Arcubus is a registered charity based at St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, and a hub of expertise in the City of London for poverty-focused microfinance in Africa. We:

• Connect City companies with micro-entrepreneurs living in poverty. We do this particularly by offering the Arcubus Experience  http://www.arcubus.org.uk/experience/.  The Arcubus Experience gives you the chance to share your skills with entrepreneurs on a bespoke field trip to Africa and experience first-hand how microfinance can change lives.
• Promote microfinance as an ethical financial tool which is good for the City (market building, reputation re-building) and good for African entrepreneurs, giving many access to business training, new skills and financial services and capital for the first time.
• Channel resources – human and financial – from UK companies to micro-entrepreneurs in Africa.
• Give Londoners new skills, understanding and perspective too

We aim to engage the City of London’s significant resources (human and financial, present and future) in order to raise funds for, and awareness of, microfinance in Africa.

The best way to raise awareness of microfinance is to give you the opportunity to see it for yourself! We offer bespoke trips to Africa where you can spend time with one of our microfinance partners and experience first hand the challenges and opportunities which microfinance offers. You’ll have the chance to meet and support women trying to feed their families on less than $1/day by selling tomatoes by the roadside or making dresses in their homes. You’ll be able to offer your skills to boost their enterprises – and you’ll learn huge amounts yourself too. Find out more here.

We raise funds to support microfinance by seeking investments and donations from companies, churches and individuals living and working in London. We distribute the money we raise to three carefully chosen microfinance organisations (The MicroLoan Foundation, Five Talents and Opportunity International) working in Africa. Click here to donate now, and click here to learn more about the projects your gifts will support.

Arcubus is a charitable company established in 2009 by JustShare, a separate charity based at St Mary-le-Bow Church in the City of London. JustShare aims to raise awareness of international development needs and opportunities, and to encourage positive action in response. Arcubus was born as a practical means of keeping the developing world in the eye of the City. Uniquely, it offers an effective way for City workers and companies to take action to support some of the world’s poorest communities, whilst also building their own future markets. Arcubus is grateful for the generous sponsorship provided by the Corporation of London and Allen & Overy LLP.

Arcubus’ charitable objectives are: ‘(a) The relief of poverty through supporting Microfinance initiatives in Africa; and (b) The advancement of the education of the public on ethical issues in relation to the developing world and elsewhere.’

More specifically, we aim to become a hub of microfinance expertise in the City of London and to raise funds in the City of London to support microfinance projects in Africa. We also aim to raise awareness in the City of the potential of microfinance to drive social and economic development  in Africa. We channel resources (financial and human) from the City to some of the world’s poorest communities – but we see it as a two-way process in which the City takes as much as it gives. Typically, someone going on one of our Experience trips will return enriched by far more than he/she gave away.

Arcubus retains its links with its Anglican foundation and, although it has no religious orientation or objectives, it is working in partnership with the Diocese of London as well as the Corporation of London. It is particularly keen to work in Mozambique to support the Bishop of London’s London Challenge and the Diocesan Link, ALMA.

Sir Michael Snyder has been Senior Partner of the international accountancy firm Kingston Smith since 1990 and before that he was Managing Partner for 11 years. He trained and qualified with the firm, joining in 1968. He is a Common Councilman of the City of London Corporation, Chairman of Gateway of London – the agency for Thames Gateway – a Governor of the London Metropolitan University, the City of London School for Girls and Brentwood School in Essex.

The Rt Revd & Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres KCVO became the 132nd Bishop of London in 1995. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School and read history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1973 and consecrated Bishop of Stepney in 1992. He founded St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace and is currently the Chairman of the Trustees. His publications include The History of Gresham College 1597-1997 (with David Vermont) and Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Life.

The Revd George R. Bush has been Rector of St Mary-le-Bow since 2002. He was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, and trained for ordination at Ripon College Cuddesdon and (briefly) at United Theological College, Bangalore. He was ordained in 1985 to a parish in inner-city Leeds. He was then Chaplain of St John’s College, Cambridge, before returning to London, first as Vicar of St Anne’s Hoxton, and now Rector of St Mary-le-Bow. He is Treasurer of Sion College and trustee of a number of charities.