Social business microfinance - different models to empower women

Abstract

Social business is a concept founded by Grameen Bank founder and Nobel Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus. It encompasses the use of business methods in order to solve social problems. A core business of this field is microfinancing which traditionally focuses on the empowerment of women, making them small business entrepreneurs. We present three organisations dedicated to the special concept of social business and use qualitative data in order to find out where they differ in their methods of providing microloans. Our findings are that all organisations use both group elements and individual elements of loan provision models. Our paper provides an insight into what is special about the different models of social business microfinance.