The Yellow Bike Project just announced in their monthly newsletter a microloan program to get the rest of the financing for their new headquarters. Here’s what they say about the program:
After learning that our arrangement with the city for our new headquarters will prevent us from taking out conventional loans, Yellow Bike is kicking off a micro-loan program to raise the rest of our projected construction costs. We’re asking anyone who supports YBP’s mission and who has some cash in the bank to loan it out to YBP and literally build community in the form of the new YBP headquarters. We’ll repay your loan within 5 years, and give you a better deal than you can get in your savings account at the bank at 3% interest.
Minimum loans are $1,000 but they will, of course, accept smaller amounts as a donation. To learn more about the program, visit their details page here.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
sooooo, does that mean they plan to make money somehow? inquiring minds want to know…
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
That was my thought too, Peter. I’d love to support them, but I’d like to know the revenue stream that will allow the re-payment of the loans.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Did you guys read the page they direct you to?
http://www.austinyellowbike.org/microloan.htm
They say they typically make a small profit, and this should allow them to pay the loans back within two years. They even give 1.5 or so years worth of recent profit and loss statements.
It’s a relatively risky investment, with a meager rate of return. But it supports the YBP. If you want to support them anyways, it might be the right thing to do.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Furthermore, we all know Austin Yellow Bike is too big to fail.
on Sep 28th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
This is Nathan, a volunteer with The Yellow Bike Project. The original profit and loss statement that we originally published has been further reviewed with our treasurer, accountant, collective and board. We have changed it to a full blown 5 year financial forecast for the organization, which to the best of our knowledge, conservatively forecasts the next 5 years. The short of it is that we are reasonably confident of repaying microloans in 3 years without staying in fund raising mode as we have been over the last couple of years or altering our operations. One must remember that Yellow Bike financially runs off of repair of donated bikes by volunteer labor and as an all volunteer organization has no significant expenses other than replacement tools for the workshop.
I urge any of you to review our microloan page describing the program, take a careful look at the profit and loss statement on the website, and if moved, sign up via the web form.
http://www.austinyellowbike.org/microloans.shtml
And one final note about the riskiness of this investment: We have all seen over the last year the inherent risk and instability of investments out of hand and corrupted by forces to complex to be controlled and foreseen. Further our lust for above meager rates of return has given untold power to an economic system that has left many millions in the world dehumanized, exploited, and impoverished.
We at the Yellow Bike Project present the microloan program as an opportunity for communities to come together to solve local problems with local resources built on the strength of community bonds (and a tried and true legally binding contract), all while avoiding the pitfalls of of our modern financial system.
As an update on the current success of the program, we have received $84k in pledges, $59k in cash via executed microloans, and need only $8k more in pledges to meet our construction obligations plus contingency.
Thanks for the support. -Nathan