Village Banking

FAQs About Microcredit at All Souls Unitarian Church, Tulsa

• ALL of All Souls fundraising for village banking is to donate to FINCA, the organization which actually organizes and monitors the banks (www.villagebanking.org)
• Microcredit works by putting money directly into the hands of those women who own businesses and have no other options for credit
• Teaches women to save, put money back into their businesses to grow, enables them to engage their whole families in the process
• Changes the lives of the women, their families, their village, their provinces, their state and their nation, hence the world

Why do Microcredit?

• It will change the world one person, one family, one village, one province, one country at a time.
• When the tide rises, all boats float. So taking that analogy, if we as a spiritual community raise the economic well being of those outside of this country, it will in time come to help us as a nation and the world. 
• The helping of these women business owners so profoundly changes the lives of these women, that they then go on to become leaders in their own communities with a new found self esteem and sense of contribution to their world.  The fact that you individually and your church as a whole can contribute to this small turning of the tide, should be motive enough to inspire a sense of gift giving in the form of donations. FINCA and the world will thank you.

About All Souls Unitarian Church – Tulsa, OK

• Involved in 1996
• Started with trip as a medical mission
• Visited a FINCA bank while in Nicaragua and decided that was the way for the church to raise money for microcredit
• Have been funded Microcredit banks since 1997
• Now have banks 32 banks located in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Congo, Kyrgyzstan

About our variety fundraising efforts

• Simple as a bake sale
• Selling goods produced in countries visited or where banks are sponsored
• Selling products from women in banks we sponsor
• Selling fair-trade items each Sunday at church – coffee, chocolate, nuts etc
• Big Event Fundraiser – Boar’s Head Feast (2 yrs, each raised $15 to 20,000)
• Youth initiative for bank - did Valet Parking, babysitting, leaf raking, house sitting, car washes – raised close to $10,000 in six months so they could start a bank and send students on trip to Guatemala
• Selling Pre-Paid international Calling Cards ($5)
• Individual donors (Some church members will give enough to start a bank – you have to inspire and ask)
• Community wide fundraising event instead of just inside church

How can All Souls in Tulsa help you?

We have available a video on our village banking efforts in Nicaragua, called “Banking on the Poor in Nicaragua” length 10:56min.  This video gives you a good idea of what exactly the banks look like, who the bankers are and the basic set-up of the banks and how they are run. (DVD/VHS format) If you would like to have a speaker come to your church to help you raise money or awareness, contact Jacque Tomsovic 918-524-9150 or jtomsovic@yahoo.com We recommend setting up a separate banking account for your microcredit funds.

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation...Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope...those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert F Kennedy