Home  About  In the News  Publications  Blog  Join  Donate  > Inside Yale  Yale News "Politics + Mass Media" is a Constitution Day Launch and Exhibition by the Center on Public Awareness at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. September 18th, 2006. Announcements National Expo: July 11th Hyde Park Summit: August 14-17 Essay Winners Announced in The Nation On Campus Iowa Chapter Holds Forum Zach Hindin in the GW Hatchet Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country." — Franklin Roosevelt    Microcredit in New Haven > Roosevelt Home > Yale > Economic Policy > Microcredit in New Haven Your name: Your email: Recipient's name: Recipient's email: Message: To prevent spam, please enter the first letter of the recipient's email and the first letter of the recipient's name in the box below (for example, if the name is "John Doe" and the email is "bigjohn@johndoe.com", you would enter "jb"): Microfinance has been proven an effective model in developing nations and is a currently growing practice in America, with over 200 microlenders throughout the country, many in urban areas. However, the challenge remains to adapt the original Grameen Bank model to a city setting in a developed nation, selectively targeting those most in need and aiming to even out varying levels of economic development and create stronger community ties, rather than offering the model widely to an entire community with relative economic equality. We hope to assess the current offerings and microfinance in New Haven and comparatively analyze the challenges of each to suggest improvements for a future business model. Our research would mostly be done through gathering what data we can from the City of New Haven and by speaking with contacts from the various microfinance initiatives. After intently researching the models, benefits, and shortfalls of 2-4 different microfinancing initiatives, we would synthesize our information to craft holistic recommendations for improving their effectiveness. We would find what these organizations should do individually and collectively and present our findings, later following up on progress. After the research phase, we would like to consider instituting a vehicle for effective (and hopefully ongoing) communication between existing microlending institutions, possibly at a conference or roundtable discussion where Roosevelt would present its findings and the microlenders would discuss possibilities for collaboration and ideas exchange. Through this, we hope to best make use of the best practices as well as overlapping services of a number of microlenders. Additionally, we could involve the city or other nonprofit organizations to support efforts for change and improvement alongside our own lobbying efforts. Essentially, we hope to deliver a general community development conference or series of discussions, for which we could bring together leaders and experts in the field. In this discussion, we would also present our proposed generalized microcredit model for urban settings such as New Haven, and use our research support to lobby for improvements in New Haven and potentially other CT cities or similar cities around the country. Group members: Lulu Cheng Danny Townsend Alex W Bartik Alexandra Bercow Haley Cohen Torie Crown Seth Extein Joelle A Fleurantin Bing Han Katherine Kavaler Ross Kennedy-Shaffer Jacob L Koch Ben Lazarus Tess E Lerner-Byars Colin O'Leary Spencer Sherman Ali Weiner   The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359