Our Team
The IDEAS Team is composed of professionals from different continents who work to provide services to microfinance practitioners and supporting institutions.

EXPERTISE: We know microfinance institutions from a variety of perspectives: from starting them, managing MFIs, serving on the board of directors, lending to them, performing due diligence for other lenders, providing advice to their donors or lenders, training their staff, and evaluating them using a variety of methodologies.
INNOVATORS: The IDEAS Team has been on the leading edge of innovation in a variety of ways over the past decade. The IDEAS Executive Director, Carter Garber, founded one of the first entities channeling private socially responsible investment to international microfinance (Nicaraguan Community Development Loan Fund or PRESTANIC). The Team was the first to adapt the Baldrige evaluation system to international microfinance institutions and their supporting PVOs. The Team has developed many new techniques and extensive written documentation for impact evaluation under the AIMS-SEEP Project. They also were the lead trainers and consultants for the AIMS-SEEP tools internationally and supervised numerous adaptations of the evaluation tools. They are in the vanguard of training, translation and disseminating the 18 MicroSave-Africa tools in Latin America.
MAIN EMPHASES: IDEAS in the last five years has primarily focused on teaching managers of microfinance institutions in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the United States how to do:

- impact evaluation,
- client satisfaction, and
- market research.

The IDEAS Executive Director, Carter Garber, authored parts of the AIMS-SEEP Manual, Learning from Clients: Assessment Tools for Microfinance Practitioners. He also was the Associate Editor of the most recent version of the Manual. Members of the Team have been responsible for disseminating the AIMS-SEEP Tools, introducing them to microfinance practitioners on 4 continents

.

The following table is a sample of the current associates, including their specialization on the Team. They are currently based in the country that they are from unless otherwise specified:
Impact Evaluation, Monitoring & Market Research Organizational Dev. & Leadership Dev. Statistical Analysis of Evaluation Data using EPI Info Support Team
Carter Garber from US Carter Garber from US Brian Beard from US Rosa Amanda Vargas from Nicaragua
Salvador Muñoz from El Salvador Marty Collier from US Milton Tapia from Nicaragua Jack Beckford from US
Gaamaa Hisigsuren from Mongolia (in US) Milton Arguello from Nicaragua (in US) Flor Loucel from El Salvador Raquel Argumedo from El Salvador (in Costa Rica
Brian Beard from US Nelly Moreno from El Salvador (in US)   Flor Loucel from El Salvador
Imelda Torrez from Nicaragua Imelda Torrez from Nicaragua   Juan Carlos Limon from México (in US)
  Rosa Amanda Vargas from Nicaragua   Leslie Withers from US
      Scott Callison from US
 
   
IDEAS 1702 Dancing Fox Road, Decatur, Georgia, 30032
Tel: 404-378-7544     Fax: 404-378-9322