Microfunding nonprofit fights global poverty one community at a time
They might not be glamorous, but they sure are necessary: latrines. A rural village in northwestern Rwanda, Nyarutosho didn't have them. The village was poised to be given a microgrant in 2011 from Sasha Fisher’s organization, Spark MicroGrants.
But before it got the funds, the village was required to go through five months of meetings so residents could decide together what was the most pressing need in their community — a school? A well? A health clinic? Then they would present a proposal to Spark.
Fisher, a Do Something award finalist, founded and has led the organization full-time since graduating from the University of Vermont in 2010. She had moved to Rwanda to facilitate projects like this one in East Africa, funded by foundations and corporations. (Yahoo donated seed money to Spark in 2010.)
Fisher makes clear that microgrants are not the more commonly known microloans. Whereas microfinancing focuses on seed money to start a business, the bottom line is profit. “But microgranting is completely new, we’re the first to do this,” the native New Yorker told Yahoo News over the phone.
“It’s money they keep, their bottom line is impact. They’re building schools, starting farms, starting electricity.”
The Rwandan village is located on volcanic rock, making it difficult for building sustainable sanitation. Fisher said the community had requested funds for just such a project but was told by the local government that no money was available. Enter Spark.
Residents came up with a cheap design — just $100 a toilet — using the materials that were already there. They were given the grant — $6,000 to build 60 outhouses. The community went to work. In 2012, Spark staff returned to check on the village, and found that incidences of children with worms and diarrhea — a danger without basic sanitation — had come down dramatically. The community had even started a farming collective after the working so well together to build the latrines.
Already, the organization has given away $200,000 to 50 projects in Africa. Fisher, who always wanted to work in international development, would like to see this kind of funding being used as a model of international aid to spark, if you will, projects around the globe.
If she won the Do Something award grand prize of $100,000 for her group, it would go to funding even more projects on a local level. “For $100,000 we could work with 20 communities,” the 24-year-old said. “20 villages each get a chance to launch a project and impact 9,000 lives.”
The Do Something awards celebrate world changers aged 25 and younger. The grand prize winner will be announced Wednesday during a live-stream event on VH1 and will receive $100,000 toward his or her organization. This is one of five profiles of the finalists. Vote for the grand prize winner by text.
