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Hello, Andrea. Thank you for joining us today.

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Hi, Doug. It's great to be with you.

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Andrea it's been a pleasure to work with you,

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Professor Yunus and Grameen America

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over the past three years.

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Can you tell us a little bit more about your organization

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and the work that you do in the United States?

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So, Grameen America is the fastest growing, largest,

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microfinance organization in the United States.

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We have served over 130,000 women entrepreneurs

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and their families in 15 cities.

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The organization's given out $1.5 billion

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of loan capital,

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which is a pretty extraordinary thing since 2008.

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And that has been repaid at 99%

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up until Covid-19.

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So basically without any collateral,

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and these are no recourse loans,

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the trust and the relationship between our staff

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and our members has yielded an extraordinary program.

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These are women who prior to Grameen America,

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are unable to access the traditional financial markets.

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Business has been affected very negatively by COVID-19

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businesses of all sizes.

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What are some of the things that you've been doing

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to support the members themselves

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from a business resilience perspective?

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We are waiving all interest on existing loans,

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any third party transaction costs

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that they've had in the past

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even if they're as small as a dollar to help repay us,

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we've covered those costs.

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We don't want them to bear them.

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And then really importantly,

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we've restructured loans.

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We are giving them more time to repay.

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We are requiring them to pay less per week.

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And in some cases we are issuing emergency loans

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to some of the members who just need that bridge

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to post Covid where they can resume their businesses.

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Andrea, in recent weeks,

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our BCG team has had the privilege

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to work very closely with you and Grameen

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to respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

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What were some of the immediate things

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that you did to change your business model

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and your operating model?

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The alchemy and the magic of the model

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are women getting together every single week

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in groups of 25, 30, 35,

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and they're getting together to share,

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to get financial training,

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to understand the disciplines of repayment,

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and that has been part of what we've been about

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since we began here in the United States in 2008.

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We made the decision

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that we were going to go virtual

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and pivot to a 100% no contact no meetings model,

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which was huge for us.

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So, envision 2,450

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Zoom meetings,

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with 30 women participating on each one,

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and all the chaos that can come with that.

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I mean these are members of ours

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who have probably never participated in conference calls,

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never mind passcode pounds before.

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Now,

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a hundred percent of our meetings every week

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are virtual.

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If you came to Grameen a few years ago,

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our members would have to come to our offices

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to get a check.

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Luckily,

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without even thinking about a pandemic,

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we transitioned to a card.

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So it is a Grameen card that has the rail set up,

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so that a loan can be dispersed onto that card

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from our major banks.

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And that allows us to get money to her

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without seeing her in person,

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and without that,

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it would be impossible to get that capital access to her.

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We couldn't have done this without our partner PayNearMe.

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We had started doing that pre-COVID-19,

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but the adoption,

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is nearly a hundred percent.

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It has to be obviously out of necessity during this time.

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And we think that that really bodes well for the future.

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Here in the United States we have something called

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the Payroll Protection Program,

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which is a large government stimulus program

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that many SMEs are using

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as a way of getting short term loans,

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that they may be able to convert to grants.

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Obviously a lot of SMEs have struggled to get this,

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again particularly difficult for your members.

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What are some of the things that you,

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well have you been able to help your members

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on the PPP program,

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and if so, what have you been able to do?

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Let me just take this in two phases

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because there's been two stimulus packages

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and in the first stimulus package,

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unfortunately we were not able to help our members.

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Grameen America itself is not an SBA7a lender.

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So we as an institution,

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didn't have the ability to participate and give loans.

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The second stimulus package, I feel great

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because thanks to BCG's help who really helped us

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look at well, what are we gonna do now?

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Should we apply to be a PPP lender?

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Or should we do something much more quickly,

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which is really become an agent,

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if you would,

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and partner.

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And that is what we ended up doing

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based on the recommendation

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and that was done within 48 hours or less.

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So Opportunity Fund is an organization

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based out in California

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who was approved to lend and very quickly,

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they've got a phenomenal CEO,

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Luz Urrutia and her team.

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They decided that they wanted to help us.

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So, again overnight,

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we funneled our loans for our members

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through the Opportunity Fund

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and were able to stand up the application process.

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$6,000 can change a member's life.

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A thousand dollars can change a member's life

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and we were able to process that size of loan,

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which is truly,

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there's just so many tiny businesses

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that need that kind of help.

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Andrea, thank you again for joining us today.

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It's been a pleasure.

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Wonderful to talk to you.