experiences may qualify me as a member of the much-maligned 'international development complex', it is the interests of the poor and less-fortunate across the world that I hope to represent by questioning Unitus' departure from microfinance. If anything, I believe the economic hardships of the past three years have taught us that growth and opportunity are not guaranteed anywhere in the world. Without Unitus, there is one fewer reason why the poor and the less-fortunate may have access to microfinance tomorrow.

Granted, at least the Unitus board didn't splash their announcement across an aircraft carrier.
I think I would add that to this, that the decision of the quite small Unitus Board might well have something to do with personal objectives as much as it has to do with the health of the microfinance sector. At some level the Unitus decision reflects one of my own worries about the structure of the microfinance sector, specifically that there are a growing number of intermediary organizations and service organizations for microfinance that have really quite high costs and maybe rather low service value to the sector. I have started to observe that the fastest growing part of the industry is the non-operational overhead of the industry ... and, of course, this is the part of the industry of which Unitus was a part.

I am sure I will revisit the Unitus decision again soon ... and maybe other information will become available. The question of industry overhead is also one that I will watch with interest.

Peter Burgess

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