A Providence non-profit loans out the future

Published May 12, 2010 at 10:36 p.m.
Where Credit Is Due
Eva Jiménez came here from the Dominican Republic in September 2001.

Eva Jiménez came here from the Dominican Republic in September 2001. She had “the same reasons as most people,” she says: “looking for better life opportunities, a chance to study and work, and to help my family as well.”

‘A GREAT NEED’ Posner.

She started out in factory jobs, then trained to become a teacher’s aide. She’s been doing that for seven years now at Alfred Lima Sr. Elementary School in Providence. Her goal is to become a teacher.

Last September, after years of wishing for it, Jiménez was sworn in as a US citizen. The whole process took less than six months; she had no trouble with the test. And the one barrier she hadn’t been able to surmount, the nearly $1000 cost, she covered with the help of an unusual lender.

The Capital Good Fund, a small nonprofit started last year by Andy Posner and Mollie West, both Brown University students at the time, is part of a new breed of microlenders who are applying here concepts that have enjoyed some success in the Third World.

Posner, whose group won a mention from Bill Clinton during a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week, says he got his inspiration from Muhammad Yunus, who created the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for developing microcredit.

Posner, who was studying for a master’s degree in environmental studies, says he read a book by Yunus and thought, “This is absolutely amazing. I wonder if we could do something like this here in Providence.”

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