This country needs more like IPED

Apr 04, 2019 Editorial

A constant cry from the ambitious and creative is lack of capital. Many daring individuals find themselves trapped against this immovable wall, and with no way around it. Lack of capital means lack of movement; it could mean the end of a lifelong dream, perhaps a real meaningful one that could benefit initiator and community, if not society.
Where to start in the quest for elusive seed money, startup investment cash? How to locate a place or person or party that lends a financial hand to make things possible, through that first fateful belief? The lending coastline is barren. For the big financial institutions are neither too impressed nor too patient nor too moved by fulsome entrepreneurial dreams and empty pockets. The two when operating under the same roof and in the same presence are shunned and dismissed: no interest; no chance taken; no satisfying of sophisticated risk and return matrices.
The unending plight and lament of the little people – struggling individuals with no credit history, sometimes paltry income records – is of an absence of financial substance, of the missing persuasive power of context and the character of cash in some form, any form. It is because no collateral means nothing, as in nothing doing.
The powerhouse lending institutions have nothing on which to call in the event of failure and default. Conservative and prudent it is called in that starched world. And all of this when added up: history, credit, collateral and the rest of the unsaid can mean goodbye. It usually is.
Time to say hello to IPED. First to recognize its stature and work, and then to laud it for the difference it is making in so many lives and places. Commendations are due to IPED for its positive contributions and needed presence. When the environment is surveyed, and all things considered, IPED has to be considered a truly exemplary presence, one that is committed to staying the course; for even though the statistics is not impressive, they are solid. Because it takes a nonprofit organization to touch untouchables: Small man and woman, small businesses, small loans.
Its applicant base, the ones that met the mark, is diversified and includes women and youths and those from rural areas. These are not the kinds of situations that make a Credit Officer’s eyes gleam. These are the people who are most acutely short of capital, that ever-present reality that dooms so many dreams.
IPED makes the dreams and ideas and hopes come alive. It does so by giving the opportunity and wherewithal for a start. Through an increasingly mature programme of risk taking and confidence building; of chance taken and continuity provided, many an individual and family have progressed to the next level through personal growth, and all the self-esteem that comes from that comforting place.
IPED, as expressed in recent news coverage, uses the surplus generated from its core lending operations to extend more loans to more areas and more fledgling businesses hoping for just such a critical development. This activity can only empower more; incentivize more: small start, big dreams, and bigger results. This is the manner, tried and true, that converts potentials and possibilities into realities. Things happen when the moment is seized.
For the most part, grateful and empowered borrowers learn discipline; run a tight ship; cultivate tendencies toward clean recordkeeping, honest labour, and the existence of a paper trail and history, on the books and for the authorities that matter. In this way, profile is established and enhanced. This is about real books, with real risks and real returns. Credit information and tax presence all registered and maintained. Families and communities are built from these small starts.
This country needs more like IPED, with more money available to lend to those many more people seeking more opportunities to grow. IPED diverges dependence on government; fosters independence; drive; self-sufficiency; pride; ownership; appreciation for risk, thrift, sacrifice. People thrive.

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