This article is a case study of a nonprofit microlender in Washington, DC. It explores the ways in which this microlender serves the immigrant business community particularly well by tolerating a certain degree of informality in its lending and training policies. It focuses on the way informality in the lending and social practices of the organization is a pragmatic adaptation that begs to be recognized as a valid and potentially transformative alternative to “business as usual.” It also connects and contrasts microlending in the United States to that in the developing world.

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