If you are a resident of one of the following states: Iowa, Georgia, Vermont, Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Montana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, South Carolina, Nebraska, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, or Pennsylvania, you can have great impact on an issue of importance to FINCA and our nearly 600,000 clients worldwide. If you live in one of these states, we would like to ask you to please contact your Senators who serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee to request their support for an important funding source for microfinance and development practitioners worldwide.

FINCA’s programs currently receive critical funding from US Government food aid programs that allows us to reach out to the vulnerable poor working in rural areas around the world. Under Title II of Public law 480, the U.S. provides food aid for developmental and emergency purposes. In recent years, however, funding for Title II has been reduced and the result has been that funding for development work (such as FINCA’s), that can help sustain the rural poor when emergency funding ends, has been cut by USAID. 

Currently the Farm Bill, which provides funding for USAID Title II Food Aid programs, is up for reconsideration by the Senate. If you are a constituent of a Senator on the Agriculture Committees, we’d like to ask you to urge your Senator to support the Farm Bill and an increase in the funding appropriation for food aid, which could be directly used to support development work such as microfinance. We were delighted to learn that the new bill contains language supportive of microfinance, and your support in getting this appropriation passed will greatly help FINCA and other microfinance organizations to access critical funding.

Visit the  Senate Agriculture Committee site to find your Senator's site and send an email to your Senator. Suggested language is below. Please include your name, contact information and signature.  Please also send a quick note to  Christina Hannum at  to let us know that you have sent a letter. We are tracking how many letters go to Congress on this issue. Please send the email within the next few days if possible, as the Senate will begin working on this bill shortly. FINCA is grateful for your support in this initiative, and for your financial support of our work as well.

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Suggested language for your letter (please include your name, address, email and phone number, and sign below):

Dear Senator :

As the Agriculture Committee and the Senate consider the Farm Bill, I would appreciate your support for a provision in the legislation affecting our international food aid programs.

Under Title II of Public law 480, the U.S. provides food aid for developmental and emergency purposes. While short term emergency food assistance is always important when urgently needed, it is food made available for developmental purposes – in agricultural development projects, maternal and child health nutrition programs, education programs and  microfinance and village banking – that can help the most. These longer term programs can “pick up” when emergency assistance ends, or more importantly, be in place to prevent the causes of emergency.

In recent years, the resources for these vital development programs (managed by US non-government organizations) have been seriously reduced by USAID, which manages Title II. This reduction has occurred despite a very large appropriation ($1.2 Billion) approved for Title II, plus $400 million in supplemental funding for emergencies. The result has been a serious lack of the longer term programming in areas such as microfinance, that does so much to strengthen agricultural production, nutrition and community development in developing countries.

Fortunately, the need to preserve support for Title II development programs is being recognized and the House Bill contains a provision safely reserving $400 million out of the overall Title II appropriation for these purposes. While I strongly support this initiative, I believe a more appropriate amount is $600 million and urge the Senate to adopt that figure.  I hope you agree and will support this important part of our food aid programs overseas.

Thank you for your consideration of this request; I will appreciate your support.

Sincerely,