MICROCAPITAL STORY: Brigham Young University’s Economic Self-Reliance Center Impacts Microfinance World Through its Public Programs, its Journal of Microfinance, and its ESR Review

Brigham Young University’s (BYU) Economic Self-Reliance Center (ESR Center) is an academic research center founded in 2003 with the “express purpose” of helping families pull themselves out of poverty and “become economically self-reliant.” To achieve this mission, the ESR Center shares with low-income families abroad what it calls an “economic self-reliance model” (ESR model) through its network of over 100 partner organizations. The center contends that microfinance practitioners can use the ESR model to assess which characteristics necessary for achieving self-reliance a family possesses, and which characteristics that family must work to find. These characteristics include several “skills and abilities,” “attitudes and behaviors,” and “resources availabilities” that include intellectual capital, social capital, physical/financial capital, and human capital. Center practitioners use the information gleaned from the model to make “interventions” to help “economically vulnerable” families. It is unclear from the ESR’s website what these interventions entail, but it appears that they are meant to raise or create sustainable income streams for family members by spurring “microenterprise, microfranchising, enterprise education, and best business practices.” The Center also explicitly states that it hopes to institute interventions that impact the greatest number of economically vulnerable families. As of yet, the ESR Center does not seem to have a set of outcome measurement tools for measuring the impact of its programs on its families.

Although the Center website does not give much detail regarding its methodological tools, one thing is clear: its commitment to microfinance as a viable mechanism for improving the financial well-beings of its clients. The ESR Center has identified as one of its top two major initiatives today its MicroFranchise Development Initiative (MFDI), which focuses on spurring and sustaining the growth of microentrepreneurship across the developing world. Through MFDI, Center practitioners examine and develop replicable business models for small businesses operating in developing economies and with start-up costs of USD 300 to USD 2,000. Another product offered by the Center is its Microfranchise Toolkit, which is comprised of a book and other informational materials that the Center claims will help interested persons become micro-business owners by covering micro-business topics such as customer service, funding, and franchising agreements. It can be purchased for USD 17.50 from the Center’s online store, which also sells Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty—a documentary featuring interviews with several microfinance experts.

Two of the ESR Center’s four major goals relate to the creation and dissemination of research intended to promote economic self-reliance, for which the Center established its two academic journals—the Journal of Microfinance and ESR Review. Started in 1999, the Journal of Microfinance was meant to be a forum for practitioners and researchers interested in microfinance and other topics relating to economic development principles. A cursory investigation of the Journal’s archives reveals that several angles on microfinance are presented in its pages, including: case studies of microfinance institutions’ (MFI’s) programs, the financial development of small to medium enterprises (SMEs), accounting analyses of MFIs’ business operations, performance measurements or studies of MFIs’ impacts, and the relationship between microfinance and progressive social theories. For a more complete glimpse into the contents of the Journal, please see this recent Microcapital posting. In 2006, the Journal of Microfinance changed its name to the ESR Review in order to cover a broader scope of poverty alleviation methods and micro-business considerations in its pages. According to the BYU Center Library, the purpose of the ESR Review today is to “help shape and advance the field by presenting articles on innovative approaches, lessons learned, empirical studies, and essays that represent the broad spectrum of views on the field of economic self-reliance in the United States and abroad.” While the same economic, financial and accounting analyses are used to analyze methodologies, trends, or technologies in microenterprise, the ESR Review differs from its predecessor in that each issue now possesses a focus, such as the effects of technology and development or social capital on micro-entrepreneurs.

BYU has published online both current full issues and archives of the ESR Review. The complete archives of the Journal of Microfinance are available here. Hard copies of past issues for both publications are available for USD 20 in the United States and Canada and for USD 25 in all other countries. Subscriptions are available for either one-year (two issues) or two-year (four issues) terms. Prices are dependent on the subscriber’s country of origin, whether the subscriber is an individual or a library, and whether the subscription is for a hard copy or electronic format. Please see a full list of prices here.