NIACC Pappajohn NanoLoan Program.
NanoLoans are targeted to early stage entrepreneurs whose business concept is not yet bankable. These business concepts cannot meet the minimum qualifications to gain access to traditional credit, including NIACC’s USDA Revolving Loan Fund. An entrepreneur with a pre-bankable business concept can borrow up to $5,000 at attractive terms to complete the development of their business concept. Contact the NIACC Pappajohn Center for more information.
NanoLoans are a financial innovation, which originated in developing countries where it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people (mostly women) to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty. Due to the success of NanoLoans, many in the traditional banking industry have begun to realize that these borrowers should more correctly be categorized as pre-bankable; thus, NanoLoans are increasingly gaining credibility in the mainstream finance industry. Although almost everyone in larger development organizations discounted the likelihood of success of NanoLoans when it was begun in its modern incarnation as pilot projects with ACCION and Muhammad Yunus in the mid-1970s, the United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. Mr. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006.
Updated brochure & application: