The Institute for Cooperative Community Development at New Hampshire College has initiated several projects to assist small-scale entrepreneurs in creating and maintaining self-sufficient business enterprises. Among them is Working Capital, a peer lending group for residents of in economically depressed neighborhoods in rural New England. The Institute works with groups of four to ten people, providing small loans and helping them to start their own businesses. Loans made by the Institute are structured so that the group as a whole is responsible for repayment, creating group cohesion and a sense of communal responsibility.
From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy
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