Hyderabad - Jan 20th (written on plane home)

One of the most important events for me in Hyderabad was when we had to opportunity to visit with some of the top members of the for-profit organization Basix. Basix is essentially the number one most successful micro-credit lending agencies in the country of India. From sitting in their boardroom and learning about the organization, I realized that this is exactly the type of organization I want to work for -- a for-profit that’s mission based!!! I was fascinated to hear about the technical development of such important missions; The organization’s goal is to advance the livelihood of the rural population through a hybrid technique of training, lending, monitoring, support etc. And the company is profitable, because they can claim a 99% recovery rate on their loan money—this is UNHEARD of anywhere else in the world. We were told that although it’s a 99% recovery rate, women are undoubtedly the quickest to pay back the loans—we discussed this as how women are generally using this money with the firm interest in developing strong assets for their families so these women are not going to make uncalculated risks and will pay back their lender immediately. I was beyond impressed by the success that Basix could show us, in relation to the majority of organizations in the U.S.