USF Microfinance Club Raises $10,000 for Microlending and Education

The USF Microfinance Club (MFC) will start the new year off with a spring in its step. The club’s VP of Marketing, Taylor Whitmer, has successfully secured a gift of $10,000 from the Roderick and Joanne Cyr Foundation. As Cathy Nigro, the Foundation’s President explained, her charitable nonprofit has made its generous donation to USF’s first-ever student microfinance association “in hopes of growing their efforts to educate MBA’s and to designate loans to enrich communities around the world.”

“I’m extremely pleased to be able to formally announce that this game-changing donation of $10,000 has indeed come to fruition,” Co-Founder and President Jacob Gelfand recently announced to the group’s officers and members. “My hope is that this gift will not only take us to the next level, but also demonstrate that this is a serious and potent endeavor that will serve to enhance the prestige and efficacy of the MBA program and the University as a whole.”

Founded in early 2010 by six USF MBA students, the MFC strives to cultivate new generations of social entrepreneurs through fundraising, microlending and education.  In the coming semester the group will host its second annual Casino Night event, which will
feature a Texas Hold’em poker tournament to benefit the microfinance fund. It will also take part in the Berkeley Microfinance Simulcast and attend the Microfinance USA conference.

“My vision for the coming year not only includes expanding our education and microlending activities,” Gelfand announced, “but also laying the groundwork for a parent organization – a national nonprofit that can help to facilitate the investment process, pursue strategic partnerships and expand our efforts to campuses beyond USF. My hope is that there will soon be a Microfinance Club chapter at all of the major MBA programs in the Bay Area, and eventually the country.”

For more information on the USF Microfinance Club, its events and activities, please contact
Jacob Gelfand: jjgelfand@usfca.edu
Follow the organization on Facebook, LinkedIn and at www.usfmicrofinance.org.