Please take 1 minute to check out the video of the non-profit I founded and cast your vote for Wokai!
McColgan, Courtney Devon
Please take 1 minute to check out the video of the non-profit I founded and cast your vote for Wokai!
Since 2003, it has been a dream of mine to alleviate poverty in China. I first became interested in China while studying Chinese & Economics at UC Berkeley and later moved to China to learn Chinese as a sophomore in college. During my travels, I witnessed incredibly stark inequality between rural and urban areas. Villages lacked simple infrastructure and running water, while city streets were lined with high-rises and Western restaurants. To better understand ,I spent two summers working in the China microfinance sector with Planet Finance (NGO), United Nations Development Program, and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I also lived at a microfinance institution in Tianjin and wrote my senior thesis: “Microfinance – A Tool for Equitable Privatization in China.” After graduation, I thought my biggest impact on the world could be felt doing something I really believed in: China microfinance. I obtained a Fulbright and returned to China determined to make a difference.
In 2007, co-founder Casey Wilson and I started Wokai. Our vision was to create a modern-day robin-hood through a website that allowed people in urban areas to give to people in rural areas. At the time, this seemed like a pipe dream. The non-profit sector was a fairly “new” concept in China and the welfare concept applied to individuals was practically non-existent. Unfortunately, our story, while inspiring, was hard to fund. How could two 22 year-old non- Chinese without technical skills set up a poverty alleviation website in China? But, we went for it anyway. I sold my car and Casey put in her savings to show our commitment. While we missed our fundraising target by a landslide, we managed to rally $40,000. With this capital, we were able to achieve our first round milestones, but were still far from building a website. A year later, Wokai was able to raise its second round of funding $50,000 through the efforts of 200 volunteers pounding the pavement emailing for dollars. With this funding, Wokai launched its website in November 2008.
Today, Wokai is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to ending poverty in China through microfinance. Wokai’s approach uses the internet to allow contributors around the world to provide loan capital to borrowers in rural China. Since our website launch in November 2008, Wokai has raised over US$380,000 in loan capital, attracted 6,300 contributors across 51 countries, and empowered 509 borrowers. Wokai has been featured in CNN, Time, MSNBC, CNBC, Newsweek, CCTV, Phoenix TV, 三联生活周刊, and Bloomberg. Most recently, Wokai was voted China Newsweek’s #1 Non-Profit Organization in China and Wokai CEO named China’s Most Influential Foreigner of the Year. While we have received amazing press, we are still strapped for operational funding due to our model. Please check out our White Party Profile to read more about it.
Appreciate your support!
Courtney McColgan • +1.415.407.3041
interested in China? Check out: www.wokai.org