At 83 years old, David Bussau AM, founder of Opportunity International Australia, is still as passionate as ever about microfinance being part of the solution to ending poverty.

David became one of the pioneers of microfinance when he offered a loan to a farmer in Indonesia named Ketut, who purchased a sewing machine, and with his wife started a tailoring business. This was the beginning of what grew to become Opportunity International Australia today.

David recently shared his reflections on the idea of legacy and what Opportunity has achieved.

_{Years later, with numerous successful businesses to his credit, David reached the ’economics of enough’.}

Q: When Ketut, the first man you gave $50 to, paid his loan back, did a light bulb go off for you?

David Bussau: It wasn’t a vision that I had, it really was organic. Ketut took a loan, then his cousin took a loan, then someone else wanted a loan, so it just grew organically. It wasn’t a vision I had, and I find that God leads you into things that you hadn’t intended, but it was what he had purposed. I believe that microfinance is what God had intended for myself and for my family. To be the midwives for that program, to nurture it, to journey alongside it, to help Opportunity to grow into the organisation it is today. 

Q: Are you amazed by what has been done over the years? Do you look back and think, wow?

DB: No, I try not to, but I’m astounded by the impact. When I do sit down and just reflect a little bit, I’m just in awe of how successful it’s been, and how widely it is now deployed by most development organisations as an important strategic function of taking people out of poverty. I try not to think about it as my achievement, just that I was an instrument that was used to nurture it to a point that it could have momentum and take off and expand into so many different countries in the world.

I feel that a lot of the stuff that’s been achieved has been ego and self-centredness. ‘Here’s another challenge for you David’. And I’ve had the confidence that I know God is going to provide. I used to say that I hate to dream, because God can make things come to fruition, and I’d say, ‘God I have enough on my plate!’ And he’ll introduce me to someone else, connect me to someone else, and a need will surface out of that meeting, and I’ll take on that challenge. If you see yourself as the vehicle or just the vessel that God’s grace and love flows through, you don’t want to take the credit for it.

^{David Bussau with Ketut in the 1970s}

Q: What do you think is the magic of microfinance? What is it that’s so special about it and amplifies people’s dignity, strength and agency?

DB: I think it’s like a lot of things. You don’t really know what the impact is until you take that step, take a risk and do something. What I found with microfinance was that the first step was to accept the risk involved in starting up an enterprise and then knowing that it has the potential to grow and create jobs for others. I see the magic is in being creative and taking a risk and creating jobs and strengthening families and then breathing life into a whole community through the job creation process. The whole community benefits from stimulating the local economy. That’s the magic, but we don’t often see it, we think the loan and the transaction, that’s the first step, but that’s not the real impact. The real impact is seeing the vibrant community that’s held together with families.

Q: Why is it that giving a loan is better than giving a one-off donation or grant, like a lot of other aid organisations do?

DB: I found that people respond better if you have that relationship with them that you invest in their lives, you’re not giving them charity. You’re equipping them and enabling them to use resources for their own empowerment and their own development.

With our Opportunity loans, the person repays the loan, they can get a larger loan, then a larger loan again, and it allows that person to grow within their business and within their family and their community again.

_{David became a pioneer of microfinance, before the term even existed.}

Q: Is leaving a legacy important to you?

DB: Legacy is a strange thing. Often wealthy people are concerned about the legacy they’re about to leave. Personally, I have very little interest in perpetuity. I feel that I’ve been given a task to do, and I’ve done that task, and I can pass the baton on to someone else to continue that function, but I’m personally not interested in leaving a legacy because what I find is that whatever I’ve been able to do is because of connections and relationships. For me, the only legacy I want to leave is the quality of relationships that I had, not how many things were achieved, more how they were achieved. The relationship I had with people and those coming to fruition. One of the things that has been very gratifying for me is seeing the amount of people that have stayed with Opportunity for a long time, for decades, some of our supporters continue to contribute, continue to share their experience and their joy of giving with others. I thank God for those people who have been faithful and committed over the long haul to the effectiveness that Opportunity is having.

To learn more about David's long history with Opportunity, and his thoughts on the 'economics of enough':

•  WATCH: In Conversation with David Bussau AM.