Moreover, as FINCA founder John Hatch said, "It has been proven time after time that increasing the incomes of poor mothers results in an almost immediate improvement in the diet of their children. The greatest benefit is that, when a woman's income grows, the first thing she does is to send her children to school. And when a child is educated, he or she has better opportunities to live outside of poverty."

 Type of Client Businesses
Many FINCA clients worldwide favor commerce—businesses such as operating small convenience stores, fruit stands, selling cosmetics, food, and other goods—perhaps because of the rapid turnover of capital. Others are involved in production: preparing food for sale or catering, sewing and tailoring, and making crafts. A smaller percentage of clients run service-based businesses such as hair salons and bicycle repair shops. Because many of the world’s poorest people live in rural, agricultural-dependent communities, FINCA also reaches out to small-holder farmers, clients who re-sell such farmers’ crops, those raising livestock, and others engaged in agricultural production and marketing.

Location of Client Businesses
Because they have few resources to begin with, FINCA clients typically run businesses out of their homes. Still others are "ambulatory"—selling door-to-door, on street corners, or carrying their wares to sell at construction sites or local events. As they grow and accumulate more capital, business owners may decide to erect small kiosks at busy intersections, or opt to rent a stall at the local market to give their businesses more exposure.

Rabia Urokova works as a teacher in Kurgan Tube in Tajikistan, but her teaching salary alone does not cover educational expenses for her five daughters. To earn extra income, Rabia started a business in the central market selling plov, a national rice dish.

Rabia heard about FINCA’s financial services and immediately recognized an opportunity; she organized a village banking group with five entrepreneurs from the same market. Her first loan of $160 allowed her to open an additional summer business location, where her daughters sell plov while on school vacation. With her second loan of $262, Rabia bought rice wholesale, increasing her profit margin.

Rabia and the Village Banking group "Zebo" plan to continue their progress in successive loan cycles. Rabia’s daughters plan to return to school in the fall with the money that they and their mother have earned from their micro business.

 Margarita Garcia Gonzaga: mother of two and food shop owner, Village Bank member in Mexico

Margarita Garcia Gonzaga lives in Jonacatepec outside Mexico City. In the late 1990s, Margarita and her family were broke: her husband was out of work, and it looked like they would have to take their two small children out of school because they could not keep up with the monthly tuition payments. Margarita had a microbusiness, purchasing wholesale food items and reselling them to her neighbors, but her income was too small to support the family. Then FINCA Mexico began forming village banking groups in her community.

Margarita used her first loan of $85 to purchase new items such as canned foods, cooking oil, and soap. She continued to invest in these goods over the next three loans and bought shelves to display them. With her fifth loan of $360, she purchased a dairy case to store cheese, ham, and cream. Though simple, each of these purchases represented progress for Mrs. Garcia, her business, and her family. Today, Margarita operates a thriving—and growing—store. Her business has become a stable source of family income—income that has made the critical difference: allowing her to keep her children in school.