We opened the previous piece in this series with the Serenity Prayer, which asks for the strength to accept the things one cannot change and the ‘courage’ to change the things one can. That installment explored the first limb - what are the external factors that affect how institutions cope with crises? This piece examines the second bit: what can financial providers do to respond to a crisis. This is, in particular, the heart of the Sentinel Project. What are the tough decisions that microfinance leaders are making, how are they resolving their challenges, and how are they making those decisions? Many of these choices are at least in part irrevocable. That’s why we aim to capture them as they are made, rather than with ex-post justification or explanation. Doing nothing is also a choice (and sometimes just waiting things out is the best choice), and so it does take something like courage to act, and some measure of resolve to follow through.

There are many possible actions and choices to consider: re-negotiating and re-structuring funding, executing operational changes, business ‘pivots’ and the launch of new products, among them. What emerges from the many months of interviews with Sentinels to date is a fascinating breadth of responses to the challenges the pandemic has presented.