Young American Good-Deed Doer, Casey Welson

• Author: China Law Digest compiled news from Southern Weekend

Casey Welson, 28 years old, was born in Oakland, California, United States of America, graduated in 2006 from Wesleyan University with a major in Economics, and became a research student of a joint program between Qinghua University and University of California Berkeley in 2007.

Since she was in college, Welson used the background of China as a tool to practice economic development and application of theory. Inspired by Banker To the Poor by Muhammad Yunus a few months after she entered China in 2006, Welson and Coutney McColgan jointly incorporated “Poor People’s Bank” – “wokai” and encouraged Americans to donate funds in an attempt to provide small loans, grow production and to improve lives of the poor who earned less than US$1.25 a day.

Since foreigners could not legally incorporate/register non-profit corporations in China, “wokai” had to register in the United States of America as an NGO (non-governmental organization) and then apply for opening a representative office in China. Since laws in China prohibit institute of microfinance from accepting small amount deposits, “wokai” could only choose a person to person (P2P)) microfinance platform. Through an evaluation by the local co-op towards those poor farmers and herdsmen who needed loans, “wokai” selected loan applicants and posted the results on its website. Based on the results, donors/depositors could choose which applicants they wanted to donate to or provide unsecured loan. Finally, the local institution would be responsible for...