 | This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject.(July 2022) |
Peter Keith Greer is an author, speaker, and president and CEO of HOPE International, a global Christ-centered economic development organization serving throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Peter and his wife, Laurel, have four children and live in Lancaster, PA.
Greer was raised in Carlisle, Massachusetts, graduating from Concord-Carlisle High School in 1993. He received his undergraduate degree in international business from Messiah University (B.S., 1997). While traveling to Russia through Messiah’s International Business Institute, Greer was introduced to microfinance and "quickly recognized it as a perfect opportunity to combine [his] interests in business and missions." [1]
Upon graduation, Greer spent two years in the education sector before World Relief hired him to work as a microfinance adviser in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He also served as a technical adviser for Self-Help Development Foundation (CARE Zimbabwe) in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In 1999, he became the managing director for Urwego Bank in Kigali, Rwanda, managing there for three years. Afterwards, he attended Harvard University, focusing one of his research projects on HOPE International’s work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Greer received his graduate degree in political and economic development from Harvard’s Kennedy School (M.P.P., 2004). He also received an honorary doctorate from Erskine College (Doctor of Humane Letters, 2012). He has a nephew named Peter Greer who resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In 2004, Jeff Rutt, founder of HOPE International, invited Greer to take leadership of the nonprofit. [2] HOPE’s mission is to invest in the dreams of families in the world’s underserved communities as they proclaim and live the Gospel. They carry out their mission by providing biblically-based training, savings services, and loans that restore dignity and break the cycle of poverty. Under Greer’s leadership, HOPE has expanded from having a presence in two countries with an operating budget of $1.2 million to serving in 16 countries with an operating budget of $19 million in 2019. [3]
As an advocate for the Church’s role in missions and alleviating extreme poverty, Greer has been a speaker at a number of conferences, and he has been featured by Christianity Today, WORLD, Forbes, CNN, and Relevant. Greer has co-authored over 10 books, including Mission Drift (selected as a 2015 Book Award Winner from Christianity Today), Rooting for Rivals (selected as a 2019 Leadership Resource of the Year in Outreach magazine), and The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good (selected as one of the top 40 books on poverty by WORLD).
As of 2022, Peter serves as the entrepreneur-in-residence at Messiah University, helping to lead the university's Center for Entrepreneurship. He also serves as a Praxis Venture Partner.
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution.
Messiah University is a private interdenominational evangelical Christian university in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
The voluntary sector, independent sector, or civic sector is the realm of social activity undertaken by organizations that are non-governmental nonprofit organizations. This sector is also called the third sector, community sector, and nonprofit sector, in contrast to the public sector and the private sector. Civic sector or social sector are other terms for the sector, emphasizing its relationship to civil society. Richard Cornuelle coined the term "independent sector" and was one of the first scholars to point out the vast impact and unique mechanisms of this sector. Given the diversity of organizations that comprise the sector, Peter Frumkin prefers "non-profit and voluntary sector".
Grameen Foundation, founded as Grameen Foundation USA, also known as "GFUSA", is a global 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, that uses digital technology and data to understand very poor people, in detail, and offer them—and the entire ecosystem of agencies and actors surrounding them—empowering tools that meet and elevate their everyday realities. Its CEO is Zubaida Bai. Grameen Foundation's mission is, "To enable the poor, especially women, to create a world without poverty and hunger." According to the OECD, Grameen Foundation’s financing for 2019 development increased by 33% to US$45.5 million.
The Maryland School of Public Policy is one of 14 schools at the University of Maryland, College Park. The school is located inside the Capital Beltway and ranks 16th nationally for schools of public policy according to U.S. News & World Report (2012).
Five Talents is a Christian charity that provides savings programs, and financial literacy and business training for those in need in developing countries. They make use of a form of savings-led microfinance. Five Talents' programs serve people regardless of religious background, and they aim to transform lives through economic empowerment, creating long-term solutions to poverty in the developing world.
Susan Davis is an author, public speaker, consultant and expert on international development and social entrepreneurship. She is the Chairperson of Solutions Journalism Network, an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University Stern School of Business, a coach to social entrepreneurs and active on many boards and advisory councils.
Grameen America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit microfinance organization based in New York City. It was founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus in 2008. Grameen America is run by former Avon Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung. The organization provides loans, savings programs, financial education, and credit establishment to women who live in poverty in the United States. All loans must be used to build small businesses.
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on January 16, 2010, by former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, to aid the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The organization was formed in response to the request of President Barack Obama for the former Presidents to assist in the Haitian rescue effort. The fund concluded formal operations on December 31, 2012.
Premal Shah is an Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Kiva, a global poverty alleviation non-profit that has raised over $1 billion for low-income entrepreneurs in eighty countries.
Women's World Banking is a nonprofit organization that provides strategic support, technical assistance and information to a global network of 55 independent microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks that offer credit and other financial services to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, with a particular focus on women.
The RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service is a research center at University of Texas at Austin located in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The teaching and research of the RGK Center are focused in the areas of nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and volunteerism.
The Seven Bar Foundation is a social enterprise that uses cause marketing initiatives and the luxury lingerie industry to support microfinance. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based out of New York, New York, that raises funds for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to help impoverished women start and expand their businesses.
Gregory F. Casagrande is an American businessman and the founder of South Pacific Business Development Microfinance Network, the leading microfinance institution in the Pacific Islands region. He is also the founder of MicroDreams, a microfinance acceleration fund working with emerging microfinance institutions in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific and Transformative Ventures LLC, a Microfinance advisory company.
HOPE International is a Christian faith-based nonprofit organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. HOPE International now operates in 16 underserved countries and has assisted over 2.5 million people with small loans and savings services since it began operations in 1997.
Ester Barinaga is a professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Lund University (Sweden) and a professor in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy (MPP) at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Copenhagen (Denmark). She works primarily in the areas of social innovation and social entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on those initiatives aiming to build more inclusive and sustainable cities. Ester Barinaga was born in Spain, naturalized Swedish in 2004 and currently lives in Malmö, Sweden.
Esperanza International is a Christian-based not-for-profit organization that is devoted to helping poverty-stricken people of the Dominican Republic through finance, education, health, and spiritual programs. It is classified as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the State of Washington and non-governmental organization in the Dominican Republic. Its primary services are centered around its microfinance program, which provides small loans to impoverished families and business owners, to progress economic development and pull communities out of poverty. It was founded in 1995 by former Major League Baseball player Dave Valle and his wife Vicky. Esperanza is headquartered in Santo Domingo, has 10,000 associates in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, has distributed 200,000 loans, supported 200 schools, and provided access to clean water through 50 water projects.
Kashf Foundation is a non-profit organization, founded by Roshaneh Zafar in 1996. Kashf is regarded as the first microfinance institution (MFI) of Pakistan that uses village banking methodology in microcredit to alleviate poverty by providing affordable financial and non-financial services to low income households - particularly for women, to build their capacity and enhance their economic role. With headquarters in Lahore, Punjab, Kashf has regional offices in five major cities and over 200 branches across the Pakistan.
The/Nudge Institute is an Indian profit organization. It was established in July 2019 in Bengaluru. The/Nudge exists to alleviate poverty, sustainably, collaboratively and saleably. It has three impact streams to tackle the complex issue of poverty from multiple angles – Centre for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (CSDE), Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) & Centre for Rural Development (CRD).
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