recent and rapid growth
During the first 15 years as The Colombia Project and the next 7 as TCP Global, we measured success by the number of entrepreneurs helped through microloans and the amount earned by our grassroots partners for community projects. Yearly totals for both metrics have increased significantly in the past few years.
Our geographic reach has also expanded greatly in recent years from 23 sites supported in 2019 to 191 sites in 2023. As sites mature, they build up a permanent loan pool and no longer require external funds from TCP Global to continue operating. The percentage of new loans that are supported by repayments each year has reached 75% and is steadily increasing.
SURVEY EVIDENCE
In 2021, partners in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia conducted surveys to document basic changes in borrowers' lives after receiving microloans - elimination of hunger from their homes, ability to keep all children in school, improved living conditions and, surprisingly, a reduction in domestic violence.
Within months of improving their businesses with a TCP Global loan, borrowers move from selling on the street to the relative comfort of selling in the covered market. Rotary Club President and TCP Global borrower Rukia Driciru now has her own kiosk.
Surveys conducted in Zambia and Kenya indicated that 95% of TCP Global borrowers used increased earnings to pay school fees. Anecdotally, borrowers in Yumbe, Uganda interviewed during a site visit in January, 2022 said they no longer had problems paying school fees, thanks to an increase in earnings after receiving a loan.
Once education and food situations are improved, borrowers work to improve their living situation, reporting that increased earnings allow them to buy mattresses to replace floor mats and to replace leaky thatched roofs with metal roofs and eventually construct a solid house.
