I began in August 2010 as an intern and I accepted my current job in May 2011, so I’ve been in this position for a little over one and a half years.

What career path led you here?

I went to Westmont College, back home in California (I grew up in San Diego). I was a political science major and loved my international studies classes. I became deeply interested in microfinance when I learned about it in an international development class.

While in college, I was an intern for ByHand Consulting, a company that helps impoverished artisans refine their handicrafts so they can market them internationally. It was there that I first learned about Opportunity International’s faith-based microfinance work around the globe. I made a couple of connections with staff and through my home group at church. I interviewed for Opportunity’s internship program, was accepted, and moved to suburban Chicago, hoping that there’d be a job at the end of it!

Technical Proposal Writer Allison Bearden

What does your job entail?

Well, each day is a bit different. The main part of my job is writing proposals in collaboration with my supervisor, Vice President Ken Koskela. As part of Opportunity’s International Business Development Department, I spend most of my time writing the narrative for technical grant proposals for corporations and bi- or multi-lateral organizations. That can mean anything appealing to the Gates Foundation, USAID or a tech company in Silicon Valley.

In a grant proposal, the “narrative” is anything that isn’t the budget or the number-crunching. I write about the objectives we’re dedicated to reaching in a given country or with a particular program, including the number of clients we’ll impact and the technologies we’ll employ to reach them.

You’ve gotten the chance to travel a lot in this job. Where have you been?

I’ve been to five countries in Africa and to Oxford, England, to work with staff of Opportunity – UK. I’d never been to Africa before coming to Opportunity and now I’ve been to Rwanda, Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana and Tanzania for proposal research.

What is your favorite part about the job?

It’s been an enormous privilege to meet the staff at our banks. It’s great to put faces to names that I often see in my email inbox and hear the vision and strategic thinking of our bank CEO’s as I conduct proposal research.

What’s next for you at Opportunity?

A crucial part of proposal development is crunching numbers for bank business planning, budgets and projections. I’d like to master all aspects of the proposal development process in addition to the writing.

Opportunity is a great place to work, and I love the role I have now, so I would like to continue to expand my role and responsibilities. I also think it might be wise to go back to school at some point, even part-time, to study rural poverty – to gain more background on why so many people become trapped in the poverty cycle. I’d also like to travel even more to further understand the experience and perspective of our clients.

Roger Thurow: I chose [Banker to the Poor] for the power of the story that [Yunus] tells–the founding of Grameen Bank and the success that it has had and the implications of the whole micro-lending aspect to improve agriculture, to reduce hunger, to advance this green revolution; looking at what he was doing, the importance of making capital available to the very poorest people who need help to get started on the climb out of poverty.

Roger Thurow, impassioned advocate for the eradication of poverty and global hunger, speaks at Opportunity's Fall 2010 Microfinance Conference.

On the cover of my copy there’s an old wooden ladder, and the symbolism of that when you are so poor–for the $1, $2-a-day people, is so important–that ladder to get started and climb out of the poverty they are in. That book helped me understand the importance of microfinance so that the smallholder farmers can access the improved seed varieties, the little amounts of fertilizer they need and can share the risks of farming. Financing and lending is the lifeblood of agriculture for farmers anywhere in the world because you are planting and doing the work before the harvest comes in. You need something to get started. For so long the smallholder farmers of Africa have had very little access to financing, so micro-lending coming to rural areas of Africa has been and is becoming increasingly important.

Interviewer: Where in Africa has this been happening?

Thurow: You see it in a number of countries. Certainly in Malawi, and with Opportunity International Bank–I followed them around in Malawi and saw how important it is for [smallholder] farmers. You’re going to start seeing it in most stable African countries where the government is committed to boosting agriculture–Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and it is starting to spread. Then the next step is the new crop insurance. So, as these farmers are taking these loans, which implies some kind of risk because they’ll have to pay them back when the harvest comes in, they are taking out insurance. So, if there is a drought or something that ruins their crop they have this insurance–again, a financial instrument that has long been available to most farmers in the world. To have that kind of insurance to go along with the micro-lending then shares the risk, so you take the loan, you plant the better seeds, you use the fertiliser and then if something happens and the crop fails you have insurance to pay it back. The micro-lenders are introducing this insurance themselves because it’s also protection for them.

About Roger Thurow

Thurow is Senior Fellow for Global Agriculture & Food Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and he writes the blog series Outrage & Inspire on the Council’s Global Food for Thought blog. Thurow was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting, and co-author of the book Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty. Thurow was a plenary session speaker at Opportunity’s Fall 2010 Microfinance Conference in Washington, D.C.

Thurow will be a special guest speaker at the Opportunity Breakfast for Tanzania event next week, Wednesday, May 4th. All are welcome. Buy tickets at opportunity.org/bosbreak »

Today, listen to YAO manager Sonya Perez-Lauterbach’s interview with audio blogger Megan Schiebe about Opportunity International‘s work in Tanzania and how microfinance loans impact the local community.

Listen to the conversation here:

Sonya explains how Opportunity’s loan process works, the business training offered to loan recipients, and the opportunities for volunteers who want to get involved with YAO and Opportunity’s work to fight global poverty.

As Sonya says, “Taking the time and investment to visit Africa is something you will never regret. An Insight Trip is the ultimate experience — you’ll return home inspired, educated, and committed to getting involved.”

Register for the YAO Insight Trip to Tanzania by this Sunday, July 4th, before it is too late.