What is Oportunitas and what problem does it try to solve? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nOportunitas aims to solve the problem of social and financial abandonment faced by thousands of Spaniards who, wanting to start a business, lack both the necessary training and the bank guarantees required to access credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are a social microfinance institution, or in other words, an entity that generates social impact based on three pillars: training, support, and microfinance. These three pillars always work together and create an environment conducive to our users being able to start businesses with a certain guarantee of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, and as an additional introduction, Oportunitas is part of the European Microfinance Network, has processed Capacity Building from the European Investment Fund (EIF), has also successfully passed three due diligence processes from various European bodies, and is one of only 33 entities (out of 440 microfinance providers in Europe) to have obtained the certificate of compliance with the Code of Conduct for European Microcredit Providers. It is the only Spanish entity with this certificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oportunitas is aimed at people who are looking for opportunities. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere are people who, having entrepreneurial initiative, cannot get it off the ground due to a lack of traditional bank guarantees (sureties). Microfinance is not finance and a microfinance institution is never a bank. What's truly important about our work is the social impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are reaching out to all those individuals with entrepreneurial vision who need accompaniment, guidance, advice, and (at times) encouragement to get their venture off the ground. When it comes to funding the project, if these individuals lack bank credit due to insufficient collateral, they can then be micro-financed, as the collateral for Oportunitas is the individual and their project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting a business, or consolidating its operations, is a complex activity. What are the criteria you use to select the individuals to whom you grant funding? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nOportunitas has a microcredit committee that decides on approvals based on two basic criteria: the first is the individual. That is to say, their reliability, their moral standing, their experience, their consistency, and their surroundings (family and personal). The second is the viability of the business, an aspect in which Oportunitas becomes involved from the outset, assisting in the development of the business plan and being very critical of the project, subjecting it to a certain \u2018stress\u2019 that the idea must overcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how does the support you offer help the entrepreneurs you finance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe support is the foundation of Oportunitas's success. Loneliness, when starting a business, is often the number one problem for every user, and it has never been addressed from the perspective of \u201cbeing there\u201d. Beyond pure mentoring, technical and strategic advice, our support creates warmth, camaraderie, commitment\u2026 and these values become the driving force. There is no manual. It's not written down. But it happens because that's how people are, thankfully!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coronavirus crisis is going to particularly affect small and medium-sized enterprises on the one hand, and the most vulnerable populations on the other. How do you see this from a microfinance institution like Oportunitas?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nOur view is that, in addition to the problems our society was already facing (the social and financial exclusion of 20% of Spaniards), we are now seeing the emergence of a huge group facing \u201cnew exclusion\u201d \u2013 namely those businesses that were operating (reasonably well) and which, due to the \u201clockdown\u201d, are unable to reopen. To do so, they need a small amount of additional funding, which would normally be used for small amounts of stock or some refurbishment of their premises to adapt them to the \u201cnew reality\u201d of the market. Banks will not lend without collateral, and the State guarantee under the ICO scheme covers only 80% of each loan. In other words, the result is that thousands of small businesses are unable to open due to a lack of collateral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can microfinance help overcome the economic and social crisis brought on by the pandemic? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nMicrofinance is now more necessary than ever. No funding model could be more suitable for this moment than microfinance, given its immense added value of supporting people in their projects, advising on new strategies, and, of course, providing microfinance without guarantees or collateral. Microfinance creates opportunities where none existed and is clearly part of the solution to this crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What challenges do you face and what opportunities do you see in the coronavirus crisis? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe most important challenge is that Oportunitas has sufficient funds to meet a demand that has multiplied sixfold (in April) compared to the average of previous months. Our opportunity as a microfinance institution is precisely this enormous increase in demand, although the reason saddens us and we would never have wanted it to occur as a consequence of a lethal and terrible pandemic like the one we are experiencing. But this is the reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do you fund yourselves? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nOportunitas is the brand of two different legal entities: on the one hand, the Oportunitas Foundation, which develops all aspects of support, training, and social impact measurement. The Foundation is the soul of Oportunitas, it is what we really are, and it encompasses the mission and purpose. It is financed by donations, like most foundations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on the other hand, there is Oportunitas S.L., a company that manages all risk and credit. It is financed with the partners' own capital, who understand social impact as we do and accompany us, and with other traditional business financing methods, such as loans from the European Investment Fund or other European institutions and companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can anyone invest with Oportunitas?
<\/strong>Investment in Oportunitas can be made through a donation to the Foundation (with the corresponding tax advantage this entails via a donation) or you can invest in the capital of the S.L., taking into account that the social impact becomes an asset and a benefit. Oportunitas is a social enterprise with its own business plan oriented not only towards sustainability but also towards future profitability.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El impacto econ\u00f3mico y social de la crisis del coronavirus va a afectar de manera especial a la peque\u00f1a y mediana empresa, por un lado, y a la poblaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s vulnerable, por otro lado. En este contexto, las microfinanzas son m\u00e1s necesarias que nunca y pueden cumplir un rol crucial para salir de la crisis. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9416,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414\/revisions\/9416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}