Managed by the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) and guided by a steering committee of practitioners, the Microenterprise Standards and Accreditation Project (MSAP) seeks to define standards of practice which, if implemented, would support high performance measures and definitions are part of MSAP's standards. For more information on this important effort, please visit AEO's Web site.

MicroTest staff have analyzed the MicroTest database on the performance of the industry to propose numerical benchmarks for MSAP to consider. From the Fall of 2003 through the Spring of 2004 MicroTest developed a set of 4 white papers, each of which proposed numerical performance standards for categories of performance. These white papers were presented and discussed on MSAP committee conference calls, and then revised based on committee input. At the annual AEO national conference an executive summary of the four white papers was presented to AEO members for further discussion and debate. Each of the white papers is briefly described below.

Please click on the links to download those papers you are interested in.

White paper #1: Outreach Standards. This paper proposes a set of standards related to outreach that assess the extent to which microenterprise programs are reaching underserved populations.

White paper #2: Credit Program Effectiveness and Efficiency. This paper proposes a set of standards related to the performance of a microenterprise lending program that assess the effectiveness of a credit program according to its ability to make and manage microenterprise loans of less than $35,000.

White paper #3: Credit Program Scale. This paper proposes standards related to the size of a microenterprise credit program that assess the extent to which a credit program is productive.

White paper #4: Training Program Scale, Effectiveness and Efficiency. This white paper proposes a set of numerical performance standards related to the size, effectiveness and efficiency of a microenterprise training program.