Growing Opportunity

Aju, the CFO, picked us up at 8:30 am and drove us to work. The day starts at 9am with ‘devotionals’ where the entire office gathers to sing and pray. Then they recite their mission statement and core values.

Mission: Inspired by God’s love, Growing Opportunity’s mission is to alleviate poverty through motivation, training, counseling and microfinance, thereby enabling the poor to become self-reliant, attain dignity, holistic transformation and become citizens of excellence.

Values: Respect, Integrity, Stewardship and Commitment to the poor

There is one woman here who is responsible for the upkeep of the office. She’s around all day and brings you coffee in the prettiest little tea cups in the morning and after lunch. I realize that I don’t know the cleaning staff at my office at all and I think this is a shame.


Growing Opportunity is a very small organization. It operates entirely on one floor. They have 13 branches. There's a dog that hangs around out front and on the entry staircase. The owners of the building think that he is their grandfather. Here he is:


I’ve met with the head of the IT department here. The department consists of four people. Coming from a risk-adverse organization like Wells Fargo, we have a lot to offer GO in this area. I’ve determined that I can help them formulate a Disaster Recovery Plan. And I can assist with an implementation plan for their upcoming software upgrade. In addition, I will review their IT and security policies. Many of the best practices that we have at Wells can be applied here. GO is like a micro version of Wells Fargo.