Liveblogging Microfinance USA: The Opening Conversation

Eric Weaver of Opportunity Fund and Matt Lonner of Chevron open the two-day Microfinance USA conference in the penthouse of the Metreon in downtown San Francisco. Premal Shah of Kiva and First Lady of California Maria Shriver remain onstage.

10:10 a.m. Premal Shah tells the story of meeting Maria. When he asks her what she was thinking when she came to his office unannounced a couple of years ago, she says she was thinking they could work together. She thought, despite what people said, that what Kiva was doing overseas could be done right here at home.

10:15 a.m. “At no time do people need small loans more than they do now,”- Maria Shriver. “The idea that somebody says, ‘I’m going to take a chance on you,’… That’s powerful.”

10:19 a.m. Two original recipients of Opportunity Fund microloans join Maria and Premal onstage.

Eric owns Just Awesome, a board game store in San Francisco. “These guys have the most insane Yelp reviews,” Premal tells us. Eric is an Iraq veteran, but he was denied a loan structured specifically for veterans. He found Opportunity Fund through the web…and here we are, he says. “We ship games free to any APO-FPO address”- to servicemembers, that means.

Mandy owns Mandy’s Corner- a kitchen on wheels on a corner in San Jose. “Like Eric, I have been with my bank for 22 years,” she says. “And they turned me down. But I’m stubborn. I went onto the web and found Opportunity Fund. Thirteen days later I had my loan. People call it microlending, I call it portion control. If you take too much, it can hurt you. And I’m motivated to pay it back. You didn’t let me down, I won’t let you down. Banks are in a position where they can’t really trust anyone anymore, and business is about trust.”

10:34 a.m. Maria Shriver- “more and more, we need partnerships to get things done. People don’t believe government can solve these problems- but government can make partnerships.”

10:35 a.m. Premal Shah- “One thing that’s really easy to do is be cynical. But major banks are here, looking to see what they can do to help and get involved.”

10:38 a.m. What is the biggest constraint, Mandy and Eric are asked. “Local governments,” Mandy answers. “County permitting, DMV permitting… I hate to leave my kitchen and go deal with the bureaucracy.” Maria jumps in to say that the Governor is trying to address these issues, and make it simpler to get permits and approvals.

10:42 a.m. Maria talks about the increasing numbers of people who are leaving corporate America because it doesn’t accommodate their changing pressures- child care, elder care. I think to myself, this is why we need universal, voluntary retirement accounts that aren’t linked to employers.

10:50 a.m. An audience member from Cincinnati who has recently started a local lending group called Bad Girl Ventures asks the panel how connections like the ones that led to this conference partnership can be started locally. Maria gives a short answer- but she and her people pull the woman aside after the panel to talk.

11:00 a.m. Maria Shriver- "Really bright people have no clue that microlending is going on in this country." She calls it a communications and connections problem. Premal Shah agrees - "For a long time, Kiva was crickets and tumbleweeds."

After the opening discussion, Martin Eakes, founder of Self-Help and CEO of the Center for Responsible Lending, moves and re-inspires the audience with his 'Southern preacher'-style address that tells the story of his funding struggles in the early 1980s. "If you have the vision to see a problem, you have a duty to try and solve it," he says.