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To Profit or Not to Profit

Posted by on 15 October, 2008 in Primary
2 Comments

According to Mr Chu, “to roll back poverty rather than to merely alleviate it”, any solution needs to be able to reach massive numbers, deliver permanent results that can help many generations, provide continuous effort so it gets better and better at what it does, and provide continuous efficiency so it also becomes cheaper and cheaper. Mr Chu believes the only state that can offer all these four requirements is business.

From a review of a debate between the father of microfinance Mohammad Yunus and Michael Chu, former President and CEO of ACCION. Given that today’s Blog Action Day is focused on poverty, it seemed fitting to highlight this issue. 

Can we truly reach microfinance’s potential without the efficiency and scalability gains that business and for-profit models provide? Is profiting off of the poor unethical, and as Yunus argues, should we only be looking to sustain the model at the lowest possible point of surplus?

You can read the rest of the recount by Amy Rennison here at Microcapital.org.


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Vinay Ganti

Vinay is in his fourth year of a four year JD/MBA program at the New York University School of Law and the Leonard B. Stern School of Business in New York City. Prior to coming to New York, Vinay graduated from Brown University, worked in technology transfer as a consultant and also founded a financial literacy program for underprivileged youth. Currently, Vinay is an InSITE Fellow for Venture Capital and Innovation. His primary interests are in the social venture capital investing space and its role in transforming micro-businesses into globally competitive SMEs. After school, Vinay wants to create novel ways to provide clean energy & water to the world’s poor.

2 Comments on “To Profit or Not to Profit”

  • Richa
    16 October, 2008, 2:04

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  • Pamela Melcher
    24 April, 2012, 20:46

    In these days of austerity plus relative stress and anxiety about having debt, many individuals balk contrary to the idea of making use of a credit card in order to make purchase of merchandise or even pay for a holiday, preferring, instead just to rely on a tried as well as trusted approach to making payment – cash. However, if you have the cash there to make the purchase in full, then, paradoxically, this is the best time for them to use the card for several good reasons.

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