Acknowledgments

We must start with our admiration for the hundreds of thousands of group members, the thousands of volunteers, and the hundreds of staff whose courage, incredibly hard work, and dedication made Saving for Change a reality. The credit for the success of Saving for Change is truly “in their hands.”

For Jeffrey, there are so many to thank: Marcia Odell for introducing me to savings groups in Nepal; Kim Wilson for everything I learned in India; Constance Kane, Oxfam America’s director of regional programs, for hiring me in 2004 at Oxfam America and for believing in Saving for Change; Mamadou Biteye, who got Saving for Change rolling in Mali; John Ambler, Oxfam America’s senior vice president for programs, for his wisdom and advocacy; Chris Dunford, Kathleen Stack, Megan Gash, Laura Fleischer-Proaño, Edouine François, and the team at Freedom from Hunger who were our partners in this venture. Roanne Edwards urged me to write this book for years before I finally did.

It was Soumaïla Sogoba, Fatoumata Traoré, and Paul Ahouissoussi who made Saving for Change a reality in Mali and Senegal through their tireless efforts; Milagro Maravilla and Carmen Fabian led the team that did the same in El Salvador and Guatemala; and Vanndeth Seng, Sampha Phon, and Socheata Sou built Saving for Change in Cambodia. In Boston, Vinod Parmeshwar translated the Saving for Change vision into an operational reality; Eloisa Devietti conducted research, developed manuals, and kept us organized; Janina Matuszeski and Clelia Anna Mannino oversaw our ambitious research agenda; and Andrea Teebagy managed the finances. Sophie Romana is now leading Saving for Change at Oxfam America, ably assisted by Belicca Ferrer. Sophie also had a major role in reviewing this manuscript. Darius Teter, Oxfam America’s current vice president for programs, has promoted Saving for Change as a priority program, and Jane Huber, Oxfam’s creative director, guided us through the editorial process. Roland Bunch took the lead in making agricultural development relevant to the rural poor in Mali and El Salvador.

Dean Karlan and Jonathan Morduch at Innovations in Poverty Action, Mamadou Bara from the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, and their staffs were involved for more than three years in answering the question of the impact of Saving for Change and how it works.

My savings group fellow travelers at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire—Bill Maddocks, Paul Rippey, Hugh Allen, Malcolm Harper, and Candace Nelson—have been an ongoing source of inspiration and support. Michel Swack has a major behind-the-scenes role at the Carsey Institute and played a critical role earlier in launching Working Capital. Our objective at the Carsey Institute is to grow savings group outreach from one hundred thousand to one million villages. Large thanks also go to my colleagues at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, where I am a research fellow. At Brandeis University, where I teach in the Sustainable International Development Program, my thanks to Susan Holcombe and Larry Simon, and at Columbia, my thanks to Eugenia McGill, who has been my link to the university.

Joyce Lehman, our project officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, showed enormous insight and flexibility as we built Saving for Change. Dorothy Largay, president and CEO of the Linked Foundation, provided the early critical support to build Saving for Change in El Salvador, and Shigeki Makino played a similar role in Cambodia.

This book would never have become a reality without Kyla Jagger Neilan, who worked with me tirelessly on this project for more than a year and who had a critical role in making this book as good as it is. Kyla and I also thank our graduate research assistants, Emily Cole, Heather LeMunyon, and Joseph Bateman, from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, who have gone above and beyond in helping us bring this story to life. Kyla and I also extend our thanks to Catherine Thomas, Leslie Puth, and Johanna Goetzel, who worked with us in the early days of writing the book. Simone LaPray from the Heller School for Social Policy at Brandeis University, has taken over the role of the previous group of assistants and is helping me on the marketing of the book.

Many thanks to Frances Moore Lappé, who graciously wrote the foreword to this book and was inspired by how she saw savings groups as an antidote to powerlessness, as well as to Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president, who wrote the Preface. Additional thanks go to Steve Piersanti, the president of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, for seeing the importance of this book and advocating for it, and to Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, who led us through the editorial process. Mal Warwick not only reviewed the manuscript and introduced me to Berrett-Koehler—decades ago, he served along with me as a Peace Corps volunteer.

I am pleased that Berrett-Koehler encouraged and supported the inclusion of color pages, allowing us to tell our story through photographs I took in the field. I have photographed many extraordinary individuals and communities over the years, and am grateful they granted permission to share their faces with you, the reader.

I want to thank my children, Whitney and Katya, for putting up with their dad, although the truth is that I spent too much time rambling around the world. My wife Alyce, my children, and my granddaughters, Tatiana and Lauryn, are those who make me want to come home. Alyce has been my toughest editor and fiercest advocate.

Kyla would like to thank her partner, (the other) Jeff; her intellectual comrade in arms, Alex Shams; and for everything, Mom and Dad, Faye and Bill Neilan.

Finally, the many weeks that we spent talking to the women who took the risk of joining these groups, who told us about their lives, and explained what their savings groups have meant to them have been truly inspirational. We expect to hear much of them in the years to come.