MBAs look at how to reach a critical mass of donors for a client in China

Michelle Lee MBA 2010 writes:

Team 66 traveled to Hong Kong Dec. 16-22, 2009, on behalf of our client Wokai, an online-based microfinance organization focused exclusively on China. We chose Hong Kong as our research destination because Wokai had recently launched a Hong Kong chapter, and our research thus far showed that cities with local chapters produced the highest number of “passionate” donors who contribute the largest amounts and most frequently. This was important as Wokai is struggling to reach a critical mass of donors, and as a niche product, it needs to secure a sizable donor base of “passionate” believers, in order to be sustainable (unlike an organization such as Kiva, which serves all geographies and appeals to a mass audience). Thus, we set out to interview the board of the Hong Kong chapter and to follow them through their launch strategy. In addition, another critical part of our trip involved conducting in-depth interviews with donors from Wokai’s target segment of expatriates, given that Hong Kong has a large population of “high-potential” expats—those who have significant disposable income and who are likely to have strong enough ties to China to care about this niche product.

We first reached out to more than 250 UCLA Anderson alumni who fit the bill and ended up conducting focus group-like sessions with 10 of them. In addition, we also held meetings with the Hong Kong board, spending most of the time with the chapter’s two co-presidents. In general, through the interviews with the potential donors/alumni, we learned that credibility and transparency are major concerns, particularly since Wokai targets China and China is known to be fraught with fraud. Similarly, through the meetings with the Hong Kong board, we found out that most of the result of their outreach was made possible because nearly all of the Hong Kong donors thus far had personal ties to someone on the board. Because of the trip, we were able to uncover that Wokai had a fundamental “trust” issue that would need to be resolved through improved borrower updates (which would address the transparency concerns) and through revamped online messaging (which would address the credibility problem).