Welcome to The Micro Consignment Model
This site is currently under construction, please visit us again soon. Pages currently available include:
Homepage, The Origins, The Problem, The Mission & Goals and Start your own MicroConsignment Model Initiative

We have all heard the Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. From an international aid perspective the “giving of fish” is what we know as traditional “relief” assistance. “Teaching someone to fish” is what we would call traditional “development” assistance. To continue in a simplistic sense, how do you help someone further improve his or her standard of living by catching more fish to better feed a family and ideally generate income selling fish to neighbors? This is typically where micro credit steps in. But what if there are no fish? And even if there are, what about when rural community members have other needs for basic goods and services and those goods and services aren’t currently accessible? The product solution probably already does exist somewhere but there is presently no distribution channel “bridging the last mile”. Villagers throughout the developing world suffer from a profound lack of sustainable access to solutions that address pulmonary illnesses, gastrointestinal diseases, vision loss, malnutrition; a lack of electricity…the list goes on and on. This is where the MicroConsignment Model steps in. The MicroConsignment Model creates access where there was none through creating income generating opportunities where there often were none.

This online guide is endeavors to provide donors, development practitioners, businesses, students and individuals comprehensive knowledge about what the MicroConsignment Model is, how it works and how it can create positive impact for vulnerable villagers from an economic, health, educational and environmental perspective.  We are not so presumptuous as to think that this is “the” solution, but rather, over our six years of developing and implementing this model it has proven to be “a” very effective mechanism. We hope that this website is a valuable resource for you as you seek to address many of the problems that can alleviate poverty for families in rural developing world communities.

Please click on the categories to the left to view a description of the MicroConsignment Model in a question and answer format. A full list of the questions and answers can be found here at the bottom of the menu on the left. In addition, please contact us if you have any other questions that would help you learn more about the model.

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