Alumni Unite in Forming Unitus

This article appeared in the BYU Marriott School of Management Alumni magazine in the Winter 2003 issue:

Alumni Unite in Forming Unitus

What began as a group of philanthropists desiring to make a difference has grown into a leading microenterprise lender, Unitus. This high-impact microenterprise accelerator dramatically expands the lending capacity of carefully selected microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries.

Unitus' mission is to catalyze the growth of small and midsized MFIs, allowing millions of poor people to improve their standard of living by gaining access to microfinance products and services.

Marriott School graduates Tim Stay and Louis Pope are two of the founders who are successfully helping the poor start businesses. Unitus selects and partners with MFIs that have demonstrated a clear capacity to design, implement, and grow a successful microfinance program. Unitus provides funding and consulting services to these MFIs, with the aim of dramatically accelerating the number of microcredit loans that can be made to the entrepreneurial poor in developing countries.

"We know microcredit works; it's just not reaching its potential," said Geoff Davis, president of Unitus. Marriott School professor of organizational behavior Warner Woodworth is a consultant to NGOs such as Unitus. "In the future I see Unitus as moving from small-scale experiments in a few countries to a successful long-term, large-scale methodology for addressing poverty, especially in the Third World," he says.

Interest in microenterprise firms like Unitus continues to grow at BYU. The Marriott School and Romney Institute of Public Management will cosponsor the Sixth Annual Conference on Microenterprise Development 13–15 March 2003. More conference information can be found at microenterprise.byu.edu or by emailing microenterprise@byu.edu.