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The San Diego Microfinance Summit

Fee

The Inaugural San Diego Microfinance Summit highlights the San Diego area’s contribution to local and global microfinance and fosters new partnerships to expand microfinance initiatives.

Lynn McMullen, Executive Director of the Peace Alliance and a longtime microfinance consultant and fundraiser, will give the plenary address. McMullen has been engaged in the field of microfinance for more than twenty years with federal policy, advocacy, and program evaluation. More recently she has been working to develop programs for AIDS orphans, vulnerable youth and voluntary home based care networks in rural South Africa.

The goal of the summit is to promote the efficacy of San Diego’s microfinance organizations by sharing stories from both microfinance organizations and clients in order to promote collaboration across the area’s microfinance community. The summit is open to all interested parties.

The summit features a series of panels with speakers from across the national and international microfinance sector. In addition to practitioners, local microfinance clients will offer their thoughts on how access to credit provides them with new opportunities. Lunch will be catered by local restaurateurs who are also current microfinance clients. During the lunch buffet, participants will be able to network with representatives of the microfinance organizations on hand.  There will be a marketplace where other microfinance clients will sell their wares and services. Among the expected vendors will be artisans, musicians and bakers.  

$25, general public; $10, students,faculty, Includes lunch.

Partnering organizations include ACCIÓN San Diego, CDC Small Business Finance, Foundation for Women, Grameen Foundation, International Rescue Committee, Point Loma Nazarene University, Project Concern International, the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at University of California San Diego and the Ahlers Center for International Business at University of San Diego.