"Empowering Every Ambitious Woman"

A recent traveler to Jordan's urban areas could not fail to be struck by an unusual sight: billboards along the road, placards in bus shelters, ads in newspapers and even a documentary on television, all featuring Jordanian women at work. One woman is shown selling bottles of freshly-pressed olive oil; another is sewing stacks of garments for sale. A third is styling the hair of a customer in her beauty salon. These traditionally-dressed Jordanian women are clients of Microfund for Women, Jordan's largest microfinance institution, whose new ad campaign — designed by the international advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi — proclaims: "Microfund for Women: Empowering Every Ambitious Woman."

Microfund for Women, a WWB Associate since 2003, was founded in 1996. Today, the organization serves more clients than any other microfinance institution (MFI) in Jordan or the immediate region. Even with the bold media savvy of its recent branding campaign, Microfund for Women maintains its original commitment to the very poorest women in Jordanian society by offering carefully targeted, gender-sensitive financial services.

Microfund for Women images from Saatchi and Saatchi advertising campaign

Many of the organization's clients are involved in seasonal economic activities, often home-based, such as selling olive oil after the November harvest, or processing and selling cheese, fruits and vegetables in season. Some own sewing businesses, producing wedding garments in summer and blankets in winter. In most cases, Microfund for Women has been its clients' first and only source of business capital, enabling them to make their businesses sustainable and provide for their families' needs. And while microfinance competitors have sprung up in Jordan, Microfund for Women remains the Jordanian MFI that serves the lowest-income entrepreneurs, offers the smallest loans, and champions women's leadership among their clients, management and staff.

The most visible example of WWB's work with Microfund for Women is the recent branding campaign that positions the organization as the MFI of choice for low-income women. In order to launch this campaign, Microfund for Women's management worked closely with WWB's Strategy and Customer Insight Team, which helped them analyze and better understand their clients' needs and circumstances. WWB and Microfund for Women collaborated to develop a marketing strategy that would not only reach women, but inspire and empower them. It worked. Microfund for Women has become something of a household name in Jordan, but more important, the campaign itself is having a positive effect on women's view of themselves. "Women tell us, 'You empowered us with this campaign,'" says Arije al Amad, General Manager of Microfund for Women and the only woman administrator of an MFI in Jordan. "They are proud. Microfund makes them feel they are important."
Diversifying its Products to Target Women's Needs

In 2002, with guidance from WWB, Microfund for Women introduced individual loans to women with slightly larger businesses, such as grocery stores and certain production and service enterprises. In contrast with group loans (approximately 90 percent of Microfund for Women's loans are group loans) where the risk is borne collectively by several clients, individual loans require Microfund for Women to collect far more detailed information about their clients' cash flow and repayment capabilities. "WWB helped us understand the individual lending methodology and build the capacity of our staff and our institution," says al Amad. Since then, Microfund for Women has taken the product diversification process even further.

The organization now offers customized loans associated with major events in women's lives. In 2006, Microfund for Women introduced maternity loans to help clients provide for their needs during pregnancy and childbirth. Within six months of its introduction, 1,000 women had taken advantage of this loan. The organization also partnered with a leading insurance company to introduce life insurance as a component of all new loans. With this new program, Microfund for Women's borrowers pay a nominal premium, but their families would receive a payout several times the amount of the original loan.

Microfund for Women has taken full advantage of the resources provided by WWB and the WWB Network. The organization's staff members have attended WWB-sponsored workshops on women's leadership, strategic planning and capital markets, and visited Fundación WWB, a WWB Affiliate in Cali, Colombia, to observe its individual lending processes first-hand. Working with its WWB Relationship Manager, Microfund for Women has established relationships with a number of global commercial banks and investors that have become regular sources of capital to fuel its continued growth.