Cooperative April 20th

Mission: To provide effective, efficient, and profitable holistic financial services, such as supplies and marketing, to rural workers, small agricultural producers, small industrialists, vendors, and providers of other services, with highly trained personnel and current technology and to enable members and their families to improve their lives comprehensively and sustainably, both in their organizations and in their quality of life.

Specialty: Agricultural Lending in Remote Rural Areas

Organization Profile: The April 20th Cooperative is named after the date of its founding, April 20, 1994. Since its formation, it has served the very poor and isolated area around Quilalí, located in the northern part of Nicaragua.

April 20th reaches out to the community it serves by offering a unique and diverse set of financial and non-financial services. Traditional credit services such as loans for housing, agricultural production, small businesses, and other commercial enterprise are provided through the Coop. Additionally, April 20th offers a unique life insurance policy to its credit members, financially supporting their families by assisting with funeral costs after the members’ death. The Co-op is also the only institution in Quilalí that offers savings accounts. The safety and security of placing money in a stable financial institution is sadly almost impossible to find, but extremely important for those emerging out of poverty.

The Coop also has a strong community impact through the provision of non-financial goods and services. It provides storage and marketing assistance for its agricultural members, allowing them to store and process their basic grains. April 20th also owns and operates a supermarket next door to its main office in Quilalí. The supermarket offers food, consumer goods, and agricultural products. This store is the only outlet for many items in Quilalí, saving their members the long and expensive bus trip to find these goods in other towns.

NICA Fund Partner Since: 2002

Borrowers: The April 20th Cooperative loans to 7,231 individuals. Of these borrowers, 68% are men and 32% are women (as of June 2007).

Lending Portfolio: April 20th’s total lending portfolio was $7,858,820 with an average loan size of $1,087. Of the lending portfolio, 72% is allocated to agriculture and livestock, 13% to commerce, small enterprise, and industry, 11% to services, and 4% to housing (as of June 2007).