ADELANTE: IN THE BLACK - WE'RE SUSTAINABLE!
Adelante posts two profitable months; all capital raised now goes to giving new loans
After 10 years, and almost $2 million of your money invested at the lowest economic level - we are sustainable! This is a very exciting time for our foundation. We are entering a new era, the organization has evolved, we have made several methodological changes to ensure our survival and in the process we have become stronger. Even though the recent recession forced us to reduce our personnel, it also made us become more efficient. Investing in our infrastructure, our technology, and our staff has proven to be the right decision and we are now able to reap the benefits. With YOUR help, our primary goal has been achieved - Adelante has become financially self-sustainable. In fact, as of the close of January, 2010 Adelante had been operating at a profit for two full months.
We will still need new capital to be able to grow our loan program and offer more products to more impoverished women who need them.
Adelante has come a long way since it gave its first loan in September of 2000. Back then the average first loan was $50 and every dollar that was loaned out was earned through the tireless fund-raising efforts of Kim and Tony Stone - traveling from city to city, living room to living room, holding dinner parties and asking friends and friends of friends to donate to their cause. They used a round carousel slide projector and presented the stories of their clients, all of whom they knew personally.
Once they finally got the 501 (c)(3) letter in 2002, they started applying for grants. The first grant, from the Atkinson Foundation, was received that year for $10,000. That year Adelante had 983 clients and a handful of employees. Covering expenses with intermittent income was tough in those early years. Kim, who worked for the organization as a volunteer, recalls times when they would cover expenses with a credit card and Tony couldn't pay himself for several months so that Adelante could meet its payroll.
Since then we have made 61,000 loans to 31,791 clients and touched the lives of almost 130,000 Honduran women and their families. Sustainability really means that we can now cover all of our expenses. And covering our expenses with the interest earned on our loans means that we can now focus our fund-raising efforts on raising the capital necessary to grow our loan pool. This means serving our existing clients better by offering new products such as home-improvement, education, and personal loans, as well as seeking out new clients in rural Honduras where poverty is rife.
