ACCION International is a nonprofit organization that supports microfinance

Microfinance

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients or solidarity lending groups including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services....

institutions in their work to provide financial services to low-income clients. ACCION provides management services, technical assistance, debt and equity investment and training to microfinance institutions and microfinance support organizations. The organization promotes the commercial model of microfinance, in which microfinance institutions obtain a double-bottom-line and achieve both social and financial goals.

ACCION works with 27 partner microfinance institutions in South America, Central America, the United States, Africa and Asia. As of December 31, 2010, those 27 microfinance institutions were collectively serving 4,213,336 people with microloans (a total portfolio of US$7,944,998,000) and 1,624,829 people with savings products (a total savings balance of US$2,208,112,000).

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, ACCION also has offices in Washington, D.C., Bogotá, Colombia, Accra, Ghana, Bangalore, India and Beijing, China.

The organization is also the majority owner and primary operator of two microfinance institutions, ACCION Microfinanças in Manaus, Brazil and ACCION Microfinance China in Chifeng, China.

History

ACCION was founded as a grassroots community development organization in 1961. In the beginning, young, college-educated Americans traveled to Venezuela to catalyze connections between the urban poor and local business leaders and others with resources. The objective was to help people living in poverty to help themselves by organizing their own efforts and talents. Early projects included building schools, community centers and roads. In 1973, ACCION began experimenting with microlending—the provision of credit to small-scale, informal economy entrepreneurs—in Recife, Brazil. Following this pilot, the organization increasingly focused its efforts on developing microfinance institutions and the microfinance industry. ACCION worked exclusively with microfinance institutions in South and Central America until 1991, when it piloted a microfinance program for entrepreneurs in Brooklyn, NY. In 2000, ACCION began working with microfinance institutions in Africa and, in 2005, expanded to India. In late 2009, ACCION established the second foreign-funded microcredit company in China.

External links

• ACCION International Microfinance Organization website
• ACCION USA's Website