Today is Blog Action Day

Before she got her microloan Emma Morales and her husband were struggling to survive. Both of them were day workers in rice paddies, and despite all their hard labor, they could not afford to live. Emma and her husband were so hungry they would eat scraps that neighbors had given them to feed their pigs. Without having any property, money or business experience she took out a loan from Negros Women for Tomorrow, Grameen Foundation’s partner in the Philippines. She used her 25 dollar loan to buy food which she sold as snacks and lunches on the sidewalk. She also bought a broken scooter which she later fixed up, and now uses as a taxi. Emma has been through several borrowing and repayment cycles; her business has grown exponentially. Instead of begging for scraps from her neighbors she now runs two roadside eateries, owns her own land, raises and sells pigs, rents out scooters, and has a convenience store. Thanks to her loan Emma was able to build her businesses and create a savings account. She has used the proceeds from her savings to send her sister and two children to college.

Blog Action Day is a chance for you to spread the word about urgency of eradicating poverty. Take a few minutes to register your blog and, then please dedicate your blog to raising awareness of Grameen Foundation and the urgent issue of global poverty.

More than 11,000 bloggers, reaching more than 12 million people will lend their voice to the fight against poverty. Join them.

Please help us spread the word on this important day. Visit the Grameen Foundation Press Room for resources about poverty, microfinance, and what we all can do to create a world without poverty. If you do not have a blog, please consider posting information about world poverty and Grameen Foundation to your Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or other social networking site.

Help us spread the word on a wide scale about poverty, microfinance and Grameen Foundation around the blogosphere.

Thank you for all your help.

Social entrepreneurship by another name – “Contribution”

By Jon Gillespie-Brown, Author “So you want to be an entrepreneur?”

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In my opinion Social entrepreneurship is in fact a subset of a much more powerful global phenomenon called “Contribution”.

An example of this working in the real world is my book “So you want to be an entrepreneur?” – All the profits from the book go to the Grameen Foundation!

So why would I work for years on a book and then give all the profits away?

Contribution is why…

OK, so what does Contribution mean?…well my definition is: “Giving with no expectation of anything in return”.

So how can “contribution” lead to success and how can you join in – even if you aren’t yet an entrepreneur?

I know this seems like a long shot or a disconnect, surely success is all about being smart and hard working? Well that depends on what you believe, you still need to do those things but if you think about it whenever you were really helpful and thoughtful about others and helped or gave without looking for a reward – what were the results?