The Greatest Anti-Poverty Program in History

Will Marre is the co-founder and former president of the Covey Leadership Center (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), CEO of the REALeadership Alliance, and the author of “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner” (Capital Books, 2009). The following is from a Tuesday, Oct 27 entry on his blog, Thought Rocket.

Today the Grameen Foundation is launching $27 on the 27th. This is to commemorate Dr. Mohammed Yunus’ first micro-loan back in 1976. He loaned $27 to a group of impoverished women in Bangladesh who were living on less than $1 a day while working their hearts out. The economic system of the rural villages was designed by middle class traders to keep their village work forces in constant debt. The women that Dr. Yunus loaned his money to were making a profit of 2 cents a day. Almost immediately their profits increased 50 times to over a dollar a day. Within a few years Yunus had founded the Grameen Bank, which means Village Bank, and thousands of poor women have become self-reliant, often doubling or increasing their net income by 10 times within months of having a legitimate source of investment capital.

Today the Grameen Foundation supports over 200 micro-finance institutions operating around the world from Asia to Africa, China to the Middle East. There are now over 150 million families benefiting from micro-investment capital. The power of this business model is that it is a business. Interest is charged to support the micro banks so that they can loan more money and keep it in an endless virtuous cycle of reinvestment. Today the Grameen Foundation is operating with the wisdom of a global social enterprise by helping create software and other technology solutions to help microfinance banks operate with high efficiency. They are also creating micro-franchises so that village entrepreneurs can establish solar-powered villages while reducing the need for diesel and kerosene. They’re helping women become village eyeglass dispensers so that people over 40 can read on their cell phones and of course they have brought cell phone technology to tens of millions of people in the developing world. For the first time in history we can actually imagine a world without poverty driven by the values of self-reliance. After doing this for 30 years we now know that women are the world’s best poverty fighters because they reinvest in their children and their communities.

Today the Grameen Foundation is seeking to establish a constant and reliable source of donor income. They are asking us to contribute $27 a month every month, a little less than a dollar a day. What they hope to do with this sustainable flow of money is build a worldwide system that provides capital, education, access to basic health care, technology and leadership development to help the poorest of the poor lift themselves to a life of dignity. Their vision is a poverty free world.

I have adopted the Grameen Foundation as my central cause because I have never seen so much sustainable good achieved by integrating the best of business practices and the highest moral vision that human beings can aspire to. So I invite you to consider becoming part of this great movement to end poverty. Go to the Grameen Foundation and join up. I already have.

Help us Celebrate 27 on the 27th Today

Today, Grameen Foundation is launching the Ingenuity Fund, our new fundraising effort that aims to create a village – or grameen – of online advocates and funders.

You can support the launch of the Ingenuity Fund by participating in our first initiative, “$27 on the 27th.”  In 1976, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus planted the seed that created Grameen Bank by making a loan of $27 to a group of 42 Bangladeshi stool makers out of his own pocket. Professor Yunus’ simple, yet ingenious action has revolutionized the way in which we combat poverty around the world and offers inspiration to people looking to make an impact with their charitable donation.

Here is how you can join us in our “$27 on the 27th” initiative:

• Join our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/StopPovertyNow and participate in our Facebook notes campaign “10 Things Under $27 I Can Live Without to Change the World.”  Get your friends thinking about the difference they could make with $27.
• Follow us on Twitter @GrameenFdn and reTweet our $27 on the 27th messages to spread the word.
• Make a donation of $27 (or more) to demonstrate your support at www.grameenfoundation.org/ingenuity.  Through the generosity of a group of Grameen Foundation supporters, all donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $200,000.  By donating today, you can increase the already powerful impact of your contribution.

Also, make sure to check out our newly redesigned Web site at www.grameenfoundation.org. We hope you’ll be just as excited about the new look and site features as we are, including enhanced success stories and an interactive map highlighting where we work around the world.

What Would You Give Up to Help End the Cycle of Poverty?

Your daily dose of lattes. Dinner out with friends. Cab fare.

The money you spend on items like these in one week could help us impact the lives of poor people around the world. So what would you give up for one week to help end poverty? How much money would that raise for poor families? Tell us below and then send us a Tweet or Facebook message.

Reaction to the Recent Wall Street Journal Articles about Microfinance

Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation.

Cashpor client receives her loan

Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal about the activities of Indian microfinance institutions (MFIs) and the role global investors are playing in the sector’s development have sparked intense debate about microfinance losing its way. While the articles do highlight a few real challenges facing clients and MFIs in some isolated cases, we believe they contain significant errors, omissions and distortions. Two leading microfinance practitioners, Vikram Akula of SKS and Samit Ghosh of Ujjivan, have critiqued the articles and we encourage people to read what they have written.

Journey to Morocco

Emily Snodden is a rising senior at Westminster School in Connecticut.

Emily at a Village Meeting

The beads of sweat had long ago dripped down my spine and saturated my blouse with moisture as we approached what seemed to be a village. The scattered houses made from decaying plywood, tin, and mud looked similar to the huts I see on commercials late at night trying to raise money for starving children. However, I saw a few cable dishes weighing down the roofs they rested on and realized the slight prosperity in this devastated surrounding. Our guide paused outside the walls of the village to wait for members of our group who had fell behind.

As we waited a few locals passed, each person radiating in gratefulness. One elder man made me wonder, ignorantly, what he had to be grateful for. I guessed from his darkened, worn skin that he had spent many years laboring in the scorching sun and assumed he has little to show for his efforts. Even so as he passed atop his donkey and the inconceivable amounts of lavender he carried into the village, he shot me a welcoming, toothless smile that sent shivers down my sweat drenched back. When we finally entered the village, a woman, holding one child on her hip and carrying another in a shawl that hung around her neck, was bent over a stream scooping water into a metal pale.

Muhammad Yunus and the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Muhammad Yunus attended a reception in his honor, following his receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and delivered a stirring speech about his 33 year fight against poverty and what he plans in for the future.

Watch on YouTube.

“I was deeply moved…”

Yeardley Smith is the voice of television character Lisa Simpson, and an active Grameen Foundation supporter.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Hello Delightfuls,

Pull up a chair, I have had a very fancy 43 hours!

I just got back from Washington, DC, where I attended a private reception co-hosted by my favorite Grameen Foundation, for Professor Muhammad Yunus, Mary Robinson, and Dr.  Pedro Jos Greer, all of whom received the Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday.

You can imagine that when I said I was going to DC for the party, my friends had two questions for me: What are you going to wear? And do you get to attend the ceremony itself and meet President and Mrs. Obama?

Yeardley Smith Offers Her Congratulations to Muhammad Yunus

“It was a magical moment…”

Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation.

Muhammad Yunus receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama

Today’s ceremony where President Barack Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Professor Muhammad Yunus and 15 other incredibly accomplished citizens was a moment when any American, and any person, who wants the world to be a better place could feel proud. America’s highest civilian award was a well-deserved honor for Dr. Yunus based on more than three decades of accomplishment benefiting Bangladesh’s and the world’s poor, through championing microfinance and social business.

When President and Michelle Obama entered the room at 3:10pm, there was electricity unlike anything I had ever felt.

A Champion of Yes We Can

by Sam Daley-Harris. Reposted with his permission.

When President Obama presents the Medal of Freedom to 16 distinguished American and international “agents of change” at a White House ceremony on August 12th one of the honorees will link Mr. Obama to both his past and to the future he is so committed to creating.  Among the 16 leaders who will receive America’s highest civilian honor is Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which makes tiny loans for self-employment to some of the poorest people in that country.  Prof. Yunus is also one of the world’s most effective champions of the “yes we can” spirit.