Personal Snapshot

The man behind the Fundación Paraguaya is Martin Burt, a highly energetic, extroverted social entrepreneur with an idea a minute. He has put in place a talented team of managers to run each aspect of FP’s program, and FP’s Board members are recruited from the best of Paraguay’s business community. It is difficult to appreciate the enormity of Burt’s undertaking in setting up the FP under Stroessner’s repressive regime. Then, for example, it was forbidden for more than 3 people to congregate for any reason – and initially, FP’s model followed the Grameen Bank’s practice of working through “solidarity groups” to qualify for a loan. These groups were comprised of at least three individuals, and the Foundation had to operate carefully under the radar of the police and other authorities. In 1988, Stroessner moved to shut down FP after Martin presented at an international conference in the USA and discussed the challenges of spearheading a civil sector organization in the context of a dictatorship. A week before the date set to close FP, Stroessner was ousted from power in a military coup.

Similar to other social entrepreneurs, Burt found that changing the system from the grassroots up had to be coupled by public policy changes. He has twice served in public office, once as Vice-Minister of Commerce in the transition government after Stroessner’s fall, and once as Mayor of Asunción. The problem with the public sector was that Burt could not innovate fast enough.