Fundación Namaste Guatemaya

Non profit organization

(+502) 3330-8273

Namaste Direct is a non-profit organization that empowers women in Guatemala, through the use of financial literacy training and mentoring as well as of micro-loans.

Target populations:

Women

Focus areas:

Education, Microfinance

Key service areas:

Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango, Suchitepéquez, Sololá

Organizational contacts & locations

Contacts

Eugenia Duran

Executive Director

(+502) 5159-6446

eugenia@namastedirect.org

Desiree Lyons

Director of Development

(+1) 650 822-2135

desiree@namastedirect.org

Robert Graham

Founder

(+1) 415 412-2057

regraham@namastedirec.org

Locations

2a. Avenida Sur, No. 61C, Interior B,

Antigua,

Sacatepéquez,

03001

Mission, vision & values

Mission

Our mission is to directly contribute to economic empowerment of women, by providing business development programs that increase the business cash flow of low-income women.

Vision

Our vision is to empower women in Guatemala through the use of financial literacy training and mentoring as well as through the provision of necessary micro-loans to jump-start or improve upon their personally owned businesses.

Values

To combine financial education, monthly advisory, a micro-loan and technology to help micro-entrepreneurs move from poor to middle class.

Products, services, and programs

Services

We offer financial education services, monthly advisories and micro-loans.

Programs

We have programs related to financial education and micro-loans offered in 9 month cycles.

Organizational detail

Founded:

2008

Number of employees:

11-25

Funding:

Private donations, Corporate donations, Private grants

Primary issue(s) / need(s) addressed

Lack of financial education and advisory for micro-business women.

Impact, adaptations & objectives

Impact to date

At Namaste Direct, we work closely with our clients because we believe in their potential. Our Business Advisors assist our clients at each step of their business implementation and growth plans. We offer financial literacy training as well as a customized business loan program to ensure success of all our clients. Together, we invest in greater livelihoods for the communities in which we work. Through our Business Development Program, Namaste Direct has had the following impact:

30% + increase in micro-entrepreneurs´ monthly income for each nine-month loan and education cycle completed.
250% return on money invested: For every $100 Namaste spends on training, the first year after her training each woman earns more than $250 in profits.
Micro-entrepreneurs act on 81% of advice given in their monthly mentor meetings (reported by their Business Advisors).
Currently 76% of clients are keeping records despite the fact that 26% of them are illiterate. Keeping financial records is new to nearly all of our beginning micro-entrepreneurs.
Annual Business Women’s Conference: Each year 100 low-income women (many of whom have never spent a night away from home) attend three days of learning and networking.

Impact measuring

Back in 2012, none of our data was digitized. We initially invested in a customized database, but still had to transfer data manually into Excel spreadsheets. By 2014, we started to use QlikView. The team was thrilled with our new visibility into our clients’ reality and the status of their loans. It changed so much about how we share data with our donors and how we provide the right support to our clients at the right time. Now, we have tools that allow us to sort information in any number of ways, including how clients allocate funds, the average profit based on the type of business, the average age of the business, and so much more. We can also see everything from big-picture statistics to individual snapshots of a client and her business.

We can examine how each woman handles her loan payments, the individual impact of our financial education and advisory programs, and whether someone is a strong candidate for another loan or education cycle. Based on this data, we can make modifications to our plans and programs.

Organizational adaptations:

Size and/or structure, Key offerings

Organizational adaptation details

Size and/or structure

We had to restructure our number of personnel due to low donations.

Key offerings

We added new services such as the Savings Club & the Directory to find different type of organizations they can find specific help in case of need.

Short term objectives

Growth

We will increase from 250 to 340 women by the end of 2020.

Quality

Continue helping them with our tools for Financial and Education and find new tools we can use after this Covid-19 crisis.

Impact

Help them to suffer as little possible from this crisis.

Long term objectives

Growth

Depending on donations and grants we can calculate our yearly growth.

Quality

No foreseen changes.

Impact

No foreseen changes.