African Development Center

The newly opened headquarters of the African Development Center (ADC) are a tangible symbol of the community development corporation’s meteoric rise from a one-man operation with a $10,000 budget to the largest small-business lender in the city of Minneapolis.

The colorful, art-filled offices in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis are also a crowning achievement for Hussein Samatar, the executive director and driving force behind ADC, which supports the state’s African immigrants with business development, financial literacy, homeowner’s assistance and lending.

Sitting in his incense-scented office, Samatar recounted his own journey from his native Somalia and the history of his life and work in Minnesota. (The tale is much on his mind, of late, as he has begun work on writing his memoirs, which he hopes to publish next year.)

Samatar grew up in the large coastal city of Kismayo in southern Somalia. In 1991, he graduated from Somalia National University with an undergraduate degree in business.

“I am [from] the only generation that Somalia has ever been educated formally,” said Samatar.

Four days after his graduation, however, civil war broke out in Somalia, where he hoped to stay and work for the central bank. (His undergraduate thesis was on international aid to Somalia and its lack of “trickle down” to local communities — a grass-roots focus he would later employ in his work with ADC.)

Samatar spent a year and a half in a refugee camp in Kenya — “a very difficult time,” he said — before arriving in Minnesota with next to nothing. He spoke four languages; none of them was English.

For three years, Samatar lived in the Riverside Plaza towers, just blocks from ADC’s current headquarters. Working as a parking lot attendant, among other jobs, he practiced English at the local library and eventually earned an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.

After just two years in the country, he landed a job in accounts payable at Norwest Bank. He moved on to be a credit analyst and, eventually, into corporate banking. By 2003, Samatar faced a bright future at the now-Wells Fargo as an executive in the growing sector of emerging markets.

Instead, Samatar made a risky decision: He left the bank to help other African immigrants build their own foundations in a new country, by providing training to start a business, buy a home, and achieve financial independence and wealth.

“Having come from nothing,” Samatar said, “being unemployed didn’t faze me.”

In 2004, ADC received its first major funding and trained three homeowners and 32 entrepreneurs. Those numbers rose considerably the next year, when ADC began its Islamic financing program and launched its loan fund. In 2006, that loan portfolio ballooned to $1 million, and ADC was one of four development partners on the Midtown Global Market project.

Year by year, ADC’s tally of entrepreneurs and homeowners assisted grows. ADC’s status as Minneapolis’ largest small-business lender is not only a measure of the nonprofit’s success, said Samatar, it is a testament to the initiative of the community it serves.

“It’s the entrepreneurs who are taking risks,” he said. “We are there to help them.”

In 2007, ADC was instrumental in the creation of a Sharia- (Islamic law) compliant commercial lending program in Minneapolis. (Because Islamic law forbids the making of profit from interest, the “asset-based financing” amount is formulated on the cost, overhead and projected profit of owned assets.)

In 2008, ADC launched its own nonprofit mortgage firm, and ADC saw the closing on its first home financed with a Sharia-compliant mortgage in January 2009. Samatar expects 10 more closings in 2010.

The center hopes to expand its own home, as well, with an addition to its new headquarters, which now houses eight employees, two conference rooms, offices, a child care area, an art gallery and, soon, a coffee shop.

Since 2008, ADC has extended its reach statewide, offering training in six cities in Greater Minnesota. Samatar has also traveled across the country to other cities that have large African populations but lack an organization like ADC. It’s a model that, at its conception earlier in this decade, wasn’t recognized by others established in economic development, Samatar said.

“[To say,] ‘We are the immigrants, and we will help ourselves?’ This is a different mindset,” Samatar said.

“No one can make a difference without inside,” he continued. “You must help yourself.”

by Jeremy Stratton Special to Finance & Commerce
December 14, 2009 9:40 AM CST