Personal tools
You are here: Home Issues Community finance

Community finance

Sometimes just having a safe place to save, or access to a small loan, can help a family work its way out of poverty. But many poor people can't go to banks and credit unions for that kind of help. Often, these services aren't available, especially in rural areas—and where they are available, poor people may not qualify. Oxfam America's innovative, fast-growing community finance program, Saving for Change, provides much-needed savings and lending services to those who have been left behind.

Through our Saving for Change program, Oxfam helps poor people in Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, and Cambodia improve their livelihoods and build a better future by increasing their access to financial services.

ACT FAST with Oxfam
We can beat poverty and hunger—but we’ve got to ACT FAST. When you pledge to ACT FAST with Oxfam, you agree to do three things. Each step builds on the power of numbers: 1, 10, 100. And each person who takes the pledge brings us closer to our goal of beating poverty.
Host an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet® event
Raise awareness and help fund Oxfam's work by hosting a Hunger Banquet® in your community! Few experiences bring to life the inequalities in our world more powerfully than an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet® event. Organizers and participants alike can experience firsthand how our decisions affect others in the world.
More actions
Working together to end poverty and injustice
An overview of Oxfam America and our approach to poverty relief and lasting social change.
Oxfam in West Africa
Across the vast Sahel and down through the lush rainforests of Ghana, there is a growing sense of possibility.
OXFAMExchange Spring 2007
A Fragile Balance
Oxfam in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean
All across this diverse and beautiful territory, new faces of leadership are emerging. Women, rural communities, and small farmers are adding their voices to the political dialogue, calling on their governments: Hear us now.
OXFAMExchange Fall 2005
The Chance to End Poverty
OXFAMExchange Spring 2004
Engendering an Equitable Society: Focus on Women's Rights
OXFAMExchange Winter 2003
Mary Robinson on human rights, functional literacy in West Africa, and saving the family farm
More publications
Oxfam America Organizing Guide
Tips for taking action in your community
Oxfam America House Party Guide
Tools for hosting a high-impact event
More tools for activists
Saving for Change
Oxfam America has pioneered an alternative microfinance model called Saving for Change, which self-replicates on a large scale and at a low cost, serving those who have been left behind.
More multimedia

Features Subscribe | View All

Women in Mali lead Saving for Change

Women in Mali lead Saving for Change

An innovative savings and loan program is helping people work their own way out of extreme poverty. Women in Mali are leading the way as the program expands to other countries and continents.

Read more

Microinsurance builds resilience after tsunami

Microinsurance builds resilience after tsunami

Fishing families in Andhra Pradesh, India are relying on microinsurance to keep them out of debt to money lenders and help them save a little of what they earn.

Read more

Food on the table and savings on hand

Food on the table and savings on hand

An innovative agriculture technique is producing 50-150 percent more rice and increasing the incomes of more than 80,000 people.

Read more

Saving for Change reaches 100,000 members in West Africa

Saving for Change reaches 100,000 members in West Africa

Innovative microfinance program continues to attract new participants in Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso.

Read more

Saving for Change reaches 100,000 members

Saving for Change reaches 100,000 members

Since the program's launch in April 2005, more than 100,000 poor women and men in Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Cambodia have joined savings and lending groups.

Read more

Numbers don't lie

Numbers don't lie

Early success of innovative finance program impresses experts in Mali.

Read more

Spreading the wealth

Spreading the wealth

In Mali, women help others start their own saving and loan groups.

Read more

Gradual change in the status of women

Gradual change in the status of women

Saving for Change doesn't just help women earn money—it is a means to change their role in the family and the village.

Read more

Fighting malaria is fighting poverty

Fighting malaria is fighting poverty

Organizing women in Saving for Change groups helps them to reduce the threat of malaria.

Read more

» More stories «
Document Actions