His Faith on the Line

David Bussau says he believes God has given him a purpose in life. What is it, and what has he accomplished? Nick Hansen tells.

Capitalism and Christianity are often viewed as synonymous and negatively, especially in developing countries, but it’s the positive aspects of these ideologies that underpin the work of philanthropist David Bussau, AM, and an organisation he helped create. Bussau is co-founder of Opportunity International (OI), a development organisation that has helped more than a million budding entrepreneurs exit the poverty cycle since its inception in 1979.

Since 1974, Bussau has devoted his time to promoting entrepreneurship in the developing world and addressing world poverty. His commitment is to provide opportunities for people in poverty to transform their lives through capitalism. His motivation is Jesus Christ’s call to help–and serve—the poor.

According to Bussau, a Manchester University study has shown that for each job created, six people are permanently taken out of poverty and 13 people in the community benefit. “Potentially, Opportunity International helped more than five million people in 2002,” he says.

Much of this success has come through micro-enterprise development (MED), of which Bussau was a pioneer. Applying the principle that access to credit is the key to building small business, OI creates jobs by providing small collateral-free loans to budding entrepreneurs in 27 developing countries, empowering them to start or expand their own businesses.

With business training, mentoring, financial planning and leadership development, MED has an immediate and lasting impact on a family’s ability to afford food, shelter, education and health care. Then, as income increases and the business expands, the benefits also flow through to the local community, further boosting employment.

Bussau, last year’s Ernst & Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year, says OI shows how capitalism and entrepreneurship can be instruments for positive change.
“Entrepreneurship in itself is magical. It creates products, it creates an economic environment that people benefit from, and you get increased productivity. There is a win-win situation once you get behind the entrepreneur. They make things happen; they don’t watch things happen,” he says. “Capitalism is sort of played out as the bogyman often, as the exploiter, whereas what I decided was let’s make capitalism work for the good of people.”

According to Bussau, entrepreneurship encourages people to reach their potential, no matter what their circumstances.

“Each of us has the capacity to be productive and those who realise this make the difference. For me, the challenge is to find ways to release that incredible potential—to enable that creative force and drive to be expressed.

“[Entrepreneurship] stimulates confidence in you that ‘I can do this; I don’t have to be a charity case. I can look after myself and the kids and the family. I do have the potential.’
“As an entrepreneur, you need to believe in someone, to trust them, to see the potential in them and invest in that potential. Once they realise they’ve got potential, they’ve got more confidence and they give it a go.”

David Bussau started life in New Zealand with little education. He launched his business career with a hot-dog stand. He moved to Sydney and became a millionaire at 35 through success in construction, but felt restless and wondered whether he was making the most of his life and talent or simply empire building.

Then, after Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin, Bussau, with his wife and two children, took a volunteer construction team there to help rebuild the city. He stayed on to re-establish homes and services for Aboriginal communities. Next it was to Indonesia, helping rural villages in Bali devastated by an earthquake.

There he found traditional solutions still left families trapped in poverty. His solution was to offer business loans—the proverbial “hand up” rather than “handout.”

“I realised then that the problem of poverty was one of debt. Families were mortgaging their children to cover debts. In some cases, parents even mortgaged unborn children as collateral for the loans they needed to survive. Our idea was to provide the same capital as the loan sharks, but charge a market interest rate.”

He made his first loan to Ketut Suwira, a struggling farmer who bought a sewing machine and started his own tailoring business. Today, he runs an import–export business and owns a fleet of taxis.

Bussau provided finance to a further 20 people and, inspired by their success, he sold his five construction businesses in order to establish the Maranatha Trust, a forerunner to Opportunity International, which still operates in several countries.

“I felt there were better ways I could apply my talents, skills and resources to enable communities to address the poverty they were facing,” he says. “I think being an entrepreneur, you step out of your comfort zone, you take risks, and I decided that I’d rather take risks on people than the marketplace. We did, and it’s working.”

In contrast to the more material benefits of such overtly capitalistic methods, Bussau says it’s his faith that’s his real inspiration. “It’s what drives me, what motivates me, what allows me to hang in there. There are a lot of downs as well as ups, and it is certainly my faith and religious commitment that sustains me over the long haul.

“I’ve always had a sense of destiny, a sense that God has a purpose for me, and basically all I am doing is fulfilling that purpose and living it out.

“For me, Christ is the focal point, the model for me. So if I can emulate Christ’s teaching, practise it and manifest it in everything I do, I find a lot more fulfilment in what I’m doing.”

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