Now Playing: Viral Action!

We have an exciting development here in Guatemala - we are starting to experience viral demand in our program. It happened in San Mateo, a village near Antigua, which we abandoned as a growth area last December.

You may remember how excited our crew was last August when we were introduced into the community by a local activist. Nelly and FAPE presented our program to more than 80 women in meetings of 50 and then 30. We thought that with a little recruiting we could soon have 100 borrowers. So FAPE put their two best loan supervisors plus a crew of loan officers to work going door to door.

Then our balloon lost air and what happened ... we only had 10 women sign up and take their first loan on September 16th. Meanwhile we had recruited two Business Advisers, Domingo and Sarita to serve the community, a more than slight bit of over staffing under the circumstances. So, as soon as we got our feet on the ground, we and FAPE instituted a Really Intense recruiting effort, including beating the bushes in the immediate countryside. That effort was the joint work of our four staff members plus an ample FAPE crew. The result was the launching of group two early in December with another 10 members. Given the intense recruiting efforts and the meager results, Nelly put a permanent stop to all recruiting and we all thought San Mateo would be a footnote to our early, misguided days.

Imagine the surprise when NG was called to come present the program at a self-organized meeting to be held in the village. Imagine the further surprise when one of the attendees, Gloria Marlene, a member of group two, told Nelly that she had been out recruiting new clients for us. Why? "Because my experience of the program had been so good, I wanted to go to my neighbors and explain how they could benefit!"

The result: Group 3 with 11 members funded last month. The cost of door to door recruiting? Nothing. The requirement for this Viral Action: a good program executed by good people in a way that the clients experience financial benefit.

We see something similar in the recruitment of business advisors. Initially these were recruited by the MFIs and then our staff came into play. Now 2 out of the 3 newest BAs came from the networks of existing advisers meaning this Viral Action now accounts for 3 of the 9 total. When we consider that we interviewed 33 likely candidates to get those 9, one can see how cost effective this can be as the BAs have shown that, generally, they know what is needed to do the job and are pretty good judges of a candidate's potential. Also before they put a candidate forward they have had discussions with the prospect about what a new hire can expect. Also the person then comes to the interview better informed and more motivated.

Bob

Back at Hillsdale

Hillsdale High is back from their adventures in Guatemala and would like to share a few memories from the trip with you. You can view the entire album here.

The Hillsdale Effect!

Domingo, a NamasteDirect Business Advisor, working with his clients

A Weaving Expert

At the Namaste Direct office

Visiting the Santo Domingo

Climbing Volcano Pacaya with Addison taking the "Taxi Natural" and the Ixemche Ruins

The Hillsdale Effect Checks In

After three hours and fifteen minutes of air time, we finally landed in Houston, Texas. After dinner at Ruby´s Diner, we boarded our final plane of the day to Guatemala City. We arrived in Guatemala City at around nine, and luckily everyone´s luggage made it here with us.
We are currently staying at Patricia´s Bed and Breakfast, located not to far from the airport. In fact, it kind of sounds like the airplanes might land on top of us, but the hotel is beautiful and very, very clean. After a breakfast of fresh fruit and french toast, we´re just hanging out until we go visit the Namaste office in Antigua today. The weather is beautiful!

Adios!
The Hillsdale Effect