SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHT

Lisa Bontje of Seattle, Washington, former Director of Investor Relations at Microsoft, has been a Unitus supporter since 2006. She joined a Unitus Microfinance Trip to India in 2006 and is now co-chair of Unitus's Empowerment Circle.

How did you get interested in microfinance?

It was my husband’s and my regular date night almost 2 years ago and he dragged me to a “charity event” at an acquaintance’s house. I had never heard of Unitus, and embarrassingly, knew very little about microfinance.

We were lucky that night because there were relatively few people at the event, which meant we had a lot of time to talk with Geoff Davis, Unitus’s CEO. The more we listened to him, the more I thought, “Wow, this guy knows what he's talking about." We would have placed Geoff as a driven executive at a fast-paced, high-tech company rather than a local nonprofit.

As Geoff started his official presentation, I realized this was something that focused largely on empowering women, and I started to really take notice. I knew then that microfinance was something I needed to find out much more about.

What gets you excited about Unitus?

At the practical level I am excited about Unitus’s Accelerator Model business approach. They have taken proven accelerator models from the commercial world and in doing so have helped create large-scale and commercially sustainable local microfinance institutions. It's a highly leveraged model and it’s working. It's helped Unitus reach more than 3 million people through their partners by the end of 2007.

I get excited from an emotional perspective as well when I think of my time in India and the look in the Indian women’s eyes when they discussed the opportunities and independence microfinance loans afforded them. I think of the 7 year-old girl in the pink and white flowered dress in the remotest of remote villages near Bangladesh who is now attending school because her mom can finally afford to send her; when I picture the petite young mother of two showing off the basket plates she sells, woven from materials she was able to buy with a Unitus-backed microfinance loan.

Finally, I love the drive and passion and intelligence of every Unitus employee I have met.

You are recalling memories from your participation on a Unitus trip to India in 2006. What is your most memorable moment from the trip?

On the airplane ride home from India, I wrote down the following:

My strongest memory was talking to the women borrowers, hearing their stories of hard work and advancement, and seeing the spark of pride in their eyes. I felt a sadness at the number of people living in such extreme poverty, but overall I felt hope after witnessing how the women clients were lifting themselves and their families up with the help of Unitus and their microfinance partners.

That is still true. A year and a half later, I still have super-vivid memories of specific women and children I met. Their faces and voices and smiles stay with me. I think often of one woman from the Kolkata loan group, the woman who my mother and I had tea with at her little tea shop. This particular woman appeared much older and tired than the other bright-eyed borrowers in her group, although I think she was probably only around 30. Different than most of the women, her eyes became dark with anger when I asked her about her life and family.

She told us she lived with her three small children. I asked about the children’s father and she flashed a very dark look and said that she never talks about that man and she doesn’t know where he is. Before joining her loan group, she had supported her whole family with the small amount of money she made at her “tea shop” which consisted of a tiny open-air counter where she made tea in one teapot over a flame.

When I asked her how the loan had changed her business, her eyes finally lit up and she gestured for my mom and me to follow her outside and down the dirt path to her new tea shop. It was still pretty modest but now she had enough money for more merchandise including biscuits, sweets, and small packages of things like soap and medicine. The additional merchandise had enabled her to increase her profit significantly so that she could better feed her three children. She was a mother just like me, wanting to do the best for her children and willing to work hard for it.

You are a co-chair of Unitus's Empowerment Circle. What inspired you to take such a leadership role and encourage others to support Unitus?

I didn’t so much want to take a leadership role as I wanted to do anything I could do to help expand Unitus’s reach. The more people who support Unitus, the more 7 year-old girls in pink and white dresses around the world get to go to school and end their family’s cycle of poverty.

How are you teaching your children about microfinance and the importance of charitable giving?

Well, that’s an interesting question and one my husband and I struggle with. Our boys are only 6 and 4 years old, and although we want them to grow up with compassionate and giving spirits, we want to be careful not to put the weight of the world on their shoulders too early.

We are starting slowly by helping them understand how lucky they are to have the security and comfort that are a part of their everyday lives. We also try modeling charitable behavior with our own volunteer activities and charitable giving in the community and making it a part of our everyday lives.

And I love to tell the boys about the work Unitus is doing. Last year, before I went on the Unitus trip to India, I had a lot of anxiety about how the boys would react to me leaving them for 9 days. Leading up to the trip, I talked to them both in simple terms about how Unitus helps mothers who do not have enough money or food. I told them Unitus helps moms start businesses to earn money which then helps them feed their kids and give them all better lives. I thought they understood in an abstract way, but I wasn’t sure.

When I returned, I showed them some photos of the women I met and their kids to make it more concrete, but I still wasn’t sure how much they understood. I felt reassured though just a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned to them that I was going into the Unitus offices for a meeting. My 4 year-old perked right up and said, "Mommy, are you going to India today to help those other mommies and their kids?"