July 1, 2010
Jeff Bradley straddles two worlds. As executive vice-president of Sudberry Properties Inc., the Rancho Bernardo resident oversees the development and marketing of major residential and commercial properties in San Diego County.

Bradley is also the president of Financiera de Esperanza — Bank of Hope — a nonprofit microfinance institution based in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. His business meetings there often take place in dwellings with dirt floors and no plumbing.

The transactions involve loans as little as 1,000 pesos ($85), given to indigenous women seeking better lives for themselves and their families.

Bradley founded Financiera de Esperanza in July 2008. The bank’s main office is in Chilapa de Alvarez, a town of 100,000 about 30 miles from Chilpancingo, state capital of Guerrero. Chilpancingo is three hours south of Mexico City on the highway to Acapulco.

The state of Guerrero, with a population of just over 3 million, is the third poorest state in Mexico, according to the bank’s website, financieradeesperanza.org.

Financiera de Esperanza was the culmination of an idea Bradley had 10 years ago. He wanted to live out his deeply felt Christian principles. He also had a lifelong affinity for the people and land of Mexico, dating from a family trip there when he was 10 years old.

He started as a donor to microfinance projects in Guatemala and Sonora, then sought further involvement. “It was an education process,” Bradley said.

After careful research, Bradley picked Guerrero as the base for his bank. The bank services the small villages surrounding Chilapa de Alvarez. The terrain is mountainous, with some villages up to a 45-minute drive from the town on dirt roads that turn to mud during the rainy season.

The bank’s loan officers use motorcycles or pickups to reach the remote villages. It can be a risky kind of business in the sometimes lawless countryside. Bradley told of two loan officers in a truck on one winding mountain road confronted by two gunman blocking the way. They lost 5,000 pesos that day. Another bank employee managed to avoid robbers on his motorcycle, but while escaping, he hit an animal and crashed. The loan officer survived.

Despite such conditions, the bank has persevered. Beginning with a staff of four and 688 borrowers in 2008, it has grown to eight employees and 2,400 borrowers, Bradley said.

The bank offers loans to women who lack the resources and collateral to secure commercial credit and who can develop a simple business plan that is then reviewed and approved by the loan officers. Women who qualify form groups of five who guarantee each others’ loans and agree to work together and support each other. Four to six of these groups are then combined into a “Center” of 20 to 30 women who elect a president and secretary. Interest payments on the loans are 3.5 percent per month.

The group members essentially vouch for each other, which has contributed to a loan repayment rate of 98 percent, Bradley said. This matches other microfinance operations, which have found poor women to be the most responsible borrowers. Prompt repayment can qualify the borrower for further loans.

Among the individual success stories for Financiera de Esperanza is a woman who used her first loan to build a stall to sell fruit in her town’s market. Subsequent loans enabled her to add vegetables and other items to her inventory and expand the region her business served. She now sells enough to cover her household expenses and the costs of her children’s education.

The bank has also co-sponsored other community efforts, including trash recycling and tree-planting programs and a youth center, partnering with organizations such as Rotary.

For more information on Financiera de Esperanza, visit the bank’s website, financieradeesperanza.org.

By VINCENT ROSSI
Special to The Union-Tribune