Intersect Fund Executive Director Rohan Mathew appeared with colleagues today on CNN’s American Morning to talk about campus-based microfinance.

The conversation, which included Mathew’s counterparts in Providence, R.I. and New Haven, Conn., focused on the efforts of the Campus Microfinance Alliance, a group Mathew co-founded to help college students develop their local economies.

Watch the video here and check out Lend for America, a new initiative to give college students hands-on experience with local microfinance this summer.

Check out Sakina Spruell’s great article on Intersect Fund client Chris White’s path toward financial security. Our small part in White’s journey was helping her rebuild her credit as she repaid her loans.

Pope Benedict XVI bestowed pontifical honors this week upon Fr. Joseph Kerrigan, pictured, pastor of New Brunswick's Sacred Heart Church. Photo by Tom McNellis

We’ve always known Fr. Joe Kerrigan is a stand-up guy, so it’s good to see him get some recognition from his boss.

The Diocese of Metuchen – in which Kerrigan works – announced today Kerrigan is one of nine local priests that Pope Benedict XVI has named Chaplains of His Holiness.

According to a statement on the Diocesan website, the pontiff, “has recognized the exemplary dedication of the Metuchen presbyterate by bestowing pontifical honors upon nine of our priests on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Diocese of Metuchen.”

Priests who receive this honor from the pontiff assume the title “Reverend Monsignor.”

Kerrigan frequently engages in valuable charitable work throughout the world. In New Brunswick, where he serves as pastor of Sacred Heart Church, he advocates for the rights of the neighborhood’s low-income, largely immigrant population.

He was also one of the first community leaders to work with the Intersect Fund, letting us use Sacred Heart’s Parish Hall to host our second business training course in early 2009. In addition, he helped us secure support from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. With our initial CCHD grant, we rented our first office. The campaign’s subsequent support has allowed us to expand our microlending program and launch an initiative designed to help our clients increase sales and find new customers.

We congratulate Kerrigan on this honor and wish him the best as he assumes his new role.

You’ll always remember your first.

When the foundation connected to New Brunswick-based Magyar Bank granted the Intersect Fund $1,000 in fall 2008, it became our first funder.

When it announced yesterday a new, $2,500 grant to the Intersect Fund, it became our longest-running. The new grant will support our Entrepreneur University program, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.

In a statement, MagyarBank Charitable Foundation president Jay Castillo explained his confidence in us: “The training they provide gives each student a solid background in building and implementing a sound business plan that will enable them to succeed in their entrepreneurial endeavor, and we are proud to support their efforts,” Castillo said.

Taken at face value, this story seems common; foundations give to nonprofits all the time, right? It’s their job.

True, but this story is a little different.

In fall 2008, the Intersect Fund was a group of Rutgers University students operating out of an off-campus apartment. Although we had a good plan to build our nascent organization into New Jersey’s biggest microlender, we had a ways to go toward achieving our goal. For instance, we lacked many of the things successful nonprofits tend to emphasize to funders: things like a financial track record, a history of achieving community impact, and…well, clients.

At that point, we were thrilled just to get a meeting with a foundation. Imagine our delight when Magyar Bank’s top executives at the time – John Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Hance – joined its community relations team – Jay Castillo and Judy Braverman –  at the board room table.

We talked about the pressing need among low-income entrepreneurs for the training and microloans we planned to offer. We told them how we expected to provide these services and with whom we planned to partner. The Magyar Bank team could well have dismissed us as naive college students (granted, that’s exactly what we were). Instead, they listened to us and invited us to seek support from their Foundation.

The resulting $1,000 check was a much bigger deal than its amount suggests. In addition to helping us print our training curriculum and marketing materials, it served as a valuable vote of confidence. Magyar Bank is a fixture in the greater New Brunswick community; its support signaled our credibility to potential clients and funders alike.

Our accomplishments since 2008 suggest the bank’s initial investment, albeit risky, was wise. We have worked with approximately 200 entrepreneurs, disbursing $90,000 worth of loans to 75 of them. Our repayment rate is great and our data show we’re making an impact in our clients’ lives. We have raised or earned close to $1 million in revenue since launching, much of it from government grants. In addition, we are now New Jersey’s largest microlender by number of loans disbursed.

In a way, our relationship with the MagyarBank Charitable Foundation parallels our organization’s key premise: boundless opportunity arises from small amounts of money given to the right people. In 2008, few foundations would have considered us the “right people” to receive a grant. Now, as always, few other lenders consider our borrowers the “right people” to receive business loans.

Guess you can’t always take things at face value.

The MagyarBank Charitable Foundation, the Intersect Fund's first funder, presents a new grant to the organization last month. From left to right are Foundation president Jay Castillo, Community Relations Specialist Judy Braverman, Intersect Fund Executive Director Rohan Mathew, Intersect Fund Associate Director Joseph Shure, and Magyar Bank CEO John Fitzgerald. Photo courtesy of Magyar Bank.

The U.S. Treasury oversees the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which recently awarded a large grant to the Intersect Fund. Photograph by Steven Damron.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund announced yesterday that it would disburse more than $142 million to 155 groups throughout the United States that provide loans and financial services to low-income Americans.

One of those groups is the Intersect Fund – we’ll receive approximately $100,000 to strengthen our business training and lending capabilities. This will help us serve more clients and enhance our offerings.

Two other New Jersey organizations – the Camden Empowerment Corporation and the Trenton-based Community Loan Fund of New Jersey – will receive grants through this program.

At yesterday’s press conference in Chicago, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin spoke about the program’s goal of expanding access: “Today’s awards will provide much-needed capital to help community-based financial institutions offer products and services that would otherwise be out of reach for thousands of low-income Americans,” he said.

We are grateful not only for the funds that come with our award, but also for the vote of confidence it confers upon our organization and our entrepreneurs. I hope you’ll consider joining the Treasury Department in supporting our work by making an online donation today. For more information on yesterday’s grant announcement, have a look at the press release.

Clayton Insulation Founder Noel Castellanos has received microloans from the Intersect Fund to start and grow his business

Microfinance is perceived primarily as a way for low-income individuals to get capital they can invest in small businesses. But as a National Science Foundation-sponsored report showed last week, many borrowers in the developing world are using their loan dollars for non-business uses as well as entrepreneurial ventures.

“We need to know more about how people actually use their loans, and we should not be judgmental if the answer is not always for investment in enterprise, said Dean Karlan, the Yale economist who co-wrote the report, in a statement released Friday.

According to the statement, the researchers found that microcredit increases borrowers’ ability to cope with risk, strengthens community ties and increases access to informal credit.

“People use credit for many reasons, beyond business investment, and that is good,” Karlan said in the statement.

Most of the clients who seek Intersect Fund loans do so with capital expenses in mind. For example, Noel Castellanos (pictured above) used his Intersect Fund loan to buy a van for his company. For a certain percentage of clients, though, the opportunity to build credit is the key benefit. The Fund reports repayments to the major credit bureaus, so clients who repay their loans on time often see their credit score improve significantly.

Eva Jimenez applies for a Capital Good Fund Citizenship Loan

Note: The Intersect Fund is one of several student-driven microlenders. The following story introduces Eva Jimenez, who received a Citizenship Loan from Brown University’s Capital Good Fund.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Since leaving the Dominican Republic eight years ago, Eva Jimenez has carved out a rich and rewarding life here. She’s landed a steady job and pursued her passion for painting, displaying her work at several local galleries. But until a few months ago, she had yet to fulfill her most important dream: to vote.

Though Jimenez had attained permanent United States residency, full-fledged citizenship eluded the public school teacher’s assistant. The application fee alone would eat up nearly a month’s salary, and that excludes the hefty legal fees she’d have to pay. Jimenez wondered whether she could ever scrape the money together.

Luckily, help was available. Earlier this year, Jimenez heard about the Capital Good Fund, a non-profit microlender here aiming to combat poverty and foster a more inclusive society. She learned the group would soon offer Citizenship Loans, designed to help legal U.S. residents cover the cost of becoming citizens, and was eager to take part.

In March, Jimenez received the first Capital Good Fund Citizenship Loan.

In September, she became a citizen.

Now, she feels she has a full stake in her community. She will have more job opportunities. She will inspire others hoping to realize the American dream.

“I’m very happy about organizations like the Capital Good Fund,” said Jimenez. She adds that although many fellow Latino immigrants could become citizens, few can cover the cost. This makes Capital Good Fund loans essential. “We need it,” she said.