June Prompt

- Please share surprises or challenges you've encountered with your research project thus far.
- Has your research question or scope of your project shifted at this point?

One of the biggest challenges for me in my research has been outreach. CEF is "the new kid on the block" in terms of the social and economic service sector, and is working to build relationships and build our name in the community. It is hard to accurately and fully evaluate borrower applications when we cannot evaluate them from a larger pool of applicants. I believe that the implications of this will push us to do targeted outreach for at least a month before the launch of the full-fledged project in the fall. We are working now on several outreach events, offering the resources we have accumulated to offer to borrowers (resume-building workshops, personal finance and budgeting workshops, etc.) to non-borrowers. This way, we can sit down with potential borrowers, work with them through these activities, and if it seems applicable, discuss CEF with them on an individual basis. We are also working to reach out more to area agencies to get more referrals. Referrals have been our main source for our first 7 applicants.

Other challenges have been basic programmatic decisions. It helped to be able to research other MFIs, whether or not they were in the US, to inform those decisions. For example, we were deciding whether or not we should require up-front savings before the loan is given out. After looking into the model used by Washington CASH, the Rural Center, and several other organizations, we decided that we wanted to include this requirement. We also were deciding whether or not we would do matching savings for this up-front savings, and have decided to do so after conversations with other MFIs.

My research question is in general the same - How can CEF be structured to best meet the needs of the homeless through microfinance? - but I am realizing more and more the value of replicating the project and doing another pilot in a place like Durham, NC. Durham, though just 10 miles down the highway from Chapel Hill is a totally different environment - in terms of size, demographics, community action, social services, and social issues. To really pilot an idea like that of CEF, I am beginning to think that it must be applied in more than one environment to also be able to talk about what parts of the idea are specific to Chapel Hill-Carrboro, and what parts are replicable. We have talked with folks in Durham, and will be planning for this pilot, and hopefully launching a small pilot in January 2010.