impact investing | Helps International (HINT)

Remember that time we promised that more changes were coming your way? Well, yet another of those changes has arrived! HINT is proud to announce that it has now entered into a partnership with the Frontier Market Scouts fellowship program!

The Frontier Market Scouts (FMS) fellowship offers professional training in social enterprise and impact investing to those seeking a career shift. Twice each year, FMS offers two week training programs in Monterey, CA, USA and in Amsterdam, NL with courses taught by leading professionals in the social impact space. Following successful completion of their training, fellows receive a certificate from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey. Recognized as a leader in international studies, MIIS’s academic programs are world-renowned for their academic rigor and professional impact. After certification, fellows spend 2 – 12 months working with a FMS partner organization in the social impact space.

HINT will be one of FMS’s social impact partners, bringing fellows to Cameroon to work in the social impact space. FMS fellows will join HINT’s microfinance program, called Kingdom Community Fund (KCF), as fund managers. This opportunity will provide valuable professional experience for FMS fellows in managing a microfinance fund and working in developing markets with small-business entrepreneurs. Alternatively, FMS fellows will be able to provide business training to KCF’s entrepreneurs and consistent management of the Kingdom Community Fund.

We look forward to sharing more with you about our HINT – FMS partnership in the coming months! Feel free to click on the link to FMS above to explore the FMS program. Perhaps HINT will see one of you in Cameroon as an FMS fellow in the future!

As always, if you would like to contact us, donate, or get involved, you can find us on: Twitter, Facebook, by email, or by contacting us online.

We wish you continued success in your social enterprises and endeavors in 2015! Together, we can improve our local (and global) communities.

After some peace and quiet at HINT, we are now back in action with several changes coming your way in 2015! We have continued our works to help the poor and underprivileged, but are now pleased to announce that some exciting new changes are being incorporated into the programs.

The year started off well, with HINT welcoming its first volunteer in almost five years on March 1st. Jessa Coleman arrived off an overnight flight from Amsterdam, where she had been engaged in a fellowship in impact investing and social entrepreneurship. After a day to recuperate, she was bright-eyes, excited, and ready to apply the knowledge she had gained at her training to HINT’s programs and business model. Jessa will be with us for four months total, until July 1st. In that time, she has accepted a heavy burden of responsibility. Jessa agreed to work on several different aspects of HINT’s operations, including: updating HINT’s online and social media presence; revitalizing the Kingdom Community Fund; developing a sustainable business plan for HINT; and reaching out to new donors and partners.

Jessa has taken on the title of “Fund Manager” of the Kingdom Community Fund (KCF), HINT’s microfinance institution. She has been developing a more efficient management and accounting system for the fund while meeting the fund’s current clients. Under Jessa’s leadership, the fund is once again open to new clients (having been recently closed to new clients). Most excitingly, a savings scheme has been incorporated into the fund, such that KCF is no longer limited to offering only microcredit loans, but is now a full-blown microfinance service. Jessa has also begun hosting monthly business seminars with the fund’s members and is encouraging greater involvement in the non-solidarity groups. As a result of these ambitious changes, KCF now offers microcredit loans to local entrepreneurs in addition to savings schemes and small- and medium-enterprise (SME) business training.

Here at HINT we are incredibly excited for these positive additions to the Kingdom Community Fund. We look forward to sharing with you the other new changes that take place in the coming months. As always, if you would like to contact us, donate, or get involved, you can find us on: Twitter, Facebook, by email, or by contacting us online.

We wish you continued success in your social enterprises and endeavors in 2015! Together, we can improve our local (and global) communities.

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