It’s a powerful example of what can happen when people decide to support each other. A group of successful Conejo Valley women created a nonprofit that has helped nearly 200,000 women halfway around the world push back against poverty.
"We're a nonprofit organization headquartered in Thousand Oaks. Our primary work is to empower women in the areas of economic development, education, and health care," said Karon Wright, President, Co-Founder, and Executive Director of The Greater Contribution. "We provide microloans so they could start small businesses to have a sustainable income. We provide them with mentoring. We also provide educational programs, so they can learn to read, write, and to do simple math."
The nonprofit is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Wright talks about how they came up with the concept.
"It started around my kitchen table. I recognized along with some of my friends that we were born into fortunate circumstances. We all had good jobs, good places to live, shelter, food to eat, all of the basic necessities. We also recognized that was certainly not the case for many people around the world," said Wright. "We decided that in some way that we wanted to make a greater contribution and help others."
Wright spoke to KCLU News from Gulu, Uganda on one of her many trips to the East African nation supporting The Greater Contribution’s programs. They have permanent staff in Uganda to run the daily operations. She talked about the microloans they offer to help women become self-sufficient.
"The women are just dealing in the basic necessities of life," said Wright. "It's often food items, like bananas, avocados, rice, that sort of thing. Also, they have microbusinesses selling cooking fuels, charcoal, cooking oil, used shoes, used clothing, and other basic necessities."
The women are offered classes on the basics of how to run a business.
"We teach them business skills," said Wright. "We have a whole series—weeks of business skills training that they must take before they are given a loan. Every three months they have refresher training, and they also have mentors available to them. They pay back the loans at a rate of 98%."
Wright said the women are in the program for three years. She said they've tracked them after they leave the program. Wright said 90% are still operating their businesses two years later.
Fundraisers back at the nonprofit’s home base in Ventura County help support it.
"We have one going on right now called the Black Tie No-Show Dinner. The no-show factor is the fact there is no dinner," said Wright. "The idea is instead of spending money on a dinner, and all the things that it takes to do that, we sending it to help the women, and we spend it on programs."
One of the nonprofit's newest efforts is to offer some health care services to the women, and their families.
There are about 2600 women in the program at a time. Wright admits she never imaged the project would help nearly 200,000 women over the decades.
