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Frequently Asked Questions
What is microfinance?
Microfinance is the delivery of financial services to the poor. Typically, these financial services include access to savings and small loans. For example, the average loan size of Freedom from Hunger’s partner implementing organizations is about $125. Loans are used to start or build small-scale, often home-based businesses such as making clothing, selling food and raising chickens or pigs. Increasingly, other financial services such as microinsurance and remittance services are also offered.
Microcredit emerged in the 1980s to respond to a gap in financial services for the poor. The poor often live in remote areas, lack necessary collateral and are inexperienced accessing and managing financial services. Furthermore, financial institutions have typically seen the poor as too great a risk to offer services to them. As a result, the poor have had limited or no access to financial services and have had to rely on informal sources such as moneylenders that charge exorbitant interest rates. To respond to this gap, organizations such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA) in Latin America responded in the 1980s with microcredit programs that utilized a group-based approach. Groups of 20–40 community members, often women, came together to participate in the programs. Instead of requiring collateral, the programs used a group or peer guarantee system so that group members could receive loans.
Microcredit has since expanded to microfinance and is continually evolving, for example expanding to new services and offering individual loans. In particular, organizations are recognizing that financial services are not enough—non-financial services such as financial education are also crucial for the poor. To learn more about integrated microfinance and non-financial services, visit Integrated Services. Back to top
What are non-financial services?
Freedom from Hunger recognizes that the poor, especially the very poor, need more than just financial services to succeed. Complementary non-financial services—such as dialogue-based adult education and access to health-protection services—can help the poor better utilize financial services to improve their businesses, standard of living and health status.
Freedom from Hunger pioneered the integration of microfinance with dialogue-based education, what we call Lifeskills Training, in 1989. Lifeskills Training engages microfinance clients in discussion and decision-making with the objective of identifying poverty- and hunger-related problems in their daily lives and becoming motivated to overcome them. Today, we are recognized for a range of effective Lifeskills curricula that help clients tackle health issues such as family planning, diarrhea and malaria; financial issues such as budgeting and debt management; and business issues such as increasing sales. To learn more, visit Lifeskills Training.
Freedom from Hunger is also advancing the integration of critical health protection services. Health protection services can involve, among many options, linking clients to approved health clinics for prenatal care or HIV testing and counseling, or providing access to insecticide-treated bednets at a reduced rate for malaria prevention. To learn more, please visit Microfinance and Health Protection. Or, for more general information about non-financial services, visit Integrated Services. Back to top
What is adult education?
Effective adult education goes beyond sharing information. It builds on participants’ own life experiences. It helps them see new ideas within the context of what they already know. Ideally, it helps to facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge, skills and attitudes and leads to behavior change. To learn more about the principles and practices of adult education, visit Adult Learning and Curriculum Design. Back to top
What are health protection services?
Health protection is a set of services and products aimed at reducing vulnerability to unnecessary illnesses and complications by promoting disease prevention for the poor and by providing access to competent health services as well as financial means to cover the costs of health care in a sustainable manner. To learn more about our innovations in health protection services, visit Microfinance and Health Protection. To learn more about our services in this area, visit Health Protection Product Design. Back to top
Why is a “hunger” organization involved with microfinance?
Chronic hunger is not just an issue of food shortage. It is a complex condition with many causes—from armed conflict and environmental degradation to poverty and poor health to discrimination. In particular, Freedom from Hunger recognizes that poverty and hunger are closely tied—each condition worsening the other.
Freedom from Hunger believes that an effective, long-term response to chronic hunger must address multiple causes—particularly poverty—and be capable of widespread expansion and financial sustainability. We know from experience that provision of integrated services—microfinance and non-financial services such as education and health protection services—is such a response. Integrated services address poverty, discrimination, lack of clout and poor health and they do so at the household level, equipping those who suffer from chronic hunger with a self-help solution.
In short, Freedom from Hunger focuses on integrated services as a solution to chronic hunger because microfinance and non-financial services have a synergistic effect, helping the poor to achieve both financial and food security for the long term. To learn more, visit Global Problem and Freedom from Hunger’s Response. Back to top
How is Freedom from Hunger’s approach different?
Freedom from Hunger’s focus on the connection between family food security and financial security in the fight against chronic hunger and poverty makes our approach unique among both hunger and microfinance organizations. Our approach recognizes that poverty and poor health interact to trap the poor in a vicious cycle, but that integrated services can help the poor break out by addressing and improving both conditions. It is a sustainable, self-help solution.
Since our pioneering integration of microfinance and education in the late 1980s, Freedom from Hunger has also been recognized for our commitment to continually improving integrated services—to reach greater scale, sustainability and impact. We do so through innovation, rigorous monitoring and evaluation, and close collaboration with implementing and peer organizations. Above all, Freedom from Hunger is focused on helping families achieve lasting food security through innovations in integrated services. To learn more, visit Innovations. Back to top
Does Freedom from Hunger provide loans to clients?
Freedom from Hunger does not provide loans to clients. We recognize that financial services—including credit, savings and insurance—and non-financial services are strongest when they are delivered by independent local organizations. Therefore, our focus as a technical service provider is to support implementing organizations to improve their delivery of integrated services through distribution of high-quality tools, training and technical assistance. To learn more, visit Services. Back to top
Who receives integrated services?
Poor women are the primary clients of our partners’ integrated-service programs. Experience shows that sustainable solutions to chronic hunger and poverty are achieved when the poor have access to appropriate financial and non-financial services. Furthermore, when poor women have access to these services, there is even greater impact—particularly on the family. The reasons are several. First, women clients tend to invest in small-scale businesses that provide regular income (such as food processing, operating a small shop and selling clothing), rather than seasonal businesses typical of male clients (such as farming and manual labor). Businesses that yield regular income in small increments have the double benefit of reducing credit risk for implementing organizations and reducing clients’ vulnerability to shocks by providing disposable income. Second, women tend to directly channel income and savings towards their families’ basic needs, such as food, medicine and school supplies for their children’s education. In short, the impact of empowering women with resources and information is considerable. While our partner implementing organizations may offer integrated services to men if they choose, approximately 99% of all their clients are women. Back to top
Does Freedom from Hunger provide funds to other organizations?
Freedom from Hunger is a nonprofit, nongovernmental, nonsectarian organization classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charity. As an international development organization, we do not provide funds to other organizations; we provide tools, training and technical assistance to implementing organizations interested in serving the poor. Back to top
Does Freedom from Hunger provide food aid or disaster relief?
Freedom from Hunger began as Meals for Millions in 1946, the organization that developed Multi-Purpose Food—a high-protein powdered food supplement. While Multi-Purpose Food is still used in relief efforts around the world, Freedom from Hunger is no longer involved in food aid or disaster relief. Rather, we focus on self-help solutions to overcome chronic hunger and poverty.
Chronic hunger and poverty affect hundreds of millions of people around the world—conditions that place them at great risk every day. They are also more vulnerable when disasters or famines occur. While food aid and disaster relief are essential, they are a stop-gap measure. By focusing on permanent solutions to chronic hunger and poverty, millions can be equipped to achieve lasting food security, improved incomes and accumulation of assets and savings on which to draw in times of crisis. Back to top
Does Freedom from Hunger work in the United States?
While Freedom from Hunger formerly had programs in the United States, since the late 1980s we have strategically focused our work in integrated services on developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where poverty is greatest and the access to financial services and information is most limited. To learn more, visit Where We Work. Back to top
What implementing organizations does Freedom from Hunger work with?
Since 1989, we have worked with more than 50 implementing organizations—microfinance institutions, credit union networks, rural banks and specialized non-governmental organizations—in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. For a list of our partner implementing organizations and to read more about them, visit Implementing Organizations. Back to top
What services does Freedom from Hunger provide?
As a technical service provider, Freedom from Hunger works with organizations all over the world—including local technical service providers, training institutions and implementing organizations—to help them improve the health and financial security of the poor through delivery of financial and non-financial services. To do so, we develop high-quality strategies, methods, tools and materials and distribute them with associated training and technical assistance. Our services include 1) strategies for clients and 2) services to strengthen organizations’ capacity to design, adapt and deliver high-impact strategies to clients. Specifically, our client-focused services include Microfinance Product Design, Health Protection Product Design and Lifeskills Training. Our capacity-building services include Scalable Delivery Models, Planning and Analysis, Support Systems, Management and Governance, Adult Learning and Curriculum Design, and Monitoring and Evaluation, among others. To learn more, visit Services. Back to top
Does Freedom from Hunger have field offices?
Freedom from Hunger does not maintain field offices. Rather, to reach greater scale, our services are provided by mobile technical staff. These staff maintain close relationships with partner implementing organizations through regular communication and focused training and technical assistance visits.
We have, however, recently opened three Capacity Centers that specifically support our Reach initiative. These Capacity Centers are based in Kolkata, India; Mexico City, Mexico; and Bamako, Mali. Back to top
How large is Freedom from Hunger’s staff?
Currently, Freedom from Hunger employs 45 staff. The majority of these staff are based at the International Center in Davis, California, while the remaining staff are primarily based at one of three Capacity Centers in India, Mexico and West Africa to support our Reach initiative. We are proud of the leverage our dedicated staff achieve; our services benefit hundreds of thousands of poor women and their families, impacting over 2 million of the world’s poor. To learn more, visit Leadership Team and Technical Staff. Back to top
Why is Freedom from Hunger based in Davis, California?
Freedom from Hunger began as Meals for Millions, a Southern California-based organization founded by Clifford Clinton. Early in our history, the organization focused on developing and introducing Multi-Purpose Food for famine relief. Later, in the 1970s, we turned to implementing Applied Nutrition Programs to address chronic hunger. At that time, Freedom from Hunger decided to move to Northern California to facilitate collaboration with agriculture and nutrition researchers at the University of California, Davis. While our focus has since turned to integrated services, our historical roots keep us in Davis—1½ hours to the northeast of San Francisco and ½ hour to the west of Sacramento. Back to top
Where does Freedom from Hunger’s funding come from?
Freedom from Hunger is a nonprofit, nongovernmental, nonsectarian organization classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charity. A diverse set of funding partners support our work: individual donors and independent foundations; corporations and company-sponsored foundations; and bi- and multilateral organizations. To learn more, visit Funders. Back to top
How does Freedom from Hunger innovate?
Since our pioneering combination of microfinance and health and nutrition education in the late 1980s, Freedom from Hunger has been committed to improving the scale, sustainability and impact of integrated services through continuous innovation. To learn more, visit Innovations. Back to top
What are Freedom from Hunger’s future goals?
Freedom from Hunger has recently announced Reach for Three Million, our plan to extend our reach from just under 400,000 women to more than three million women by 2010. To reach this ambitious scale, we will hone and diversify our services and service-distribution strategies and increase our operational efficiencies and leverage of resources. Innovation and collaboration are key to these efforts. To learn more about the innovations that will help us achieve our goal, visit Innovations. To learn more about how you or your organization can help us achieve our goal, please visit Partners. Back to top
What is Freedom from Hunger’s relationship to Reach?
Reach is a global initiative of Freedom from Hunger focused on achieving greater scale of integrated services. To learn more, visit Reach. Back to top
How can I support Freedom from Hunger?
Individual donors and independent foundations, corporations and company-sponsored foundations, and bi- and multilateral organizations each play a vital and unique role in supporting our work. To learn how you or your organization can contribute to our shared vision—a world free from hunger—please visit Funders. Back to top
How can I work, intern or volunteer for Freedom from Hunger?
To learn about employment and internship opportunities at Freedom from Hunger, visit Opportunities at Freedom from Hunger.
To learn about the many opportunities to volunteer for Freedom from Hunger, please visit Volunteering. Please note that we do not place volunteers with partner implementing organizations overseas. Back to top
How do I access Freedom from Hunger reports and studies, education modules and other documents?
Our Resources section provides free access to a wealth of practical tools, education modules, research results, articles, case studies and many other resources developed and collected over decades of experience throughout the world—all searchable by key word, topic, author and year. Back to top
What if my question was not answered by the FAQs?
Freedom from Hunger welcomes questions about integrated services and our work. If you have a question, or feedback on this website, please contact us at programs@freefromhunger.org. Back to top
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