Educators, researchers, training institutions and alumnae of the Course for Microfinance Funders are all part of the global MFMI community, which includes over 60 institutions from over 25 developing countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.

The power of this community - to network, share, collaborate and exchange experts - has grown dramatically as the number of organizational members has grown.

The Microfinance Management Institute created this network precisely to foster exchange of lessons and insights across continents.

MFMI members engage in a wide range of activities to develop human resources and viable microfinance institutions.  These activities include research, the offer of training and academic courses, the creation of new learning tools, organization of sector conferences, microfinance incubators, student internships and projects and centers of excellence for microfinance.  MFMI and CGAP collaborate together to bring perspective to funders on how they may most responsibly support the efforts of trainers, researchers and educators and the microfinance sector generally.

The growing network of the MFMI has a powerful multiplier effect for understanding the common constraints and opportunities for microfinance development globally and its challenges to build human resource skills.  The MFMI Network is a well-placed force to contextualize training and academic programs to meet the needs of their respective marketplaces.  The work of these dedicated trainers, educators, and funder staff ensures access to learning opportunities for microfinance practitioners and students that are locally relevant, reasonably priced, and accessible to a wide range of microfinance managers and future leaders of the sector.

MFMI member organizations themselves include professional trainers, scholars, researchers and MFI-consultants who benefit from the cross-fertilization of communicating through the MFMI forums.

The Work of the MFMI in its Community

Encouraging this network to share lessons and experiences across borders, the MFMI facilitates knowledge generation and flow, plus skills building in four main areas:

1. The latest developments in microfinance and their application to organizational and management development
   
   
2. The creation, management and marketing of learning programs
   
   
3. The processes to endow members with the ability to research, design and deliver well-evaluated learning tools and courses.  A key practice of the MFMI is to document the learning of its members within these areas.  This valuable information feeds back into member programming and forms the basis for the MFMI to understand the impact of its work.
   
   
4. Exchange programs not only of materials but of professionals - such as educators, researchers, and fellows.

How Members Benefit

• Gain global and regional connections to other professors and trainers and access to MFMI advisory services
  
  
• Network at MFMI-hosted workshops to exchange experience and share ideas for microfinance capability building
  
  
• Develop skills to create training and academic tools, programs and materials for microfinance management (such as research methods, needs analyses, course and case study design and development, delivery methods, master training of trainers, etc.)
  
  
• Access funding to develop training and academic materials (please click here to apply to the MFMI Research and Development Fund for Materials Development)
  
  
• Access the experience of MFMI and CGAP's cutting edge knowledge of international best practice in microfinance
  
  
• Benefit from the marketing of their training and academic programs through the MFMI Web site

Criteria to Join the MFMI Community

1. Training Organizations:
   
   
   • Registered as a legal firm, microfinance network, or association supporting the microfinance sector with training activities
     
     
   • Provide technical assistance or training assignments for the microfinance sector for a minimum of the last two years
     
     
   • Able to present a brief strategy and activity plan for future programming of support to the microfinance sector
     
     
   • Have an institutional capacity building plan
   
   
2. Academic Institutions:
   
   
   • Currently offer academic programs for microfinance management that may range from research, to course electives, curriculum development, faculty development programs, executive education, workshops or conferences
     
     
   • Have a minimum of two full-time faculty working on microfinance in academia