MicroVest Joins Microfinance Leaders at Google Seminar

MicroVest’s Gil Crawford joins microfinance leaders at Google to share insights about Social Impact Investing and its potential to alleviate global poverty.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) April 17, 2006 -- On March 20, 2006, Google.org hosted an educational seminar entitled “Microfinance Funds Make A Return: Investing for Social Impact”. The seminar invited leading microfinance experts to share insights about Social Impact Investing and its potential to alleviate global poverty.

As an emerging asset class, microfinance continues to gain momentum amongst socially minded investors and high profile humanitarians. Panelist Gil Crawford of MicroVest explains that, “For Google.org to open their doors to microfinance, and educate their employees on the win-win situations created by social impact investing was a tremendous contribution to the industry”.

With a speaking line-up that included Maria Otero (President and CEO - ACCION International), Jackie Khor (Associate Director of Program Venture Investments - Rockefeller Foundation), Tim Freundlich (Director of Strategic Development - Calvert Social Investment Fund) and Gil Crawford (General Manager – MicroVest Capital Management, LLC), the event drew considerable interest from both inside and outside of the company including over 100 Googlers and 75 external industry professionals.

In addition to providing an overview of microfinance and social impact investing, panelists also shared their expertise on risk/return, creating instruments for microfinance investments, and demonstrating how to design an overall investment portfolio which incorporates social impact investments using interactive real-time portfolio planning.

Other panelists throughout the day included: Roger Frank (Managing Director - Developing World Markets), Sam Moss (President - Gray Ghost Microfinance Fund), Rick Mordesovich (Senior Vice President - Lehman Brothers), and Blaine Townsend (Portfolio Manager - Trillium Asset Management).

Google.org is offering the full-length seminar on Google Video and on www.microvestfund.com which will be available in mid-April.

About MicroVest:

MicroVest (Bethesda, MD) is a $20 million investment firm providing debt and equity capital and management oversight to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in emerging markets. It is the first private equity microfinance investment firm in the United States. MicroVest’s goal is to expand the capacity of existing, profitable MFIs throughout the world while building capital markets that work for the poor. MicroVest was founded by CARE, MEDA and the Seed Capital Development Fund - three non-profit organizations with longstanding credibility in the microfinance industry.

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