The Greatest Anti-Poverty Program in History

Today the Grameen Foundation is launching $27 on the 27^th. 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.

Top 10 Things Every Business Leader Should Know About Strategic Sustainability

1. Sustainable Abundance is good for business. Every product and every service needs to be re-invented to create a sustainable future.  This is the greatest economic opportunity in history.  (Consider automobiles, light bulbs, airplanes, energy…. everything.)
2. High Sustainability Standards and Maximizing Human Benefits can generate “leapfrog” designs to invent new products and new business models.  (Toyota was creating the Prius while other car companies slept.)
3. Sustainability Thinking saves money. The relentless challenge to improve durability, re-use parts and eliminate packaging brings bottom line innovation. (91% of old Xerox copier parts are reused in “new” Xerox machines.)
4. Removing the Bad attracts new customers. Consumers and business customers are stampeding to choose the benefits of non-toxic, no-waste products (Clorox’s non-toxic Green Works Cleaners is their fastest growing product portfolio.)
5. Create a Cause Bigger Than Your Brand. Over 80% of consumers say they choose brands that support good causes because it makes them feel like they are “voting with their wallet.” (ClifBar’s brand in the manufactured nutrition bar business repeatedly earns the highest loyalty rating.  They famously support the organic sourcing and the buy local food movement as well as women and fitness initiatives.)
6. Sustainability Obliterates Costs. When smart people consider how to satisfy a need or want without waste or even cost, new business models spring to life.  (When Apple designed the ipod, eliminating the cost/waste of CD manufacturing, shipping and distribution was the natural outcome.  The ipod led to the iphone, greener product design and tens of thousands of digital apps which create user loyalty without more cost.)
7. Sustainability Drives Game-Changing Business Models. When leaders consider solving huge problems in sustainable ways, new thinking creates breakthrough businesses.  Before the radio, who would have thought of music with a band?  Before the light bulb, who would have thought of light without a flame?  (Today micro-entrepreneurs are installing solar panels on huts in the world’s poorest areas because solar generated OLED light is cheaper than kerosene.  Power without the grid.  Is everything possible?)
8. Sustainability Creates Smart Marketing.  Engaging your customers in the benefits and breakthroughs of your green and sustainable products requires a new level and a new type of communication.  It’s called smarketing.  Marketing that makes your customer smart.  (GE recently asked design students to come up with creative ways to use GE’s new organic LED lights.  Tens of thousands have seen their video on YouTube and the product launch is still months away.)
9. Sustainability Attracts Top Talent. The best science, engineering and business schools report that top graduates only want to work for companies that are serious about making a difference in creating a sustainable future.  (Ask any college recruiter.)
10. If You Don’t Fully Embrace Sustainability, You Are Toast. The debate over green is over and green won.  Consider the failures of GM and the transformation of Wal-Mart.  It’s better to ride the wave than drown in the rip tide of change.

For information on the speech or seminar, “Leading for Sustainability,” email candie@willmarre.com.

Will Marre Vision.org Interview about Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner

The critical issue of leadership today is MORAL INTENT.  If we get very effective people being leaders who don’t have worthwhile moral intent, we get what we’ve got.

In this interview at Chapman University in Orange County, California, Will speaks to Vision about, Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner… about leadership, organizations, changes in the corporate world, personal contentment, and quality relationships.

Listen to it here.

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