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Wokai News, Updates, Announcements, and Discussion Empty Wokai: Introduction, About, How it Works

Post by Tigger34 Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:57 pm

Wokai: Introduction, About, How it Works

Wokai: (From the Wokai website) http://www.wokai.org/about

“After traveling throughout rural China and seeing the extreme poverty and lack of opportunity millions of Chinese face everyday, Courtney McColgan and I decided to dedicate our lives to creating opportunity for those living in poverty in rural China. That's how Wokai was born. Starting with the idea that everyone deserves a chance, we built an online platform that allows you to have a direct impact on the lives of people living in rural China, their families, and their communities. Utilizing the principle of microfinance, we connect you with people in rural China who want to start small businesses, but just need a little help getting there. You make a tax deductible contribution to sponsor that person's loan, watch as they grow their businesses, repay their loans, and lift themselves from poverty. At the end of the year, you re-invest your contribution and help another borrower start a businesses. Since our founding in 2007, thousands of people from all over the world have joined our movement, supporting our borrowers in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. Working closely with our Field Partners on the ground, we have achieved a 99.5% on-time repayment rate. The entrepreneurs we fund are not only lifting themselves from poverty, their success is changing their entire communities, reversing the cycle of poverty around them.”
Casey Wilson, Co-founder and CEO, Wokai

Current Field Partners:
Inner Mongolia: Chifeng Zhaowuda Women's Sustainable Development Association (CZWSDA)
Yilong County, Sichuan Province, China: Association for Rural Development of Yilong County (ARDY)

How Wokai Works: Wokai works a little differently than lending through some other microloan platforms.

“How does the flow of funds work from when a recipient applies for a loan to when a recipient receives my contribution?
(1) Field Partners upload recipient profiles in need of fundraising and Wokai posts them online.
(2) Contributors select recipients online and donate through Google Checkout, which sends donations to Wokai's bank account in the US.
(3) At the end of each month, Wokai transfers donations from its US bank account to Field Partner's accounts in China. The Field Partner exchanges the donations into Chinese yuan and puts the funds into a Wokai designated bank account.
(4) The Field Partner distributes the funds to borrowers you select. If the Field Partner used its own capital to pre-issue the loan before receiving the contributions from Wokai, it will then use the funds to reimburse that capital and use the freed up funds to provide loans to new recipients.
(5) As the recipient begins to repay his or her loan, the Field Partner deposits the repayments into a Wokai designated account and records repayments on Wokai's website. Every 3 months, the Field Partner posts updates on each recipient's progress, which then Wokai translates and emails out to contributors.
(6) Once the recipient's loan is 100% repaid, Field Partners post new recipient loan requests, and contributors select which recipient's loan to fund next at that Field Partner.”


“What happens after a recipient completely repays his or her loan?

“Once a recipient's loan is 100% repaid, contributors can log onto their My Wokai account and redistribute their contributions to support a new recipient. This process occurs for three loan cycles, after which the contribution will be used as long-term loan capital that is distributed to new recipients at the discretion of Wokai's Field Partner. Wokai will continue to monitor each Field Partner to ensure that all loan contributions made through Wokai are recycled year after year to support new recipient loans.”

(Note: Because the “lender’s” funds are kept by the MFI after the third loan cycle, the “loans” through Wokai are actually considered tax deductible contributions.)

Please read the information at: http://www.wokai.org/help

Entrepreneurs that need support are here: http://www.wokai.org/loans
Tigger34
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Wokai News, Updates, Announcements, and Discussion Empty Wokai News, Updates, Announcements, and Discussion

Post by Tigger34 Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:24 am

Here is a link to Wokai's blog:

http://www.wokai.org/blog?blogPostCriteria.blogCategoryId=1

And a link to Wokai's loan page:

http://www.wokai.org/loans
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