About NamasteDirect

NamasteDirect Stands For:

• Microcredit – NamasteDirect is only about microcredit, which is widely acclaimed as the most important antipoverty invention of the twentieth century.
• New Beginnings – NamasteDirect focuses on providing capital for first-time loans to very poor, rural women in Central America who have the ability and gumption to start a new business or expand a budding enterprise that will begin to lift their families out of poverty.
• Connection – NamasteDirect promises to connect donors with borrowers through Donor Journeys to the region, visiting women who have received loans from our donor funds, and through periodic written accounts of borrowers’ experiences.
• Future Generations – NamasteDirect encourages a new generation of global philanthropists through board membership, volunteer opportunities, and a unique Fellowship Program.
• Transparency – NamasteDirect tracks its cash disbursed right down to the names of the individual borrowers and makes that information available to donors.
• Best Value for Donors – NamasteDirect delivers the highest percentage of unrestricted donations into the hands of beneficiaries of any U.S. international donor organization. A minimum of 70 percent of unrestricted donations to NamasteDirect go directly to the beneficiaries--Central American women who receive loans in their local currency. Moreover, the loan funds are recycled over and over again in the local community. So your original gift keeps on giving!

Our History

IN 1973, Bob Graham, a successful California businessman and CPA, visited Guatemala as part of the California Agricultural Leadership program. Struck by the plight of the poor farming families he met, he decided on the spot that someday he would try to help suffering people such as these.

A decade later in 1984, Bob founded the Katalysis Partnership, dedicated to providing a hand up (rather than a hand out) to such people in war-torn Central America. This was also the launching of Bob’s “50–50 at 50” plan: at age 50 he would begin to devote 50% of his time and 50% of his resources to service to others. Subsequently, thousands of people--mostly women--have led their families out of poverty with the helping hand of Katalysis and its supporters.

Twenty years later, Bob continues to be deeply involved with this work, volunteering his time to NamasteDirect, a successor non-profit to the Katalysis Partnership. While the original Katalysis organization has mushroomed into the Katalysis Microfinance Network of Central America (a regional non-profit of 13 intermediary credit providers serving more than 180,000 borrowers with over $60 million in loan capital in four countries), Bob and his associates are continuing to link donors to the poorest borrowers through NamasteDirect, where the motto is "Ending Poverty, One Loan at a Time!"