We’re incredibly excited to announce Anou’s first Community Development Fund. Our goal with the fund is to provide outstanding artisans from across the Anou community with access to interest free loans with generous repayment timelines. This way artisans can accelerate any needed purchases, such as a new smartphone or a new loom, that will help them increase their sales.
Anou’s artisan leaders will select participating artisans by analyzing artisan performance on their online stores and invite top artisan groups to take part in the fund. Examples of such performance indicators include but are not limited to the time it takes for artisans to confirm orders, the time it takes artisans to ship their orders, error rates on shipments and custom orders, among other criteria.
Selected artisans will simply have to submit a video of themselves via Whatsapp outlining what they want to purchase, how much it costs, and how they will use it to improve their sales. Each application will be reviewed later this summer by a panel of five Anou advisors from the Ministry of Handicraft, British Council Morocco Office, OCP Foundation and the Moroccan Center for Social Entrepreneurship. The panel will be able to select one group or divide the funds amongst several artisan groups. Anou’s artisan team and Anou’s mentor team can only provide background information on a group to the board and will not be able to make any decision which artisan group receives the fund.
The artisans will then repay back the amount with 10% of each future sale until the balance has been paid back, which will then be applied to the second round of Anou’s Community Development Fund in 2020.
The starting amount of the initial round is $1,000 USD ( about 10,000 MAD), which was provided as a generous donation by Melanie Royals of Maison 28, who after leading a weaving retreat to cooperatives within the Anou community along with Moroccan born weaving artisan Asmaa Aman-Tran, reached out asking how she might be able to support Anou. Maison 28 is committed to continued support for the Community Development Fund through future Weaving Retreats in Morocco. We’re incredibly thankful Melanie’s support in getting the fund started and also her commitment in ensuring her retreats benefit the growth of Morocco’s artisan community.
Are you interested in contributing to Anou’s Community Development Fund? It is a pilot and pending successful rounds, we’ll eventually ensure that any donations are tax deductible. If interested, just reach out to us at hello@thenaou.com!
Participants in Maison 28’s weaving retreat learn spinning and carding from The Afous G Afous Cooperative outside of Ouarzazate.
The Anou Cooperative Blog 