The job market in the United States can be intimidating to recent graduates, but Samantha Rayner, a 2009 UW Foster School of Business graduate, said that’s not the reason she decided to go abroad to put her degree to use.

Instead, it was the struggling economy in Ghana that prompted Rayner to go there and start Lumana Credit, a nonprofit microfinance project that helps Ghanaians begin their own careers and entrepreneurial projects.

“Through the program, Lumana teaches mentors to teach our entrepreneurial training course and pairs the mentors with cooperative groups so that they can provide needed support, while being culturally sensitive to the needs of clients,” Rayner said.

Lumana Credit also administers small loans in six-month cycles to groups and businesses in Ghana that are in need of financial assistance. The group is also employing teachers and other community leaders in a mentorship program in order to better utilize talent and integrate the organization into the community.

From the project’s outset in April 2008, Rayner collaborated with Village Volunteers, a Seattle-based organization that supports community projects in Asian and African villages. The goal was to raise funds to implement a microfinance project in the Atorkor Village in Ghana, which specifically had a desire to start one.

“After spending four months researching and organizing the project from the United States, I left for Ghana with just over $3,000 to put toward loans,” Rayner said. “Over the course of my two-month stay in the Atorkor Village, I managed to train three part-time Ghanaian employees, run a three week business management training course for 30 poor entrepreneurs, spend countless hours coaching in the field and provide loans of between $50 to $400 to each client who completed the training.”

Upon returning to Seattle in the fall, Rayner put together a team of 10 part-time volunteers to expand the project into the organization that it is now.

“We were more or less strangers, with [Samantha] being the link between us all,” said Peter LaFemina, the director of development of Lumana.

Rayner said she got the idea for the project from 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus, who came to the UW campus in winter 2008 to talk about his experience providing small loans to struggling businesses in Bangladesh.

“After hearing him speak, I was immediately drawn to the concept … [and] I decided to pursue an opportunity to get involved,” Rayner said. “I wasn’t satisfied with the options out there for young people, often being told that I needed to work in a U.S. office for a year before getting to travel and feel the impact of my work.”

With Lumana, Rayner is able to see the impact of her work on Ghanaians like Justine Kudese immediately. Kudese came to Lumana in 2008 as part of a group of three women who were operating a fishmongering business. After successfully taking out her first loan, she has taken out another to continue improving her business.

Currently, several members of the international team are already in Ghana for the first phase of Lumana’s summer launch project, which consists of seeking out community leaders and identifying potential clients.

The remaining members, still in Seattle, will join the rest of the team for the second phase, beginning Aug. 15, which will see business and expansion rollout and the start of training for community leaders.

“Our long-term goal is to serve as a prototype for the microfinance industry, specifically through our community mentor-program innovations,” Rayner said. “Testing of new technologies we seek to implement in 2010, and leveraging of an online platform to better tell the story of our work and raise awareness in the community.”

Although Lumana is still in its infant stages, Rayner said she has big goals for the organization’s growth.

“After three years, our goal is to be serving 5,000 clients in the rural Ghanaian population and begin looking to partnerships in neighboring countries as well,” Rayner said.

This Thursday evening, Lumana will be holding a fundraiser in Seattle that will provide opportunities to further learn about their work in Atorkor, as well as opening up investment opportunities.

The fundraiser is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. at the BoConcept Design Studio.

Reach reporter Ivan Vukovic at

news@dailyuw.com.