Self-Financing Banks
“What we appreciated the most was the capacity of the students to share their knowledge, creating an atmosphere of friendship, cordiality and sense of community. Overcoming differences of language, race and origin, we felt equal, sitting around the same table.” - Clemente A., Director, INTISISA, Guamote, Ecuador

Group Financed Community Banks (GCB) is a social innovation that builds off the ACAF model created by Ashoka Fellows Salamon Raydan and Jean Claude Rodriguez Ferrera as well as the CrediCapaz work of Social Entrepreneur Corps interns. The mission is to empower individuals who have groups with strong “social capital” to be able to save and borrow using the economic resources that already exist in their communities. This strategy removes the micro credit intermediary and gives communities control over their own financing structures and terms.

Recent participant contributions:

Collaborated with "Reconoci.do" youth documentation workers to create the first self-financed community bank in the province of El Seibo.

Designed a "best practices" guide for replicating CAF model

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