The first step towards Philanthropy: FUNDES

My group and I succeeded in staying in business thanks to a lengthy and costly diversification process. Once that process was completed, I became the owner of a widely consolidated conglomerate.

Nevertheless, my business activities in the 1980s reflected uncertainty and concern. Art proved to be an excellent antidote to stress. This was the time when my younger brother Alexander and his partner introduced me to the world of modern and contemporary art. With my financial assistance, the two of them started a high-quality contemporary art collection; at the same time, my interest in the works they acquired began to go beyond that of a mere investor.

In the mid-1980s I took my first step towards organized philanthropy. In a joint undertaking with the archbishop of Panama, we set up FUNDES, an organization that seeks to promote Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSME) with the goals of creating jobs, generating income for the underprivileged, and optimizing the operational parameters for those businesses.

After a trial period in Panama, we replicated the program in other Latin American countries. FUNDES would help small and medium-sized businesses gain access to credit and would provide them with basic administrative training. The more I worked with FUNDES, the more I grew convinced that helping small businesses and small businessmen to get to know the economies of the developing world was one of the most effective ways of helping people create sustainable ways of life for themselves. A few years would have to pass before leading national development agencies and banks began to share this vision.

FUNDES developed gradually. Nowadays it is a decentralized organization offering consulting services and business administration courses. I am especially pleased by the fact that FUNDES has continuously improved its performance and, consequently, its own sustainability. It presently covers well over half of its expenses with income generated by the services it offers. Small business promotion has become a priority for governments and international organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. FUNDES  signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's credit agency, which will allow the IFC to use FUNDES' methods in its own work and help disseminate them to other continents.