Dear Friends,
Opportunity Canada celebrates 10 years of serving the poor in 2007! Globally, we celebrate that we have reached and surpassed the one million mark of current loan clients.
Last year, the five support partners (Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States) raised over $80 million for the poor. Combined with third party investments and savings accounts, Opportunity mobilized more than $300 million for the poorest of the working poor in the 28 countries where we provide loans, banking and insurance services.
Opportunity distributed nearly 1.5 million loans, totaling nearly $500 million through microfinance programs in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America – five times the loan amount distributed in 2001. While Opportunity is making considerable progress in the fight to lift the working poor out of poverty, the World Bank reports that there are 500 million families in poverty who would benefit from microfinance, though 90 percent of them have no access to it. That is why this year at the Clinton Global Initiative; Opportunity International announced the “$1 Billion for 100 Million People” initiative, a plan to mobilize one billion dollars by 2015 to help over 100 million people move beyond poverty. As Opportunity increases its impact in the fight against poverty, so do our supporters. In February 2007, the Gates Foundation awarded Opportunity International more than $17 million through grants and loans for microenterprise in Africa. In Canada, we saw the same bold generosity. On a single day – May 30 – our donors gave over $500,000 on the occasion of the Opportunity Golf Tournament in Calgary.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, our Governors Council and staff, we celebrate this year of the notable progress in our mission to reach the entrepreneurial poor. Opportunity Canada is privileged to participate in an initiative close to the heart of Canada’s most strategically compassionate people, and yes, close to the very heart of God.
Thank you for your ongoing generosity and your commitment to serving the poor with us.
Gary Walsh
President & CEO
