Project manager
Réseau Financement Alternatif
Réseau financement alternatif aims at developing and promoting ethical and solidarity-based finance and contributes to its expansion. To reach this objective, it is developing three action poles:
- Sensitising savers, investors, political organisations, associations and societies, ... to enhanced ethics and solidarity in relationships to money;
- Reflection and development of innovative directions in terms of ethical and solidarity-based finance via its research and information centre;
- Financial support given to member associations via solidarity-oriented financial products developed with recognised financial partners.
Project partners
Project partners are specialists in the defence of fundamental rights, in particular through micro credit. All of them have developed partnerships with public authorities, on the one hand, and mainstream commercial banks on the other. As they originate from various parts of the European Union, they represent a wide range of experiences in this respect.
Training modules will therefore be based, in particular, on their experiences. They will benefit from the strong points of their partnerships and from problems which were encountered and overcome.
Each partner may boast special expertise from which training course attendees may benefit – whether it may be, for example, how to select partners, define cooperation contracts, secure financial resources in the long run or handle crises.
The project’s partners are briefly presented below :
- Association pour le Droit à l'Initiative Economique - ADIE (France)
- Associação Nacional de Direito ao Crédito - ANDC (Portugal)
- Community Development Finance Association - CDFA (United Kingdom)
- Coompanion - (Sweden)
- Enigma Company Builders - (Germany)
- EUROM Consultancy and Studies - (Romania)
- FINANSOL - (France)
- Innovación, transferencia y desarollo - ITD (Spain)
- MikroPlus - (Croatia)
- Portsmouth Savers Credit Union - (United Kingdom)
- Association pour le Droit à l’Initiative Economique - ADIE (France)
ADIE is an association which helps people excluded from the labour market and traditional banking system create their own businesses and their own jobs. It was founded in 1989 by Maria Nowak, who adapted the micro-credit principle to France.
Micro-credit is particularly efficient in the third world economy and it developed considerably in Asia, Africa and South America. Today, millions of people throughout the world live on their work thanks to this type of credit.
Micro-credit has been expanding in European and Northern American industrialised countries for some fifteen years. Since the association was created in 1989, almost 29,900 enterprises have been founded, generating 36,000 jobs, thanks to more than 35,000 credits awarded.
- Associação Nacional de Direito ao Crédito - ANDC (Portugal)
Associação Nacional de Direito ao Crédito (ANDC) is a non-profit microcredit association. It was founded in 1998 and launched its first activities in May 1999. Its objective is to award credits to people excluded from the conventional banking system, but who want to found microbusinesses. ANDC does not directly award credits, but grants funds through partnerships with such commercial banks as Banco Comercial Portugues or Caixa Geral de Depósitos. ANDC also signed an agreement with IEFP, a public institute specialised in employment and vocational training, funding most activities led by the association.
ANDC now has approximately 320 members. These members also contribute to a guarantee fund, the objective of which is to help reinforce its viability.
ANDC has a board of 5 volunteering directors. Technical staff includes eleven people - two people in charge of the back-office, eight micro credit agents and one coordinator. Besides, 40 volunteers support the tasks of ANDC.
- Community Development Finance Association- CDFA (United Kingdom)
The CDFA is the trade association for Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs). CDFIs are sustainable, independent financial institutions that provide capital and support to enable individuals or organisations to develop and create wealth in disadvantaged communities or under-served markets.
The task of the CDFA is to promote, reinforce and develop the sector of CDFIs in the United Kingdom by being a centre of excellence in all areas related to CDFIs. It focuses on three points:
- Sustaining growth and the influence of the sector, as well as its diversity and capacity to innovate;
- Supporting the capacity of the sector to offer viable financial services;
- Representing this sector with regulating authorities, the government and investors, in terms of regulations, policy and financing, to develop an identity and reputation specific to CDFIs.
The objectives of the CDFA are the following:
- Enhancing the size and diversity of the sector of CDFIs ;
- Improving and sustaining the performance level of CDFIs ;
- Improving the reputation of CDFIs with key stakeholders - the government and investors;
- Influencing policies from the government and other key stakeholders;
- Making CDFIs’ actions sustainable.
- Coompanion (Sweden)
Ex-Kooperativ Konsult, now Coompanion has set to itself the task of promoting cooperative development and social economy development in the area of Göteborg, via consulting, training, and dialogue with authorities to support the growth of social and cooperative economy.
Ever since it was created in 1987, almost 700 new cooperatives have seen the light of day in such areas as day nurseries, primary and secondary schools managed by parents, inclusion through work, health, housing and culture.
- Enigma Company Builders (Germany)
Enigma Company Builders is a start-up incubator for people eager to found their own businesses. Enigma Company Builders offers different and complementary services to assist start-up businesses during the various stages of their creation process.
These services are the following:
Briefing session;
Brief seminars and workshops (1 - 3 days);
Start-up assessment centre;
Start-up incubator: .garage Hamburg and Enigma “Kompetenz - Center”, .garage Kiel and BusinessLabor Hannover;
Q-Plus (Qualification of coaches and co nsultants for start-up businesses).
- EUROM Consultancy and Studies (Romania)
The purpose of Eurom Consultancy and Studies is to help its customers improve their performance. To do so, Eurom Consultancy and Studies sets up strategic partnerships with international consulting firms and reinforces its leading position in the consulting market.
It offers a wide range of services to develop and enhance its customers’ competitiveness - consulting (strategic management, partnerships and strategic unions, management for micro finance players); training (project management, sale, training package for micro finance players); studies (business plan, feasibility studies, assessment of micro finance entities).
- FINANSOL (France)
Finansol is an association which was founded in 1995 by solidarityoriented financial institutions and financial institutions committed to a solidarity approach, under the auspices of Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le Progrès de l'Homme. In France, this association is the only action group representing the sector of solidarity finance and today, most delegates of this sector are members.
The task of Finansol is to:
- Reinforce the various forms of solidarity finance in the social economyRaise public authorities’ awareness on the sector of solidarity finance
- Develop solidarity savings for a society more focused on the notion of citizenship
- Provide quality services to its members
- Innovación, transferencia y desarollo - ITD (Spain)
The task of ITD is to transfer and develop new social, cultural, educational and economic action models and plans. From a local point of view, the purpose of the organisation is to improve the well-being of city-dwellers by offering concrete and complete solutions to meet the requirements of people, organisations and territories, by communicating knowledge and experience gained by its partners.
The key method applied is to accumulate knowledge on best practices in ITD’s reference sectors, using a transfer-based strategy.
ITD’s activities are based on permanent interactions between the excellence of models, successes and the search for innovative solutions to meet its customers’ requirements.
- MikroPlus (Croatia)
MikroPlus was created in 1999, in connection with an international non governmental organisation scheme. It started lending funds through innovative agreements with mainstream banks hiding behind a special permission from the Central Bank. Under this permission, MikroPlus promoted the plan, offered training sessions to its customers, visited its customers and gave final consent as to the grant of credits to customers.
The commercial bank provided funds to Mikroplus customers as loans after contracts had been signed between customers and said bank (in the name of Mikroplus) and got monthly refunds to the account of MikroPlus.
The bank took part in this partnership for a commission set at the rate of the sum lent.
MikroPlus offers solidarity-based group loans for its customers’ business activities in such areas as services, trade and production; seasonal loans to help its customers manage their cash at appropriate moments in the year or production cycle; loans to dairy farms; personal loans for a wide variety of activities in all sectors but corn production.
Creating and developing PPP’s to promote fundamental rights in the European Union Since June 2004, MikroPlus has been recognised as a local savings and credit cooperative. It operates in three regions in Croatia - Eastern Slavonia (Osijek, Vukovar, Vinkovci, Beli Manastir, Djakovo), Northern Croatia (Zagreb, Petrinja, Sisak, Glina, Vojnic, Karlovac, Plaski, Ogulin), and Dalmatia (Knin, Drnis). As of 31 December 2005, MikroPlus had granted 9,620 loans for a total of more than 9 million USD and 1,912 active customers were involved in the programme.
- Portsmouth Savers Credit Union (United Kingdom)
Portsmouth Savers Credit Union is a financial cooperative owned and controlled by its members. It offers savings and credit services to any person living or working in South East Hampshire, where 529,000 people live.
In the beginning, the funds of Portsmouth Savers Credit Union were derived from local public authorities and from the regional development agency. Ever since, it has secured the support of social housing associations, charities and financial institutions.
The government of the United Kingdom has identified financial exclusion as one of the most important aspects to be taken into account concerning social exclusion. As ‘credit union’, Portsmouth Savers provides one of the better targeted tools to fight against this problem.
In five years’ operations, almost 4,000 people benefited from services offered, and the organisation has created 4.5 jobs (full time equivalent).
www.portsmouthsavers.co.uk
