How significant are our shortcomings 3.0 now?

"We proudly present our new shortcomings," is how our shortcomings page begins—a page we update regularly. In December 2024, CEO Arno Hoogenhuizen unveiled our latest shortcomings. Click here to read them on our shortcomings page.

But how did we fare with our previous shortcomings? Below, you’ll find the third edition of our shortcomings, complete with an update:

 

1. A female/male ratio of 40/60 and no woman in the management team

Painfully, this was also a shortcoming in our first set of shortcomings back in 2018! That is not good. Women are under-represented and that makes that we are not functioning optimally. Especially with our SDG5 focus, we have to practice what we preach.

If we dig a bit deeper, of the people that have left the company over the last few years, about 40% were female. And of the people we hired since beginning 2020, the percentage female is again 40%. So, net we didn't improve. We are a small team and the absolute numbers show that the problem is quite solvable: out of the 22 people, 9 are women.

A potentially bigger problem is the fact that we don't have a female MT member. One small consolation is that our Supervisory board consists of two women and one of them is the chairwoman. Let's see where we stand next time we report back to you on our shortcomings.

 

Status 2024: This is no longer a shortcoming! Of the 14 employees in the company, 7 are women. A perfect 50/50!

 

2. We are trying to do too much

This is really getting embarrassing. One of the first shortcomings we identified was that we were bad at distinguishing important things from unimportant ones. What was it again? Say no to good things so you have time to work on amazing things? Why are we still not doing that? We held a day-long workshop by FranklinCovey on getting ourselves to work on non-urgent, important stuff and people dug it. But we still have problems reaching the goals we set for ourselves. We are definitely a high-achieving company, but it could be that we would have progressed further if we did more of the important stuff and less of the (perceived) urgent stuff.

 

Status 2024: This is no longer a shortcoming! Spotting opportunities and diving enthusiastically into projects is in our DNA. However, over the past year, we’ve managed to apply stricter criteria to decide whether a project makes it onto our to-do list. Before starting anything, we ask ourselves: Will the work we do contribute to improving our product for both investors and the entrepreneurs we finance? If the answer is yes, we proceed.

 

3. We are not able to finance smaller SMEs and financial institutions

This one is born out of a previous shortcoming, namely that we found it difficult to balance between creating impact and scaling up. If we want to optimize the impact we create, we need to keep financing smaller SMEs and financial institutions. But we went the other way. As we were scaling up we had to increase investment sizes. We have put things in motion to reverse this and will employ financial technology such as algorithmic lending to get this done. Make money make impact!

 

Status Update: This is no longer a shortcoming, but we aim for more! Thanks to a USAID grant and the implementation of a fast track for new borrowers, we’ve succeeded in offering more microfinance institutions and digital lending platforms on Lendahand. One key outcome is that we’re now reaching even more small business owners. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that returns on investments in financial institutions are rewarding for investors! Read more here. We’re excited to continue this trajectory.
 

4. Our salaries are significantly below market

As a young social enterprise we are not able to pay salaries that talented people such as our team members can make elsewhere. From a positive perspective, you can argue that our salaries are a selection tool to only get people on board who are committed to our mission (or filthy rich people, but if we have those, they are hiding it well). The problem is that the opportunity costs add up the longer you work at Lendahand. Next to the mission, there are definitely other things that make people stick around, but at this time we feel that the salaries are such that it is a shortcoming of the company. We have ideas on how to address this, and it's not just increasing salaries (although that is likely part of the solution).

 

Status 2024: This remains on the list, but we are hopeful!

 

5. We are not a net-zero company

As a company that is running an online platform, it shouldn't be that hard to be a net-zero company (assuming offsetting is part of it). We should calculate our footprint, see where we can reduce it, and then offset the remainder. Work in progress!

 

Status 2024: We continue to actively work on this. Sometimes, a business trip to one of our distant borrowers is essential to the due diligence process. These trips are combined wherever possible. The marketing team works as much as possible with local photographers to capture imagery of borrowers and their end clients.

Meanwhile, our office team in Rotterdam commutes by public transport or bike, and our lunch groceries are almost entirely vegetarian!

 

Suggestions for improvement?

Do you have any feedback or suggestions for how we can improve upon these shortcomings? Please let us know by sending us an email at [email protected]. We always welcome feedback from our crowd, positive and negative alike!

 

Curious about our even older shortcomings?
Find them here: Shortcomings 1.0 and Shortcomings 2.0