In 1995, Accion created an equity investment vehicle for microfinance, the Accion Gateway Fund to provide new microfinance institutions with the resources they needed to expand. Over the next decade, Accion helped start microfinance programs in 14 countries in Latin America. Accion and its partners developed a lending method that met the needs of microenterprises. The ability to cover costs, augmented by Accion's new loan guarantee fund, the Bridge Fund, enabled Accion's partners to connect with the local banking sector and dramatically increase the number of microentrepreneurs they reached. Between 1989 and 1995, Accion's Latin American Networked loan disbursements multiplied more than 20 times. Convinced that microfinance had the potential to transform the economic landscape of Latin America, Accion recognized that microfinance institutions (MFIs) would need access to a much larger pool of capital. To help them achieve this, Accion helped create BancoSol, the first commercial bank in the world dedicated solely to microenterprise. Founded in Bolivia in 1992, its clients are typically market vendors, sandal makers, and seamstresses. In 1994, Accion helped BancoSol sell certificates of deposit in the U.S. financial market. By the early 1970s, Accion began to focus on addressing a major cause of poverty in Latin American cities: lack of economic opportunity. In 1973, Accion staff in Recife, Brazil, began to focus their efforts on helping informal businesses. An Accion organization in Recife called UNO coined the term "microenterprise" and began issuing small loans, pioneering the field of microcredit. Within four years, UNO provided 885 loans, helping to create or stabilize 1,386 jobs. Accion was founded in 1961 by a UC Berkeley law student named Joseph Blatchford. Blatchford's founding of Accion was heavily influenced by the philosophical works of Alexis de Tocqueville, Aldous Huxley and Mohandas Gandhi as well as The Ugly American by UC Berkeley professor Eugene Burdick and the classic essay “The Moral Equivalent of War” by William James. Working from James’ main thesis, Blatchford believed that Americans needed to find new, non-militaristic ways to focus their involvement abroad while promoting self-determination and democracy. A volunteer corps dedicated to international cooperation and grassroots development was one such path. Blatchford recruited two other standout UC Berkeley law students, Jerry Brady and Gary Glenn, to manage volunteer recruitment, publicity and stateside orientation of volunteers while he continued to cultivate contacts in Latin America.