VOTE: New student-run, hands-on microfinance organization
We at SIPA’s Microfinance Working Group (MFWG) are hoping to accomplish a lot during the summer break—most importantly, moving ahead with plans to start a hands-on, student-led microfinance organization at Columbia that will provide funding and training to entrepreneurs in the Morningside Heights community interested in starting or growing their own small business.
We’re at an important stage in the process—time to choose a name! If you have just a moment, I would greatly appreciate if you’d PLEASE RESPOND (by sending an e-mail to sipa.microfinance AT gmail.com) WITH THE NAME THAT GETS YOUR VOTE. Remember, this is your organization! Following are the suggestions that have been submitted:
1) The Morningside Project
2) Morningside Microfinance
3) SEATS: SIPA Entreprenurial and Training Services
4) CAMP: Columbia Alliance for Microfinance Programs or Columbia Applied Microfinance Program or Columbia and Morningside Partnership
5) CEDS: Columbia Entrepreneurial Development Service
6) SEED: Students Empowering Entrepreneurial Development
7) CUrrency
8) Morningside Entrepreneurship Support Program
We are planning to tally all the results (from Facebook, our listserv, our website, etc.) next week and announce the results—and the new organization’s official name—by next Friday. This is a very important step that will let us move ahead with all sorts of administrative needs like incorporating, applying for non-profit status, registering a website, and designing a logo and communications materials. It’ll also bring us closer to the fun, programmatic aspects of the planning phase: being able to approach partner organizations, finish developing our activities and the structure though which we’ll engage our entrepreneurs, and begin thinking about recruiting our first group of small business owners.
As a reminder, if you’d like to read where things stand now (and add more ideas yourself), here’s the link to our Google Planning Doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x0npJ69nWyPT2tN1mJ5t7seM8IfgtP5jw_8fCNNOmyE/edit
