Farz Foundation

FARZ FOUNDATION

The First Islamic Micro Finance Organiztion of Pakistan.

An Integrated Approch for Poverty Alleviation.

VISION

To bring social change through poverty alleviation by improving productivity and capacity of clients and staff

MISSION

Empowering the poor through innovative products and diverse business opportunities, by integrating social performance focused microfinance with collaborative community health and education partnerships.

OUR CORE VALUES

Transparency
Honesty
Integrity

OUR BELIEFS

Women Empowerment
Women leadership
Women Awareness
Pollution Free Environment
Financial Sustainability
Social Sustainability

OBJECTIVES

To work for development of human resources, promotion of social and economic well being of the masses, be, improvement of social status, social mobilization for prosperous society and elimination of gender discrimination in the rural areas of Pakistan.

To become a model organization in social performance focused Islamic microfinance.

To enhance the productivity of home based entrepreneurs’ disabled persons, HIV people, sex workers and transgender persons.

Provide “PRODUCTIVE ZAKAH” (donation) and “QARZ-E-HASNA” (interest free loan) along with asset based financing to the poor, while building their capacity for sustainable livelihoods. We will prepare them for a business product within one year of program entry.

To graduate the home based entrepreneurs into micro-enterprise cooperatives.

To provide basic education, particularly business education to the poor.

To provide basic preventative health education and first aid facilities to the poor.

To offer environment awareness and education at the grassroots level and motivate environmental clean-up and conservation efforts.

To provide a stimulating and professional work environment to the staff and build their capacity on the continuous basis.

To support the entrepreneurial modernization and technology development of Pakistan.

To make the poor productive and ZAKAH payer but not ZAKAH receiver.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

The Farz Foundation is a social performance based poverty alleviation organization with a unique and innovative Islamic Microfinance model and business design. It is the organization which has been formed on an ideological foundation with the notion of “partnership with the poor and profit and loss sharing” as its prior investment methodology. The asset based Islamic Microfinance integrated approach is the basic tool of the foundation to get long term sustainability, because the Farz Foundation has a strong belief that the sustainability of the client is the sustainability of the organization. Farz foundation has also convicted to bring social change with poverty alleviation. MURABAHA (Islamic mode of sale and purchase) is the core product of Farz Foundation and FF is operational with this product under the Shariah compliance from 1 Jan, 2010. As for as marginalized poor and destitute are concerning, Farz Foundation provides them “PRODUCTIVE ZAKAH” (donation) and “QARZ-E-HASNA” (interest free loan) to start their businesses after giving them the basic business training and providing them market linkages to make them able to Zakah payer but not Zakah receiver. HEALTH AWARENESS, BUSINESS Education and FARZ COMMITEE are the nonfinancial products of the institution.

FUNDAMENTALS

Poverty is a global challenge that the whole civilized world is addressing to alleviate it. The philosophy of globalization and its spirit demands societies coordinate economy, social change and development as one unit and not as divided in compartments to move ahead. The attitude of compartmentalizing societal issues into cubicles cannot effectively contend with the philosophy of globalization. Microfinance started with this very approach, but unfortunately methodologies, recourses, policies, systems, and procedures to grasp a widespread made it scattered. The race of achieving high targets detracted from most of the institutions working for microfinance, thus leaving behind the initial focus which is the conviction of poverty alleviation by enhancing the productivity of poor people and building their skills to earn money with honor and dignity. Microfinance also has a social performance motivation. Farz Foundation has a strong notion that the ultimate financial sustainability cannot be availed without social sustainability.

However, the dream of changing the lives of poor cannot become a reality without fulfilling the aim of social performance. No doubt, microfinance is a tool which can change not only the individual lives of the poor, but also can bring a social revolution in poor countries towards greater productivity. Social performance based microfinance is not a commercial based industry. It has a belief on socio productive profitability, which occurs as a result of prominent social change at a larger scale.

In this perspective Farz (duty) Foundation was established to accomplish the real goals and objectives of the microfinance sector, which are currently neglected to an enormous extent. It is a social performance based non-governmental organization with highly committed, self-motivated, innovative and enthusiastic grassroots experts as its founding members. They are also very experienced microfinance practitioners. Farz Foundation is registered under Societies Act 1860 by its legal status. Farz Foundation is an organization in Pakistan aiming towards achieving millennium development goals with a holistic approach. It is simultaneously addressing health, education, and the financial vulnerability of poor populations to ease their burdens while systemically alleviating poverty.

DYNAMICS OF FARZ FOUNDATION

Farz Foundation supports a social performance movement for socioeconomic prosperity and building a new sphere of integration. From inception, it has focused on translating the social mission of microfinance into practice.

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

The partnership will look like the following diagram with communication openly flowing between all partners involved. In this way, each organization can maximize their strengths by focusing on what they know and do best, delivering education services, delivering health services, and delivering financial services. When the full partnership is established, all directors and senior staff managers of each organization will meet to discuss the work operations of each organization for working with the targeted group. In this way, no efforts and program activities are duplicated, with each organization in agreement on their role for service delivery.

LEGAL STATUS

Farz Foundation is a non-governmental organization registered under the Act of 1860 and is authorized to work on a ‘no profit no loss’ basis. At present Farz Foundation’s operations are exclusively concentrated in urban, semi-urban and rural areas of Pakistan through partnership with CBOs. The head office of Farz Foundation is located at Lahore Pakistan.

AREA STRUCTURE

SOCIAL CENTER (BRANCH) STRUCTURE

AREA MONITORING COMMITTEE