Our Organization

Special Projects

The Spartan Global Development Fund was founded in 2009 by Michigan State University undergraduate, Michael Thelen, with the help of Paulette L. Stenzel - Professor of International Business Law and Sustainability. Soon thereafter, Spartan Global became a Registered Student Organization at Michigan State run entirely by students. Our first loans were made through Kiva on July 4, 2009.

In 2011, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization was established through the State of Michigan and the Internal Revenue Service under the same name, Spartan Global Development Fund. A Board of Directors was subsequently put together to oversee business transactions of the newly formed nonprofit. Today, the two companion branches of the Spartan Global Development Fund, the Registered Student Organization and 501(c)(3) nonprofit, operate hand-in-hand to effectively facilitate microloans to entrepreneurs around the globe.

As a result of our interactions with the people to whom we extend loans, occasionally we have conducted special projects to meet their needs.  

One example is our 2020 fund-raising project to provide basic food supplies for many of our borrowers in Guatemala who were subject to serious economic stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.   For information about that project, see https://www.spartanglobalfund.org/blog/2020/12/1/covid-relief-fund-update. 

Another example is the Radical Coffee Project.  In 2018, members of our 501(c)(3) Board of Directors started a project to help farmers of the San Antonio de Chacayá coffee cooperative of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala by providing a market for their coffee.  (Spartan Global has extended two microloans to that cooperative.)   The project was part of Spartan Global until the fall of 2020.  At that time, three young alumni moved on from service on the Board, and, simultaneously, the coffee project was separated from Spartan Global.  The three alumni assumed ownership of Radical Coffee, and they now operate it as a newly-created LC3 (Low-Profit Limited Liability Company).  We wish them well, and we invite you to visit their website at https://www.radicalcoffeeproject.com/ .

Spartan Global

The 501(c)(3) Nonprofit

Spartan Global

The Michigan State Registered Student Organization

2022 BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Nikolai Wasielewski

Paulette L. Stenzel

Nicole Whaley

To learn more about the Board of Directors, click here.

To see the current members of the Student Organization, please click here. 

Interested in becoming a general member of the Spartan Global Student Organization? Please click below.