We hope this assists you in answering your questions about Opportunity Canada. If you have any further questions, please send us an email.

What is microcredit?
Microcredit is a small business loan made to an entrepreneurial person not served by banks because of her or his poverty and lack of collateral.

What is microenterprise development?
Microenterprise development is a program that provides microloans to poor entrepreneurs along with basic business training, mentoring, financial planning and leadership development. It also includes financial services such as savings and insurance.

Whom am I helping?
People in deep poverty who wish to earn a livelihood to meet their families' basic needs.

Is my gift tax-deductible?
Opportunity International is a registered charity. Gifts are tax-deductible as provided by law.

What is a Trust Group?
A Trust Group is a group of 15 to 40 poor entrepreneurs, mainly women, who guarantee each other's loans so that they can start small businesses and support their families.

What kind of businesses do your clients operate?
They operate very small businesses in the informal sector-food preparation, sewing, knitting, weaving, and basket making, for example. Other popular activities are retail businesses, where clients buy and resell goods like fruit, vegetables, clothing, soap, and hairbrushes. Some are farmers raising chicken, pigs, and fish.

How many clients do you serve?
We currently serve more than 1 million clients.

Do your clients have a good record of repaying their loans?
Yes. Our clients have maintained an average repayment rate of 98 percent or better.

Do you charge interest?
Our clients are charged commercial interest rates or higher by the lending organization. This allows the organization to cover its own costs and sustain its operations, ensuring that the loan capital is maintained to benefit the community for generations. Experience with lending to the very poor has shown that the poorest can afford market interest rates when other lending terms are favorable. And often their only other means of obtaining credit is through loan sharks, who may charge as much as 500-1000 percent annual interest rates.

In which countries do you have loan programs?

We currently operate in 28 countries globally:

Africa
Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Asia
China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines

Eastern Europe
Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia

Latin America
Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru

What motivates your work?
We are motivated by Christ's call to serve the poor, and we wish to provide a tangible sign of God's love for all people. We therefore actively seek to make our services available to all people regardless of their gender, creed, ethnic background, or marital status. We welcome clients and donors of all beliefs.

Our Christian grounding also leads us to recognize the importance of social and spiritual transformation in addition to economic transformation.

As part of the Opportunity International Network, we work with partner organizations whose board and staff members share our motivation and ethics.