2 billion people around the world lack access to safe ways to borrow, lend, and save money to build the futures they dream about – but these people are often forgotten in the scale of larger global development issues – hunger, clean energy, water, you name it. Our goal with this campaign was to grow awareness about financial exclusion worldwide, and help put a face on that 2 billion number.
Our work strives to provide financial services to those entrepreneurs living in poverty, so that they have a fair shot at success. One of these services we can provide microfinance – the provision of very small loans for self-employed "microentrepreneurs."
We figured giving away a handmade guitar made by one of our microfinance clients from Paraguay would be just the hook to get people to sit up and learn more -- and it worked.
Our campaign started with one story – that of Aníbal Borja, the artisan guitar maker from Paraguay. Aníbal had the much-coveted skill, and his daughter Luz had the business savvy to get going -- but they lacked access to capital to build their business. We decided to tell the story of what happened after they received a microloan to get started, through one of Aníbal's own guitars.
After we built this landing page and shared Aníbal's story with the world, we decided to run a contest through email and Facebook where users could enter to win one of his handmade guitars made with the help of a microloan. We ran Facebook campaigns to increase awareness and galvanize people to enter and share the contest, and told our staff and email supporters to share the video version of Aníbal's story.
We're happy to say that Aníbal's story – along with the prospect of a handmade artisan guitar – seemed to resonate with people. We got just shy of 1,000 signups for the contest, over 5.5K views on our video, and reached over half a million people through Facebook. That's half a million more people who have at least heard a bit about what microfinance can do for those that need it -- and for us, that's a win-win.
